Linux Foundation Tries To Play Peacemaker In Ongoing WordPress Scuffle (theregister.com) 13
The Register's Thomas Claburn reports: The Linux Foundation on Friday introduced a new method to distribute WordPress updates and plugins that's not controlled by any one party, in a bid to "stabilize the WordPress ecosystem" after months of infighting. The FAIR Package Manager project is a response to the legal brawl that erupted last year, pitting WordPress co-creator Matthew Mullenweg, his for-profit hosting firm Automattic, and the WordPress Foundation that he controls, against WP Engine, a rival commercial WordPress hosting firm. [...]
The Linux Foundation says the FAIR Package Manager, a mechanism for distributing open-source WordPress plugins, "eliminates reliance on any single source for core updates, plugins, themes, and more, unites a fragmented ecosystem by bringing together plugins from any source, and builds security into the supply chain." In other words, it can't be weaponized against the WordPress community because it won't be controlled by any one entity. "The FAIR Package Manager project paves the way for the stability and growth of open source content management, giving contributors and businesses additional options governed by a neutral community," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in a canned press statement. "We look forward to the growth in community and contributions this important project attracts."
The FAIR Package Manager repo explains the software's purpose more succinctly. The software "is a decentralized alternative to the central WordPress.org plugin and theme ecosystem, designed to return control to WordPress hosts and developers. It operates as a drop-in WordPress plugin, seamlessly replacing existing centralized services with a federated, open-source infrastructure." In addition to providing some measure of stability, the Linux Foundation sees the FAIR Package Manager as advancing WordPress' alignment with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation by reducing automatic browser data transmission and telemetry sent to commercial entities, while also supporting modern security practices and strengthening the open source software supply chain.
The Linux Foundation says the FAIR Package Manager, a mechanism for distributing open-source WordPress plugins, "eliminates reliance on any single source for core updates, plugins, themes, and more, unites a fragmented ecosystem by bringing together plugins from any source, and builds security into the supply chain." In other words, it can't be weaponized against the WordPress community because it won't be controlled by any one entity. "The FAIR Package Manager project paves the way for the stability and growth of open source content management, giving contributors and businesses additional options governed by a neutral community," said Jim Zemlin, Executive Director of the Linux Foundation, in a canned press statement. "We look forward to the growth in community and contributions this important project attracts."
The FAIR Package Manager repo explains the software's purpose more succinctly. The software "is a decentralized alternative to the central WordPress.org plugin and theme ecosystem, designed to return control to WordPress hosts and developers. It operates as a drop-in WordPress plugin, seamlessly replacing existing centralized services with a federated, open-source infrastructure." In addition to providing some measure of stability, the Linux Foundation sees the FAIR Package Manager as advancing WordPress' alignment with Europe's General Data Protection Regulation by reducing automatic browser data transmission and telemetry sent to commercial entities, while also supporting modern security practices and strengthening the open source software supply chain.
Two dogs fight for a bone ... (Score:2, Insightful)
And a third dog shows up.
I'm not sure it will help. The community will need to switch to the new repo for this to become a success.
The best option is to not use PHP based technology. There are so many other options with fewer issues. I understand there are some killer app but nobody in their right mind should start a new project in PHP. Yet Oracle and Azure still find new customers.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
There's nothing wrong with PHP that fundamental competence can't fix. The primary issue is, it's too easy to learn to use without becoming fundamentally competent, so it attracts a lot of lazy, low-effort workers and low-quality projects. That's not really PHP's fault, and changing languages to something else is no sort of magic fix for that either. Also, keep in mind this is the same basic justification that's being used to promote Rust, which in the long run will more or less generate the same results.
Re:Two dogs fight for a bone ... (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem with PHP is that its had two eras of developers and both are kinda awful.
The first developer era (which I shamefully was a member of in the 1990s) where grossly incompetent, barely structured their code and filled their code with SQL injections , used magic globals and just made absolute horror shows. Thats the era that got PHP its bad rep. Mostly gone now. Wordpress however IS a relic of that era.
The second developer era overcompensated by basically going full java creating codebases with 20 level deep class heirachies, and all sorts of weird java patterns like dependency injection, inversion of control, delegates, blah blah blah, all that stuff that makes java "proper" but ends up leading to some very mystifying code that can be nightmarish to understand. Worse, it often deployed those methods in an attempt at replicating Ruby on Rails glory, creating mutants like Laravel that would take the bad features of ROR (like RORs awful ORM. Devs, if your going to steal an ORMs design, steal Djangos one, that thing is a minor miracle) but trying to implement them without the metacoding that makes Ruby fun and productive to with. Its just a mess. And even its "lightweight" web framework Laravel really does feel like a bloated enterprise thing now, and lets face it why would you do big cumbersome enterprise in PHP when Java and C# are RIGHT THERE.
PHP on its own isn't a bad language. Its got a lot of bad cruft in it, but its basic design largely is competent and featureful. But its ecosystem has turned it into a barely competent immitation of javaa and the worlds moved well beyond that in 2025.
Re: (Score:1)
What would be an ecosystem which is well ahead of PHP, in 2025?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not sure it will help. The community will need to switch to the new repo for this to become a success.
My suspicion would be that a certain Wordpress CEO will be outraged by the concept and move in a direction towards actively obstructing any competing package manager from being used.
In short; I suspect this does not get far, unless that person is no longer in control of the direction of core WP development.
Re: (Score:2)
PHP is not the issue here. The issue isn't about any technical deficiencies in PHP, it's age / relevance as a web framework in the 2020's, or anything like that.
The issue is that Mullenweg exerts outsized influence over the WP community to its detriment. But yes, if the WP community can rally around a new community that Mullenweg does not exert control and veto power over that would solve the main issue.
Well said.
Re: (Score:2)
The best option is to not use PHP based technology. There are so many other options with fewer issues. I understand there are some killer app but nobody in their right mind should start a new project in PHP. Yet Oracle and Azure still find new customers.
Meh.
Most of the web runs on php, and there are reasons for that. Chesterton's fence and all that.
Re: (Score:2)
PHP was not the problem here.
Brilliant, and needed (Score:2)
A centralized package repository has always been a good idea.
Having it owned and run by the guy who profits off the wordpress.org/.com confusion wasn't (for the users, anyway).
Who paid for this (Score:2)
trust (Score:2)
Sorry, but I do not trust the average WordPress plugin/theme developer, much of the time they are bad coders/designers with an interest only for money. There is huge value in having a central repository, with user reviews, feedback, forums and some automated quality checks.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess when you got to eat, or want go on vacation, you code something useful that people will pay even a pittance for, by the thousands. Quality being secondary to utility in so much software, the WP ecosystem cannot be the exception.
Or to put it bluntly, pointing out, with e4ven a hint of disdain, bad coders/designers is not even inventive, nor interesting any more.
I'm getting sleepy.