[00:00:00] Nathan Wrigley: Hello there and welcome once again to the WP Builds podcast. You've reached episode number 409, entitled What Just Happened, episode three. Funding, acquisitions, legal and events. It was published on Thursday, the 14th of February, 2025.
My name's Nathan Wrigley, and in a few moments I will be joined by Rae Moray, so that we can have that conversation.
But first, a few bits of housekeeping. If you like what we are doing at WP Builds, please subscribe. Head to wpbuilds.com/subscribe. Over there you'll find a couple of forms, but also the places that you can follow us on, places like X, Mastodon, Bluesky, YouTube, and so on, and we'd really appreciate that.
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Over there, typically, we have two or three guests. I'm joined by them, and if you want to make some comments and make the show a bit more entertaining, we would love that.
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A bit like these three fine companies did.
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Okay. What have we got for you today? Well, I am joined for the third in our What Just Happened series with Rae Moray. Rae is based in Australia, and so there's a bit of a time gap going on there. It's late for her and it's early for me. But it's a really nice conversation.
What we're tending to do in these episodes is try to sum up the things that have been of interest to both of us in the WordPress space, and then a little non WordPress stuff right at the end, over the last three months. What has happened?
And so today we get into, well, the whole idea of the podcast, we talk about some events. For example, PressConf.
We talk about WordPress 6.7 rollout. Acquisition in the WordPress space. There's the whole legal toss between Automattic and WP Engine. Sustainability, governance. Contributions from Automattic. Project funding. The fact that Post Status has been acquired. The fact that I in particular, love Bluesky. And also some bits and pieces happening in the Drupal space as well. And Google's quantum computing chip.
There's a lot that we cover and I hope that you enjoy it.
I am joined on the podcast by Rae Morey. How you doing? Rae?
[00:04:47] Rae Morey: Hi. I'm good. Hello, Nathan. Nice to see you again, or hear you again, I should say.
[00:04:52] Nathan Wrigley: thank you. Yeah, we can both see each other. Dear listener. You'll never be able to see what we can see, but Rae is incredibly kind and generous with her time. we've been talking for getting on for nearly two hours now, trying to figure out what this podcast might sound like and what things we may include.
And, so I'm very appreciative, but also given where Rae lives, it's very early in the morning for me, which means that it must be very, late where you are. So massive appreciation for staying up and helping me to do this podcast.
[00:05:22] Rae Morey: I don't mind at all. I love chatting and, I love talking about WordPress News.
[00:05:28] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that's ideal. So let's do the self-promotional bit. I want you to tell everybody what it is that you do in the WordPress space, and definitely mention the URL where people can subscribe and things like that. I.
[00:05:40] Rae Morey: So I, publish the repository a, WordPress media business dedicated to covering what's happening in the WordPress ecosystem. you can read the latest news, at the repository, email, subscribe to the newsletter, and get the, weekly email that comes out on Fridays. It, includes a digest of everything that's happening across the community, my reporting, reporting from others links.
It's a good way to stay on top of everything
[00:06:11] Nathan Wrigley: It really
[00:06:12] Rae Morey: and,
[00:06:13] Nathan Wrigley: on top of everything. Yeah.
[00:06:14] Rae Morey: and you don't have to follow Reddit so much.
[00:06:16] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Or X or any other platform you care to mention. And Rae does an incredible job. if you haven't read the repository, I would say it's singularly. very well thought out content. I get the
[00:06:30] Rae Morey: Aw, thank you.
[00:06:31] Nathan Wrigley: an awful lot of time, pontificating what to write.
It's not just, a bunch of links. There is actual journalism in there. 'cause you have a history of that, don't you? You have a history of being a journalist.
[00:06:42] Rae Morey: Yes.
[00:06:43] Nathan Wrigley: Ideal, right? So we typically throw a bunch of links into a Google spreadsheet and then we go through and curate those. So we probably had, I think really we'd got it to about 55 ish stories and we've curated that down to probably about 20.
We'll see how the time goes, but we've lumped them into different categories. And the intention of this podcast is really to sum up some of the more interesting bits that have happened in the WordPress space since we last talked. And so the last episode, Rae did. with me. It was on the 14th of November.
So anything that we think rises to the top between now and the 14th of November, 2024, that's what we're doing. And we're recording this, very beginning of February. So if you're listening to this, I don't know, in June, 2025, you're, there's probably a sort of new one out by now, so go and check that out.
it's not to say that everything that we've got is the right content, it's just the stuff that we think is the most interesting. We've definitely dropped a lot that's of interest, but it just doesn't peak our curiosity in quite the same way. Little,
[00:07:49] Rae Morey: also news is news. News moves so fast in WordPress at the moment, so there's a lot that happened, in the couple of weeks after we last caught up to do this podcast. And it's just become old news because a week a month is a very long time in
[00:08:08] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that's a good point. And so some of it may have dropped off the radar, if, you're not hearing what you expecting to hear, apologies about that. It's just what we've got for you. But the, a few caveats, the intention here isn't to go around bashing people, companies, institutions, individuals on the head.
We're just trying to report what has happened, hence the title of the podcast, what just happened. So bear that in mind. And, if you've got any commentary, search for this episode, WP builds.com. Search for this episode with Rae RAE. That'll probably get you to these episodes and you can leave us a comment there.
Good, bad, whatever it may be. Let us know. Socially kick us off. The first one that we've got on our little spreadsheet here is about an event. It's about something called Press Conf, which, which is it's a new name, but it's resurrecting an old idea. And, and you are going.
[00:09:03] Rae Morey: I am, I'm really excited. I am, joining Presence conf as a media partner. so this event is, it's been described as a spiritual successor to PressNomics, which was, a WordPress business, an event for the business community, of WordPress that was held six times before its final run in 2019. And that was founded by, the founders of Page Lee Joshua and Sally Rebel.
And, someone, that a lot of people know in the community. Raquel Menriquez has, taken the baton and she has founded this new. Event that will also be held in Tempe, Arizona. and yeah, it's, getting a lot of attention because Pressonomics was a much loved event and there's definitely a gap for this kind of event.
A lot of people have been waiting for something like this to come along, since Covid. And this is a real opportunity for people in the WordPress business community to get together, listen to some incredible speakers. There have been some, quite a number of speaker announcements so far. and yeah, it's, it'll be a, it'd be really interesting to see how it works out and, and how Raquel and her team pulls it all together.
[00:10:32] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I confess I never went to Pressonomics or any of those kind of things, but there is a, there's a sort of stark difference in the way that the pricing is structured. So it because it's. Outside of, word Camp Central, if It's got nothing to do with that. The, the ticket price is a little bit higher and so I guess they can do a more thorough job for want of a better word of things like PR and advertising and marketing.
I don't know if that's the case. I dunno what the budget is for those kind of things, but it definitely seems to have landed in all of the places where news can be found in the WordPress space. a lot of the people who create newsletter content and things like that are, attending.
you, I think Remus is going and there's a bunch of other people who create content in the WordPress space that are going. And so
[00:11:20] Rae Morey: Remus is speaking
[00:11:21] Nathan Wrigley: yeah, Remus is speaking. That's, yeah. And and so I think definitely, want to watch when's it happening?
[00:11:29] Rae Morey: it is. Oh geez. I'm gonna stuff up the dates the 22nd and, oh, hang on, 24th till the 26th of April.
[00:11:37] Nathan Wrigley: Let's go with that,
[00:11:37] Rae Morey: me
[00:11:38] Nathan Wrigley: until we find out differently. It's in April, 2025. Let's go
[00:11:42] Rae Morey: It's the 23rd until the 26th of
[00:11:46] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Yeah, so if you're in the business of WordPress, this is an event to look out for and I dunno if tickets are sold out yet, but I'm sure given the popularity of it this year, I'm sure it'll be coming around on a regular basis. press conf links for everything that we talk about will be in the show notes.
Again, just go, wp builds.com, search for this episode, and, you'll be able to find them and click on them. There. Anything else to add or should we move on to our next one?
[00:12:13] Rae Morey: No. Let's move on. Let's keep this rolling.
[00:12:15] Nathan Wrigley: oh.
[00:12:17] Rae Morey: You like what I did? There
[00:12:18] Nathan Wrigley: That was that intentional. That
[00:12:21] Rae Morey: it was, and it wasn't.
[00:12:22] Nathan Wrigley: it was because, the next line item that we've got is about WordPress 6.7, and, you'll be thinking what, and it was because it was called Rollins, which I guess is what I was talking about just then.
and although that's now been gone, lots of people have, played with it and what have you. There was a couple of nice things in there that I thought were worth mentioning. We've got 2025, which is a theme, agnostic. It doesn't really do much out the box, but it gives you the opportunity to do a lot with it, with all of the different things that are now shipping with WordPress, all of the different features that are in there.
But there was a couple of things which I thought were really interesting, which is the block bindings API. That's, we won't get into the technicalities, but if you're a developer, I'm sure you've figured that out. we've got a lot of things like the interactivity API as well, but we've also got this new view, which I think is curious and I'm interested to see if you make use of this when you've got long form content.
Maybe not. 'cause you are text heavy, aren't you? It's not unique layouts, but there's this thing called the zoomed out view. And if you drop in some patterns into your, let's say, blog post it, rather than it just displaying those patterns in the normal ui, it shrinks the whole thing so that you can see everything in one.
In one take, it reminds me a bit like of a, something like MailChimp where you build your newsletter and it, I don't know, it just looks like it's a long way away. and it just lets you see everything that's going on without having to scroll, And if you've got long form content or a big landing page or something like that, you can see what the whole thing looks like and see how the different horizontal rows tie together.
So anyway, a nice release of
[00:14:03] Rae Morey: think it's great. I really like it. I use that feature. I am a proper millennial in that I can't do things on my phone. I hate using tiny screens and I wanna see everything big. So I think it's, I think being able to really zoom out and see everything is a really great feature.
[00:14:19] Nathan Wrigley: Do you make use of it, because I guess you've got a, probably a template or something for the repository where you literally type paragraphs, drop, links in, use images to bolster that content. But broadly speaking, it's, not like you've got some sort of unique design for each page or anything like that.
[00:14:34] Rae Morey: No, it's more because I've just been updating the website on the run since October,
[00:14:39] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
[00:14:41] Rae Morey: so it's nice to be able to zoom out and see things as I'm
[00:14:45] Nathan Wrigley: But I think, yeah, as
[00:14:46] Rae Morey: new pages.
[00:14:47] Nathan Wrigley: more of the thing. Oh yeah. I think this is gonna be really useful. there's a little toggle for it. You can turn it off if you don't wish to see it. So anyway, WordPress 6.7 Rollins. how are you gonna segue us into the next section?
[00:15:03] Rae Morey: I've got, I got nothing. I got nothing.
[00:15:05] Nathan Wrigley: Let's just move on. We, are gonna do a couple of acquisition pieces of news and the first one. There you go. There's the
[00:15:13] Rae Morey: Oh, there we go.
[00:15:15] Nathan Wrigley: one, yeah. Is, group one. I, presume that's how you pronounce it. Anyway, it's group one. Dunno if that's a URL actually, I dunno if do one is a, a top level domain, but, group one who are in charge of Oh, it is, it's a domain.
Is
it? Okay. They, they're, the owners. I think they're in the hierarchy of, this company. I think WP Rocket, which is a sort of caching performance plugin, very popular in the WordPress space. I think many people regard it as the sort of, the gold standard of those kind of things.
the group that owned WP Rocket, so Group one have bought something, which I'm sure a lot of people know about GT metrics. And I think this gives WP Rocket a really interesting advantage in this space because suddenly they've got all the data.
[00:16:06] Rae Morey: Yeah, it's, interesting. This story has really flown under the radar a bit. It didn't get much of a splash when it was announced. and I'm hoping to follow this up in the next couple of days, but it's really, interesting that, it's interesting that, group One have pulled this into their portfolio and it's a smart move.
they're complimenting, the, the product that they have in WP Rocket, and as you said, all the data that they're gonna get from, everybo, the one point, I think it's 1.5 million users of GT metrics.
[00:16:45] Nathan Wrigley: Wow.
[00:16:45] Rae Morey: they're now gonna have insight into, not just people who use WordPress, but other platforms as well.
So it's, it'll be interesting to see how they, yeah. They continue to operate in the WordPress space and expand beyond it.
[00:17:00] Nathan Wrigley: yeah. I dunno what the constraints are. GDPR and things like that. I don't know if data sharing will be allowed or possible, but, I'm imagining there must be a big part of it there. But GT metrics will obviously be able to feed back data to
of WP Rocket there, thereby enhancing that piece of software.
And they'll have access to data, which no other piece of software. Will have, every, every, website's kind of on its own with their own analytics and what have you, e except WP Rocket, which feels like they'll have their fingers into, like you said, well over a million data points from different organizations, websites and what have you.
So yeah, that'll be interesting to see. and then the other piece of acquisition news, which was just the other day, actually not that long ago, a company that I had not heard of in all honesty, called World
[00:17:50] Rae Morey: Oh really?
[00:17:51] Nathan Wrigley: Group.
[00:17:53] Rae Morey: because, sorry, I thought you were about to say a two hosting, but World Host Group, the reason you haven't heard about it is 'cause they're only two years old.
[00:18:00] Nathan Wrigley: okay.
[00:18:01] Rae Morey: They have not been around very long and, and already they've, just been buying everything up. I think they own about 12 or hosting companies.
I think, I lost, I saw the other day, but, amongst a portfolio of 20 plus. Brands and they've just been making moves. something I'm interested in looking into a bit more. But yeah, it's, Corey Miller did a really great interview with, Seb, I have forgotten his name, who, runs world, host group technical founder.
Seems pretty down to earth. You don't really see many interviews with CEOs who are just, dialing in from their spare room and the couches in the background. And it hasn't all been, nicely set up. but it was really down to earth interview. It's interesting to see, how, yeah, it'll be interesting to watch and see how they'll, develop, this, company.
[00:19:09] Nathan Wrigley: very cursory look at World Host group, you said they're a couple of years old. It does seem like they're buying up a lot of things, but it does seem they've got, certain intentions to be geographically spread. So it would appear that they're buying up like regional hosting companies.
again, I'm taking this from memory, I can't remember, but it felt like there were a few things in, let's say Southeast Asia and India and places like that. And maybe the intention, I obviously don't know is to, have just that portfolio of, we cover the globe. Maybe it's gonna be part of a wider CDN, something like that.
Who knows? But, a two hosting. is has been very popular in the WordPress space. They've been a sponsor of various different events and what have you. I think the concern for anybody who has followed a story like this before is that in the past the acquisition of hosting companies has sometimes led to undesirable outcomes for the, for the hosting company.
You have fears that, will it be, I don't know, strip mind for assets? Will it maintain the sort of support levels and what have you? So I guess only time will tell, but I was talking on Monday on the show that I do, and Michelle Ette was on that show and she said, if it's got Corey Miller's name on it, she said, I really trust Corey.
And and he's working for World Host Group. I think it was that way around, not a two hosting, I can't really remember.
[00:20:36] Rae Morey: no, he was, he joined, a two as a community manager or evangelist or so it was some
[00:20:44] Nathan Wrigley: okay. It was that way around. Okay.
[00:20:45] Rae Morey: But he's been pulled into working for World Host Group now, yes.
[00:20:51] Nathan Wrigley: if you've got an A two hosting account, definitely something to look at. Yep.
[00:20:55] Rae Morey: Yep. Definitely.
[00:20:56] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. So right. Caveat mTOR, dear listener, if you don't want to be a part of the drama that has happened, you know, what I'm talking about. Automattic versus WP Engine, basically.
the next six or seven pieces are bound under that umbrella. If you don't wanna be a part of that, I would suggest that you hit the skip button just and see where we end up. We'll, we'll we will come out the other side, I promise. But there's a lot. And since November, I think you and I were both thinking maybe when we recorded in November.
Wow. A lot's happened. How, can it possibly keep going?
[00:21:34] Rae Morey: Well, it did Yes. Yes.
[00:21:38] Nathan Wrigley: So should we start off with Matt Mullenweg and and Christmas?
[00:21:45] Rae Morey: yes, he announced his, surprise un well surprised everyone with a holiday shutdown, his book post on wordpress.org announcing that, several key services would no longer be available, including, new plugin and theme submissions. what else was there? New, user accounts. there were a few other things.
[00:22:11] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, the service itself just kept on rolling, didn't it? Like you could go to wordpress.org and
[00:22:17] Rae Morey: yeah, the website was fine. It was just all these other add-ons that people. take for granted, But one that really, stuck out was, in recent months now if you want to, buy a ticket to a WordCamp, you have to have a wordpress.org account. It never used to be that way.
That's only happened in the past couple of months. So when the. account creation was, put on a holiday break. There was, a big, outcry about it in, oh, maybe it wasn't so much an outcry, but there were a lot of very concerned people in WordPress Slack saying, hang on, we've got all these word camps come up coming up in January.
Especially in, a lot of Indian communities. they had so many word camps in January. all of these communities, having word camps and people, how people are gonna buy tickets if they can't set up a new account and, buy tickets. in, there was a really quick turnaround.
One of the lead developers at WordPress got in there, made some changes, enabled people who, buying a Word camp ticket to, to access, the ability to buy it, to, yeah. To, create new accounts. There, there was a lot of spec speculation around how long this was gonna last. I think it was, computer world that reported that, word, that, Matt had said to them that, it could go on through all of 2025.
And it seems a bit silly in retrospect now, but, but yeah, that was a genuine concern, because Matt left it very open-ended in his post about when he was gonna allow these services to resume, but it was only a couple of weeks in the end
[00:24:12] Nathan Wrigley: I think that was the piece that got the community, talking, wasn't it? Over on social networks was okay. It shut down. So that's new. We not, expected that. And so the inevitable questions of, oh, how long? And I didn't read that computer world thing, but a couple of observations on that.
Firstly, computer world, talking about WordPress in itself is interesting. we've now got to that point where these stories are, newsworthy outside of the echo chamber that, that we occupy. But also that, comment, obviously then making people wonder, will it come back? Has, this, was this just the quiet way of shutting wordpress.org down for good?
of course history shows that wasn't the case. It came back really. Promptly and swiftly, but, had people wondering during the Christmas holiday what's gonna be going on there. And yeah, storming a tea cup, it turns out. But, nevertheless, a sort of slightly unprecedented move. But, also, I guess I can see the point, if, those services, if there are checks and balances that have to be done on the backend when somebody signs up, I dunno if there are, I dunno what kind of checks and balances there are to see if those accounts are in good standing or if it's spam or what have you.
may maybe there is literally a, we haven't got the bodies on the seats to do that kind of work. I don't know, but it came back. So storming a tea cup, as you might say.
[00:25:40] Rae Morey: it was, but, and we don't have it on our list. I don't know why, but the, that post did lead to, Yos a, announcing that he, basically calling for Matt Mullenweg to, stand aside as, their, benevolent, can never say it in one go benevolent dictator of for life of WordPress.
And, that was quite an extraordinary move. I thought at the time. we finished up the year, 2024 with, Yost, calling Food Change in Leadership. And it was the, boldest move that we've seen yet from someone who wasn't doing it anonymously as well. And yeah, yo said at the time that he's, he was planning to announce that after, in the new year, but the, the holiday break announcement, forced his hand.
So that was quite extraordinary
[00:26:42] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, definitely, Yeah. I, wonder if the timing was intentional there, it's one of those things where, because people are on holiday, it's just a, good time to drop something like that. Wonder if there was, any intuitions around. Let's just see what the reaction is to this.
Let's see how, how, people react, with the speculation around it. But, actually we've got a couple of bits which kind of follow on from that. So for that one was about the, shutting down temporarily of wordpress.org, but there was another shot down. So I'm on, our line 10 now, Rae, the, some of the community teams, also got caught up.
It is not the same story, but it has a similar flavor to it. So this is the, the sustainability team, which had representation or was beginning, I mean it had representation at Word camps. I went to a couple of word camps recently, some of the flagship events where there was a table for the sustainability team and what have you.
And, if memory serves, you can correct me on the detail. Matt Mullen, we decided that the sustainability team, wasn't something that. That should be continued. And so made the decision to, to pull that team from the wordpress.org Slack, and I don't know if there were other, cogs in that wheel that also got pulled, but that team no longer exists.
[00:28:16] Rae Morey: Yeah. The team's been disbanded.
[00:28:18] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Carry on.
[00:28:20] Rae Morey: Yeah, sorry to cut you off. the, yeah, the team's been completely disbanded. So basically one of the team reps posted in this, the sustainability channel, which has now been archived in, WordPress Slack, that, he was stepping down. and yeah, he was announcing that and he, he mentioned Matt Wick, who then, was added to the channel.
And, he, it was only a, maybe a, I think from memory around four hours later, maybe even sooner. Maybe it was, two hours. But in that time, Matt, I guess made the decision that, the sustainability team, there wasn't enough ROI to keep it going. He didn't like what, now I'm gonna stuff up his name.
the team rep stepped down, but basically they was, he was citing, Matt's, Reddit thread, on Christmas Eve, asking folks for input on what drama he should create in, 2025. And, Matt didn't like. I assume, didn't like the post that was written and, shut down the sustainability, team.
But what, what, what drew a lot of attention was the fact that Matt said that today I learned that we have a sustainability team. and as a lot of people pointed out, Matt actually suggested the team be created during, word, word Camp Europe 20, I want to say 2018 or 2019. When was it?
it was around then. around that time, 2022 Word Camp, year 2022. During the q and a with Matt and Josea, one of the team reps from the sustainability team raised concerns about sustainability. And, Matt suggested that the Slack channel be created and the team be, the team launch and, so the team came to together in 2022 and yeah, they were doing some, pretty cool work.
they were all, self-funded, self sponsored contributors to this team. The sustainability team was actually doing a lot of work. I had a look at their roadmap, which was published last September, and they were, looking at how to make WordPress, Financially sustainable as well as, greener. They were looking at, developing a plugin to help site owners estimate the carbon footprint of their website.
That was, underway. They, had also published a sustainable events pu handbook designed to help word camp organizers improve the sustainability of the events, that they were running. they were also working with, Courtney Robertson and Hari Shanker, on the WordPress Contribution Health Dashboards initiative that they've been championing.
So they, they had, a lot of work going on and there were, part of several active projects. So I am not sure, I, spoke to Courtney and she said it, it was really disappointing that this team had been shut down because, the, efforts that they were putting into things as far as the socioeconomic sustainability of WordPress, they, were doing a lot of work.
They just, they were all self sponsored contributors who weren't able to work on WordPress full time. if they had been able to put more time into a lot of these things, it would be amazing to see what would've come out of it.
[00:32:15] Nathan Wrigley: I wonder, what will happen with that then, because Yeah, the, when, you say sustainability, not you, but when one says that, you kinda get the impression that in, a website context, it's just about. Reducing the amount of carbon that's burnt in order to get the server to, to produce the website.
But it was much more, wasn't it, like you said, it was events and all sorts of other initiatives that has gone. And it seems to represent a sort of drawing in of the scope, of the WordPress project. Certainly at the beginning of 2025. It feels like the anything goes mentality is definitely being reigned in a little bit.
And so this was an example of something that was felt, from Matt's side to, to not represent you said ROI, so maybe that's the right word, but certainly, it, it wasn't doing from his perspective what it needed to be doing. So that's gone. I wonder if it'll come back. I wonder if it'll represent, something that would, that it, is deemed necessary in the future.
[00:33:17] Rae Morey: you'd think so
[00:33:18] Nathan Wrigley: yeah, time will tell. Yep.
[00:33:19] Rae Morey: too. And I should also mention that, the story I wrote about this for the repository has been the most. The, highest traffic story. I've, published more than any other story on my website, twice as many hits as the next story. That's, yeah, I just thought that was, quite significant but also quite heartening that people care about sustainability.
so I'd love to see the team come back in some form,
[00:33:52] Nathan Wrigley: I wonder if
[00:33:52] Rae Morey: in some way. Yeah.
[00:33:54] Nathan Wrigley: that period where given everything that's, and will come onto it, that the legal side of things that's going on at the moment, I do wonder if it's just, like I said, a drawing in of the, things, all the things. So that you can marshal your resources and the resources of employees a little bit more, in a, focused way to, to make sure that the project's, gonna go forward.
We will find out. We will find out.
[00:34:20] Rae Morey: We will.
[00:34:21] Nathan Wrigley: okay, so that was the, closure of the sustainability team. And then this next one kind of links back to what you were talking about a moment ago. 'cause you mentioned that, Yost, the person, we must be very clear about that. Yost not the company. Yost Deval.
Yeah. No, it is difficult. had said what he said, and then this story is all about an open letter, which came out of the blue to me. I didn't anticipate any of this happening and I still, to this day, I'm very unclear as to, who these individuals are. And I don't suppose I'll get any clarity on
that future.
But, there were people who were calling for, governance reform. In the WordPress space and there was this open letter, and I can't remember the exact content of that letter, but it, was out, there. I dunno if there's a follow up to that or if another letter came out or any back and
[00:35:19] Rae Morey: There hasn't been another letter. So what, this was all about was it was a group of, 20 anonymous signatories who signed this open letter, calling for changes in the governance of the open source WordPress project. It was titled, dear WordPress, we Stand With You. And basically this group of, longtime veteran call committers and community leaders, contributors, they wanna see, they, objected to, a lot of how WordPress is governed lack of transparency and decision making processes.
And they highlighted concerns around what they described as double standards, including, how Matt Mullenweg's, like he's not accountable under the code of conduct. And we've seen that with recent code of conduct violations against him. yeah, it was interesting, this, anonymous group of people.
I was asked to, verify the identities of these, signatories and wow, we people that I would not expect to sign this letter. It is, a power group of people. I would,
[00:36:35] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, so it's so you know. You know who these individual, so in your head, they're not anonymous. Okay. But I'm
[00:36:40] Rae Morey: No, they're not. I've, I know. No, I've, I have, I will not be revealing that, but they are, let's just say they are senior and influential figures across the WordPress project and the community.
And, and what they're asking for is, fairly basic stuff. they are asking for just proper governance. they're asking for transparency. They're, they want their concerns to, to be listened to. they're people who've been working with WordPress a really long time and, are basically saying Enough is enough.
So what they've asked is for, Matt to, respond with community minded solutions. Matt responded in the, responded to this letter to say that, he's meditated on the letter and he, wants to, he wants them to meet him halfway is in, in not so many words. at the moment I've followed up with the group and, there's nothing to report yet.
But, I wouldn't be surprised if something would happen again soon.
[00:37:56] Nathan Wrigley: Is this.
[00:37:57] Rae Morey: I don't think they'll be wait, waiting around for something to happen.
[00:38:00] Nathan Wrigley: so a couple of questions and again, say what? You can say, don't go beyond the bounds of what's possible for you, but, do, is this a group or is this a, collection of individuals? So what I'm asking there is, this what was it, 29 or something? I can't remember the number.
20. is this sort of some sort of back channel going on, or is it 20 individuals who've been funneled in this case through you, I guess for identity checks or what have you? Or maybe you can't even answer that. I don't know.
[00:38:33] Rae Morey: All I'll say is that these are people who, not revealing their identities for fear of retaliation. They are people who, are very involved with the project. and if there would be ramifications, if, their identities
[00:38:53] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, okay. Okay. let's leave it there. do you, have any intuition? So this is just an intuition thing, that given that you know who these people are, do you think this, would've been more effective if the, names had come out there? I guess these people in have described that they don't want to be announced 'cause it might jeopardize careers and things like that.
So Yeah, I can well understand why they don't want to, I, I'd be curious to know, where this one goes, but also it sounds like it got heard.
by Matt and what did you say? He was going to meditate on it and have a think and see if he can be met halfway. So it would sound like some of those things in contained, in that letter landed.
'cause I presume halfway means Okay. Some of this makes sense, but not all of it. Yeah.
[00:39:43] Rae Morey: Yeah,
[00:39:44] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.
[00:39:45] Rae Morey: I don't, I'm not gonna
pretend I know what Matt's thinking, but, for now, Matt replied with that comment. I think he commented below this story actually. And, he commented below my story. he wants more. He, basically said, this is too vague. Be specific with names, what work they'll do and what outcomes we should expect in what timeframes he wants specifics around how things could be, but it could be just a way for him to draw our names.
I don't know. Yeah. we'll find out.
yeah. We'll find out
[00:40:24] Nathan Wrigley: or a follow up or something like that. Yeah. interested in following this up and will do when, the
[00:40:30] Rae Morey: group I, guess from my perspective, 'cause obviously I, don't dunno who these individuals are or what have you. It, the, clout of such a letter would've been profoundly bigger. I suppose if it was a laundry list of the, all these names that I know in the WordPress space, I would've been, whoa, hold on.
[00:40:49] Nathan Wrigley: But equally I can understand why people, don't wish to put their head above the parapet
because they
[00:40:55] Rae Morey: be a bombshell
[00:40:56] Nathan Wrigley: place, or maybe there's an embargo on what they can say from a legal team of the hosting company they work for, or whatever it might be.
[00:41:03] Rae Morey: Oh, it would've, it would be a bombshell of a story if the names were attached. I can, definitely say that.
[00:41:08] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.
Alright, let's move on. So the next three note four pieces, are going to be all about the, word, the WordPress, let's say Automattic wordpress.org, what have you, versus WP Engine. I confess, I taking my eye off the ball here because I, for one, am not going to read all the legal stuff because it's legal stuff is very dry.
But I know you have, I know you've, I've read everything and, oh, it is a lot. is a lot. Yeah. let's just say that, I am, I'll ju I'll jump ahead a bit, but, one of the most recent, updates in this ongoing drama is that Gibson Dunn, one of the foremost feared, law firms in US litigation has taken over Automattic's, legal defense, which is a really interesting move.
[00:42:09] Rae Morey: They've ditched Hogan love, who
[00:42:10] Nathan Wrigley: Did they ditch them or did the, other, because I know that you can be fired by your lawyers as well. Did, or do you know if it was that way around? Did Automattic decide to move
on and No.
[00:42:20] Rae Morey: what happened. So I put questions to Matt and he said he didn't want, he basically no comments. So, all, we know is that, Gibson Dunn, was added to the case on the. 22nd of January, I wanna say. And last week, Hogan love's team officially withdrew from the case. They, whole heap of notion, whole heap of, legal documents came through, withdrawing each of the, their team members.
So yeah, it's just gibs and done. it wasn't the case that Automattic beefed up their team. No, they've switched teams and, yeah, it's an interesting one, the Hogan levels and, Neil kl, I'm not sure if he's saying I'm saying his name correctly, but he was, acting Attorney General of the US and more representing, the government and in, and, doing cases in Supreme Court.
Now we've switched to Gibson Dunn, led by, litigator Rosemary Ring, she's a very seasoned, experienced litigator who has, a very impressive, back catalog of clients including, Facebook Meta, Microsoft, Verizon. she's represented a lot of clients in the tech world. And, you can see from her resume, she's, the right person to be dropping into this case, and she hasn't mucked around.
She's gone straight in, with court documents in the past week, tabling, submitting, motions against, developer Michael Wilman, motions to intervene and, motioned, for contempt in the case. And, yeah, she, they, Gibson Dunn also, Sought to speed up the case and have the next hearing in May, but, the judge has, left it scheduled for, June 5th, so still have to wait a few months for the next hearing in this case.
[00:44:33] Nathan Wrigley: But what is apparent is that it both sides are getting all the guns lined up. They're getting all of the, the best lawyers. And I think I read in your article that now they both have, so the WP Engine side and the Automattic side now have, two of the most feared litigators in the us.
[00:45:00] Rae Morey: Yeah. So according to BTI,
[00:45:02] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, these
[00:45:03] Rae Morey: yeah.
[00:45:04] Nathan Wrigley: they're both, used to winning and it sounds like that, that they're willing to operate in, in the space of let's get the job done, let's use all the tactics, let's use every possible vehicle that we can. and yeah, I guess it's gonna get, noisy.
[00:45:23] Rae Morey: Yeah, they were described by BTI Consulting group, Gibson Dunn and Quinn Emanuel, which is WP Engine legal counsel, described as relentless, cunning, aggressive, very smart, and that they play to win and win big. So it'd be interesting to see how this plays out. How, I can't wait to see, I'm such a nerd with this.
I can't wait to see Rosemary ring and Rachel Sabian from WP Engine's legal counsel up against each other in court. It's gonna be pretty fiery.
[00:45:56] Nathan Wrigley: And do they, allow you to see that kind of thing then do, they have cameras in the court or are you just
[00:46:00] Rae Morey: yeah. Yeah.
[00:46:01] Nathan Wrigley: gosh.
[00:46:02] Rae Morey: So the, the judges have their own, zoom link. If you go to the judge who, is, part of this case. judge Araceli Martin is Wyn.
She has her own Zoom link, so whenever she has a case, you can click in. so I watched the hearing for the preliminary injunction last year, and you have to get in quick 'cause only a hundred people can join the Zoom
[00:46:28] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, you've gotta be on the money. Okay.
[00:46:30] Rae Morey: yeah, so you, can watch. And so I, I watched it, I watched the last hearing and, it's not, we're not watching some exciting court drama.
It was, interesting to watch, but,
[00:46:44] Nathan Wrigley: Yes, the unedited version of a court drama is less exciting than the edited version, isn't it?
[00:46:49] Rae Morey: but I think because we know what's going on and it's WordPress related, it is quite exciting. But,
[00:46:56] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Okay. Anyway, you'll be able to get all the reportage from that, I'm sure, on the repository when it's happened, but, sounds like it's gonna be all going down in, in June. there's a couple of pieces related to that court case in particular. Like we have this one, which is titled Judge Signal Support for WP Engine Injunction.
That feels like it might be stretching back to more or less the beginning of our timeframe
[00:47:21] Rae Morey: we've jumped forward a
[00:47:22] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. We've
gone
[00:47:23] Rae Morey: Engine, was, they filed for a, a preliminary injunction ahead of the hearing to, basically turn back the clock and, return the status quo to, I think September 22nd before, Matt's, keynote address at Word Camp US. And, all the, public attacks against him.
And, they were successful in getting that, injunction in December. yeah, basically, a CF the free a CF plugin was returned. some of the content from, I think the WordPress Engine Tracker website was removed, WordPress, WFI engine, were they, their, access to wordpress.org is reinstated along with the accounts of several of their employees like Brian Gardner.
yeah, and we haven't seen so many public attacks from Matt, although, he has mentioned WP Engine in some podcasts recently. and also maybe leading into the next story that we're gonna cover as well, we saw that, that, was, that injunction happened, just after wordpress.org forked a CF Pro, which was imp unprecedented.
We've never seen a premium plugin get forked like that before becoming the SCF plugin. yeah. What, did you make of that?
[00:48:57] Nathan Wrigley: quickly just, is that still around? Can you still get SCF Do you know? It's still, so it's still there. Okay. And do you know if it's being, is it being maintained as a different fork? I wonder? what did I make of that though? I was watching from the sidelines like everybody else, and I was, I didn't expect it, let's put it that way.
So the story here though is that, advanced custom fields, which was developed by Elliot. condo, by the way, we had Elliot Condo on the podcast many times, and, what a nice guy. he sold it to Delicious Brains, which then ultimately sold it to WP Engine. So WP Engine didn't invent the code base, but they adopted the code base and, carried on developing it and what have you, and it being a WP Engine thing.
The controversy here was obviously the, juxtaposition of this lawsuit and the fact that it was forked the, I think the big story wasn't really so much the fork. I think the big story, which got people irritated at the time was that the slog. on.org was, used. So as an example, if you'd have installed a CF and then you went to update the plugin because, you saw that there was a new version in your WordPress dashboard.
My understanding, 'cause I don't actually have that installed, like that, was that the, it would be taken over by SCF so it would go from advanced custom fields before clicking update to secure custom fields. And the, way that landed with the community, the optics of that were that, that was a, that was unprecedented, like you said.
And it sounds like the judge decided that needed to be rolled back. I dunno if that was like a key part of the decision making process in that, case, but, it certainly was one of the things which had to be on don. Who knows. Oh, and the reviews came along as well, didn't they? So there were many, reviews.
I don't know the numbers, but the, install base and the reviews and all of that, I think came along for the ride as well. So it was an interesting moment, which has now been undone by the, court ruling.
[00:51:25] Rae Morey: But yeah, I just, checked Secure Custom Fuel still. plotting along.
[00:51:32] Nathan Wrigley: Is it, has it
[00:51:32] Rae Morey: last updated? it was last updated three weeks ago. It has 6,000 plus active installations and quite a number of five star reviews.
[00:51:43] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, do the five
[00:51:45] Rae Morey: five star review.
[00:51:46] Nathan Wrigley: 27. Okay. So
[00:51:47] Rae Morey: these are just for SEF?
[00:51:49] Nathan Wrigley: yeah. Okay. Oh, that's curious. Anyway, so you, can imagine it was just one of those stories that it, was almost guaranteed, with the benefit of hindsight, that story was guaranteed To, to cause a, let's use the word kerfuffle. depending on where you sit on the fence on that one, I guess you'll see it in different ways, but I, you could definitely foresee that one going down.
yeah. Not well with some people and with others, but boy, let's see what happens with that in the future. But I imagine most of the people are now back. Is, was that how it worked? If you'd got SCF and then you updated SCF, did you go back to a CF or did you have to put a CF back on?
I, dunno.
[00:52:37] Rae Morey: I dunno. Oh geez. I, 'cause I think a lot of people were moved over to WP Engine's servers. They were, asked to. yeah. What a mess for WP Engine to figure out.
[00:52:52] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. So if you had the, ver, so if you'd have preemptively got in and installed the. The WP Engine version, it was then polling WP Engine servers for updates. So you wouldn't have got that, but if you, were using the repo version. Okay. And it's not the pro version, right? This is just the free version because the pro version presumably always came from the WP Engine servers.
I'm, presuming it's the free version.
[00:53:23] Rae Morey: It's getting confusing
[00:53:24] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
[00:53:25] Rae Morey: the pro version was fork too.
[00:53:27] Nathan Wrigley: okay. Okay. So, did, ah, okay. Now my memory
is back. I think if you had the free version in the.org, did you get the pro version when you updated? Maybe that's how the story ran. I don't know. We're getting ourselves into a right quandary here.
Let's move on. Stuff happened with a CF
and
[00:53:47] Rae Morey: just read the repository.
[00:53:48] Nathan Wrigley: called SCF and yeah, there was a lot of, kerfuffle. anything else about that? Oh, yeah, the, there's the story about the, modified contributions. From WordPress to match WP Engines,
so
[00:54:05] Rae Morey: a really interesting one. Yeah. So basically, Automattic has effectively shut down as.org division, which for a lot of people who are in the WordPress ecosystem, you'd know that this is the division of Automattic that, all the sponsored contributors at Automattic, work in. And as of the start of the year, the org team included about 104 people contributing three and a half thousand hours per week as part of five of the future.
And, now they have, oh, I wonder what it is now, but, the announcement was that, Automattic was cutting its contributions to just 40 hours a week. To, a 45, sorry, 45 hours a week to match WP Engine's, 45 pledged hours to the open source project,
[00:55:03] Nathan Wrigley: and, what was the number before three and a half thousand did you say?
[00:55:06] Rae Morey: 3000. So as of the 1st of January, I went back and had a look at the, way back machine. It was 3,539 hours per week.
[00:55:16] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. that is a, it's it. That was a big number. I, the biggest number I think of any, organization. So for many, years. If you look at that, chart of who's contributing, what that gets produced, each year, they, somebody goes back and I can't remember who, I think it might even have
been Devo, I can't remember.
Automattic always had the, biggest piece of that pie, if you like. They were always the biggest contributor buyer.
[00:55:46] Rae Morey: actually.
[00:55:46] Nathan Wrigley: mile.
Yeah.
[00:55:48] Rae Morey: by a lot. So last year I had a look at this. last May, 2024, the, five for the Future program released some, updates around companies sponsored contributions and, cross-referencing that data with the, five for the future website, I found that 50% of the total hours, Automattic accounted for 50% of the total hours pledged by companies to five for the future.
That's huge.
[00:56:21] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah.
[00:56:22] Rae Morey: and, with, Automattic now, cut to 45 that has left other companies filling that gap. So now the, as of my reporting on the, on January 10th RT camp, now contributes the, largest number of hours to the project with 450 hours a week, spread across 21 people.
follow, so the top five is RT Camp Multi Dots with 291 hours GoDaddy, with 256 hours. Awesome motive with 222 hours and 10 up with 198, 189 hours. yeah, I know, that Yost has been, Yost, the SEO company has been a, big contributor in previous years,
[00:57:16] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, that's changed. Has it? Yeah. 'cause they all, they were basically always number two, weren't they? So
[00:57:20] Rae Morey: Yeah, they, so they're in seventh now with 157 hours and 20 people.
[00:57:25] Nathan Wrigley: It's still a
[00:57:27] Rae Morey: it is still a lot.
[00:57:28] Nathan Wrigley: okay, okay, so here's an interesting sort of intuition that I draw from that if, Automattic, and again, don't shoot the messenger. It's just a thought I had. If, if Automattic have been con had been contributing just this giant amount of hours, I suppose the argument could run they're contributing the hours.
They they're the people leading the project, if you like. they, get to steer the direction because they're putting in the hours and, and there's not, there's no great intuition from that. You can work out anything I was about to say from exactly that they put in the hours.
but I wonder now what will happen to the project because it feels like it's in a bit of a holding pattern. whilst the legal dispute gets figured out, does that mean that we have a sort of six month, actually it'll be more like, I guess eight months before all of the fallout occurs. does that mean that WordPress I don't know, goes into a holding pattern?
No feature releases really?
[00:58:36] Rae Morey: yeah, with WordPress, 6.8 that's coming out in, I think it's due out in April. I think there's gonna be a beta in March. But, that has one of the smallest release teams in a very long time. I think there were only maybe 10 people on the release team. no one from Automattic other than Matt from memory.
there might be, correct me if I'm wrong, but, yeah, the, a lot of the usual suspects that you'd see on the release team are not there, from, Automattic, and we've seen other people step in. it's been really interesting to see how the community has responded to, this, gap that Automattic has left.
And, one observation I've had is, and I was discussing this with my fantastic proofreader, Mike Johnson. Hello. He's probably listening, but, We were talking about this yesterday that a, lot of the new team reps that we are seeing coming through for the various WordPress make teams are people from, are not Automattic people or, and we're seeing a lot of names of people in, in the, Indian, WordPress communities, and, other communities in Nepal, Bangladesh, and, other, communities outside of America and, Europe, which is really interesting to see that cultural shift in, in people showing up to contribute to WordPress.
[01:00:13] Nathan Wrigley: So this is pure speculation from me. but firstly I'll acknowledge that's an amazing, that's stepping up, isn't it? So you mentioned RT Camp and there's a whole bunch of other companies as well, from these different geographical locations. I guess once you take out that giant 3000, whatever it was, hours, and then you redraw the pie suddenly.
Everything, the biggest goes down to 300, so that's a 10 x difference. Then that pie looks really different and suddenly the contribution of, I don't know, 50 hours a week suddenly gets you on the pie. Whereas before you wouldn't, you would've been this invisible slice. So that's interesting.
so here's my speculation. I'm in, this is how it goes in my head anyway. I'm imagining that, Automattic are thinking about the lawsuit and presumably the, financial obligations that will come from that lawsuit. Whichever way it falls, the, I'm imagining very high cost of representation, legal representation.
Those companies that we talked about earlier, I'm imagining they are fantastically well paid individuals, really fantastically well paid and so Automattic, just drawing in what it can do and presumably. There would be an intention if everything works out in, in, in a certain direction to, to put those hours back at some point in the future.
But of course, we can't know if that's gonna happen.
[01:01:47] Rae Morey: don't know.
[01:01:47] Nathan Wrigley: no. A real, moment. Yeah. Yeah.
[01:01:51] Rae Morey: Yeah. but yeah, definitely a, holding pattern. And, we've, seen with the WordPress 6.8 release, him announcement that this next major release of WordPress is going to be basically a, polish and bug fix release. So no major features. and we don't know if that's gonna be the same for 6.9 7.0.
[01:02:14] Nathan Wrigley: lot of stuff that had been begun, the, sort of collaborative editing initiatives and then obviously in the future, thinking about phase four, the idea of translating WordPress natively. I guess a lot of that has been put on hold. It'd be interesting to see when, so we had state of the word, but it'd be interesting to see in Word Camp Asia, word Camp Europe, these flagship events where typically leadership speak to the audience.
It'd be interesting to see if any of this gets fleshed out, like how the. How the agenda for the future of WordPress looks in the year 2025. Okay. okay. That's dear listener. You can, you can return to normal now. You can breathe again. I think we're through the, the, WP
[01:02:57] Rae Morey: was a lot.
[01:02:58] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, there was a lot,
[01:03:00] Rae Morey: That was a lot.
[01:03:01] Nathan Wrigley: So given that we've, we've used quite a bit of time, let's race through these next bits and in some ways we'll just gloss over them, I think, if that's all right with you. Rae, so these two pieces have a common thread running through them. the, first one is to say that GoDaddy has pledged just north of half a million US dollars to something called the, I don't think pledged is the right word.
I think it are. We now at the point where they've given, I dunno if it's pledged or given.
[01:03:28] Rae Morey: they have. Because if you look at the Open Collective website, which, the, WP Community Collective uses for their transparent fundraising, you can see the transaction has happened. so yes. The WPCC, WP Yep. CC
[01:03:46] Nathan Wrigley: I keep saying the WPC. C. CCCC, all the Cs, I can't stop.
[01:03:52] Rae Morey: it, has, it has received that 520,000, sponsorship is what, say Reed, the president of the WPCC has described it to me as,
[01:04:03] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.
[01:04:05] Rae Morey: Pretty significant donation.
[01:04:07] Nathan Wrigley: lot of money, isn't it? It's a
[01:04:08] Rae Morey: it is a lot of money considering how much you've, we've seen. GoDaddy also announced donations to other organizations like the PHP. Foundation and other organizations and they did not get this much money.
[01:04:24] Nathan Wrigley: So that is a lot. So interesting. So de depending on which side of the fence you sit on. Again, with the legal arguments that we were talking about before, I suppose you could view this in a variety of different ways. Possibly you'd be viewing it as, okay, here's a different way to allocate money into the project so you can give the money to the WPCC.
He said, trying very hard to say it only twice. And, and then they will make decisions about where that money goes. I, think of it a bit like a, sort of an escrow service, but of course you can, in the past, at least with the WPCC, you've been able to say, I want it to go to this project. And then you might know who the recipient is.
So for example, Alex Stein, who I understand has left the WordPress, space now. But, so it's a way of funneling money. Let's say you want to sponsor WordPress, but you don't know where to put that money. You, it could go to the WPCC and then I suppose on the other side, you might view this as a way of circumventing.
governance maybe, I don't know if that's the right word, but it's, depending on, how you view it, you might see this as a, way of stepping around the traditional way of allocating money through sponsorship at events or something like that. I.
[01:05:42] Rae Morey: Yeah, I think this is definitely a more direct way to donate, so you know that your money is going to be funding, like you say, contributors like Alex Stein, who. last year was a team rep for the WordPress accessibility team. So the WPCC, their mission is to, it's, actually changed a bit.
So they were very committed to, funding contributions to the WordPress project, and they've expanded their scope in recent months to include the WordPress ecosystem and open source communities. what I really took away from this announcement was that GoDaddy has, donated this money, and it's to help the WPCC fund contributions to the WordPress ecosystem.
the announcement clearly said ecosystem and not the WordPress project. IFI found that to be an interesting, way to describe how this money's going to be used. but it's my understanding after speaking to, say Reed, that the, money is going to be used to fund, developers to work on, the WordPress project.
they've fund, they funded, people to, to contribute to accessibility last year and now they want to, open up new opportunities to fund developer contributions. So I think it's a great thing. Hats off to, say in the WPCC for, doing this work. it's, great to see these organizations spring up and, actually look for sustainable ways to fund contributions to WordPress.
[01:07:30] Nathan Wrigley: It has definitely got widespread coverage, hasn't it? definitely got a lot of head, minutes talked on podcasts and news, inches of news in newsletters and things like that. again, all these links in the show notes, go check 'em out. So very quickly, this is a community piece, post status, which I think for many people is the place to go if you wanna be a.
Online community member of WordPress, post status has a very successful Slack channel and they do podcasts and they do all, and the whole range of things started by Brian Cross Guard a long time ago and then sold onto Cory Miller and Lindsey Mi Miller. And Corey and Lindsay decided that they wanted to, pivot.
And we mentioned earlier, Cory's new, hosting, ventures. And, so it's now been taken over by Yost, the person, Yos and Marika Vander Act.
[01:08:29] Rae Morey: Yeah, this is, this was very unexpected for a lot of people in the community. So yeah, post status is, now a Dutch nonprofit. I bet Brian Kroger didn't envision that ever happening when he started this site that was originally just a, blog. and yeah, it was founded back in 2013 as, I mentioned, by Brian Kros guard, and now it's, an active community.
Last week, I think it had about 1700 members, and that's quickly growing, past 1800. I think now, if it hasn't already reached that. and yeah, it's become known as the, place where people go to talk about WordPress, executives mixed with developers who work in the weird WordPress ecosystem.
And, partnerships and business deals happen in dms. It's, where people go to talk business,
[01:09:25] Nathan Wrigley: and I think
[01:09:25] Rae Morey: and just to,
[01:09:26] Nathan Wrigley: has changed a lot as well, hasn't it? The, whatever the number was, it was a lot of, I think it was $500, something along those lines. No, 1, 9,
[01:09:34] Rae Morey: dollars. It was a, last time I looked it was about a thousand dollars for an agency to join and I think 5,000 even for hosting company. It was a lot. But now, they've, there's a flat $50 fee for, folks to join. So there have been a lot of people joining the, the Slack community in recent days.
[01:09:55] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. So that's interesting. $50 now, you go and check it out. So new ownership for post status from Yost of Alka Marika Van Direct. Okay. And then really nothing to do with WordPress, just to finish it off. I apologize we've kept you up for absolutely hours, Rae. the first one is, something that I saw.
I've really taken to Blue Sky, the social network and I really like it. I think it has that Twitter feel to it, but it doesn't have the algorithmic Twitter feel to it. And given your, not your but given one's proclivities around politics, it may be that, Twitter has a bit of a, there, there's something going on in the background in terms of politics and ownership and things like that.
Anyway, and there's none of that.
[01:10:38] Rae Morey: to use. It's refreshing to use Blue Sky and not just be inundated with the ads on Twitter
or want to call
[01:10:46] Nathan Wrigley: exactly that.
[01:10:47] Rae Morey: It is breath of fresh air.
[01:10:48] Nathan Wrigley: no algorithm, you get a feed of what you are, whoever you are following chronologically that comes, I, think the intention in the future is to be able to bring your own algorithm so you'll be able to tell it what you want to see, not the other way around. Who knows whether it'll become a TOS toxic, spool of nonsense, much like all social media platforms seem to end up being, that is the trajectory it would seem of all social media platforms.
So we'll see, but for now, interesting. And, there's a plugin that you can use called Auto Blue if you would like to connect your WordPress website to, to, to Blue Sky. And I've got a podcast coming out with the founder of that in the very near future. By the time this airs, it might, be out, it might certainly be very soon to come out.
But, I just love it. I think it's my new social home. I had a dalliance with Mastodon, but I think the technical difficulties of getting on that platform were a bit too much for many people. And, blue sky's growing.
and for me at least, anyway, it's not, there's, nothing capturing my attention for hours of doom scrolling.
So I'm very happy with it.
[01:11:59] Rae Morey: I haven't used Blue Sky to its full potential yet, but I'm getting there
slowly.
[01:12:04] Nathan Wrigley: isn't that kind of the point? There isn't a set of like full potential. You're not drawn to doing eight hours of blue sky and for me, that is the
[01:12:13] Rae Morey: is nice.
[01:12:14] Nathan Wrigley: success, right? you get into Twitter and start scrolling and. Three hours have gone a bit like this podcast really. okay.
So anyway, there's that links in the show notes. You can check it out. There's a free plugin and there's a paid version either coming or in existence already. So there's that. And the other one, which is interesting, I thought not, definitely not the WordPress space, but in the Drupal space, Drupal have come out with something.
This is such a misleading, and I think a wrong footed naming. They've called it Drupal CMS and why they didn't call it Drupal Marketing or something like that, I don't know. But they called it Drupal CMS, which kind of almost seems that's what Drupal is. They've got a version of Drupal, which has pre-built into it all of the bits and pieces that you might need if you are like a marketer or a content creator or something like that.
So basically there's a version of Drupal that you can install. Set up for that. And, it's got a different ui. It's got like a, tick list built into the UI of things that you should do before you can really say, okay, this site's ready to go and you can fiddle with the ui. So you can make it look how you want.
You can move the panels around a bit like on the dashboard in WordPress where you can move those little widgets around. You can move the whole UI around and collapse things and make things disappear. I, anyway, I just think that's such an interesting thing. And if in, if we're at the moment struggling to, to keep WordPress as a project hot and fresh and interesting to the yutes as they say, my one attempt at being like under 50.
There we go. I said the word Utes. then maybe something like this is interesting, the idea of a, I don't know, a real estate version of WordPress or a TikTok clone of WordPress, and I know that themes can do this. But please can we make themes for the way that sites look? Not for the functionality, but I like this idea.
So go check it out. I dunno if Rae's got
[01:14:14] Rae Morey: I used
[01:14:14] Nathan Wrigley: that.
[01:14:15] Rae Morey: I used to use Drupal,
[01:14:17] Nathan Wrigley: Me too.
[01:14:18] Rae Morey: a lot more than WordPress at my last, marketing job, and I hated it. It was the worst, it was so
[01:14:26] Nathan Wrigley: pretty ugly. Pretty ugly
[01:14:27] Rae Morey: and I couldn't customize anything without a developer who I worked with. And These would be a godsend for, marketers who are forced to work with Drupal.
I haven't looked into it yet, but I will. it's, I've, there's been so much buzz around it.
[01:14:45] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. And really what I'm doing here is I'm not saying go and use Drupal. I'm saying here, wouldn't it be interesting if some of these ideas got adopted by WordPress? So like this, type of, and maybe we're getting there with playground blueprints and things like that where you can download a version of WordPress, which is tailored to your industry.
And I saw a recent post, about themes. It was on the Kraut Press website, I think. And they were saying that in the Squarespace era, where, what, more or less, the first thing you do when you onboard is what is your business? You go through this kind of like onboarding process where they try to help you out.
It, maybe there's AI in there, I don't know. But the point is they're trying to help you from the outset. Whereas if you install WordPress. You, just get WordPress and you're on your own at that point, aren't you? So maybe some helpful things around that would be interesting.
Alright. And then the last one, the very last one.
Thanks for sticking with us dear listener. The last one is this mind boggling chip from Google. So it really has nothing to do with WordPress at all, but it's just, go and have a look and see if you can work out how many zeros are in. Yeah, absolutely. Fascinating. So Google have come up with a quantum computing chip, and honestly at this point, your kind of eyes, your eyes glaze over and, I don't really think most people understand what a quantum computing chip is.
I don't, but it sounds good. but it's able to do this subset of tasks crazy fast, Crazy fast compared to modern computers. And again, I don't really understand it, but it is just if you're interested in, the cutting edge of the bleeding edge of computing and what chips are gonna be able to do, and what quantum computing, which has this, capacity to be in two states at the same time.
Whereas any computer that you've ever used before, it's binary. It's the, the, the, bit is either a one or a zero. This can be a one and a zero at the same time. Like why is that good? I have no idea, but it's good apparently, and it makes things way quicker. So Google is saying that this could be the beginning of a, real upset in things, in certain specific tasks, in its ability to do things.
And, no doubt our AI overlords will be loving it, getting those robots ready to take, getting those robots ready to take over the world. So there you go.
That's all I
[01:17:12] Rae Morey: I mean it's interesting. Yeah, it's, fascinating. They say Google's claiming that this chip can, it takes five minutes to solve a problem that would take the world's fastest supercomputers, 10 sip tillian years to complete.
[01:17:27] Nathan Wrigley: And that's a one with so many zeroes after it. That's way more zeroes than is, needed. and it's, but it's crazy. You look at it, it's like something outta Star Trek from the, from like the 1980s, it really is like, there's pipes attached to the chip. There's this, there's valves and things like that and scientists standing around it with a clipboard.
But it, but it really does the, the next generation. And, we think computers are clever at the minute, but they're gonna get a lot cleverer. so there you go. That's it. That's the lot. That is what has
[01:18:03] Rae Morey: That's everything. That's everything. Oh my God. And so much. So much happens in three months.
[01:18:09] Nathan Wrigley: So the intention
[01:18:10] Rae Morey: talking about in another three months?
[01:18:13] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. the intention is that we'll do this again in about three months time. Goodness only knows where we'll be at that point. Maybe quantum computing will have taken over the world and there'll be nothing to say 'cause AI will do it all for us. But let's hope not. Let's hope it'll be me and Rae chatting into a microphone in about
[01:18:29] Rae Morey: Not replaced by robots.
[01:18:30] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I have a confession. No, I don't. In which case, we will knock it on the head that I'm so grateful, Rae, for you helping me out with this. I'm so grateful for you staying up, so grateful for the content that you create or more time, go to the repository, email great. URL, and sign up over there.
[01:18:52] Rae Morey: thank you so much, Nathan, for your company and for, chatting about the news.
[01:18:57] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah,
[01:18:58] Rae Morey: really appreciate all that you do.
[01:19:00] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you. See you soon.
[01:19:01] Rae Morey: Bye.
[01:19:03] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, that's all we've got time for on the podcast. I hope that you enjoyed that. Very nice as always chatting to Rae all about the bits and pieces that have happened over the last three months. That was our third in our What Just Happened series. So keep your eyes and ears peeled for the next one, which will land in about three months time.
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Truly. That's all we've got time for. Just a quick reminder, wpbuilds.com/live, 2:00 PM UK time. Bring your friends, relations, guinea pigs, cats, hamsters, whatever you like, and join us wpbuilds.com/live. We'll be there with some notable WordPress guests, chatting about the bits and pieces that have happened.
Okay. That really, really, really is all that I've got time for. I'm gonna fade in some cheesy music and say, stay safe. Have a good week. Bye-bye for now.
