A Social Contract for WordPress  ## Metadata - Author: [[Joost de Valk]] - Full Title: A Social Contract for WordPress - Category: #articles - Summary: It’s been a year since WordCamp US 2024. That was the place where, while raising a very real issue in the WordPress ecosystem, lines were crossed. What followed wasn’t only a debate, but a lawsuit. Two or three years from now, the courts will hand down their judgment. But the speech and its fallout created ... Read more - URL: https://joost.blog/?p=5815&preview=1&_ppp=a5d0b8a919 It’s been a year since WordCamp US 2024. That was the place where, while raising a very real issue in the WordPress ecosystem, lines were crossed. What followed wasn’t only a debate, but a lawsuit. Two or three years from now, the courts will hand down their judgment. But the speech and its fallout created more than legal filings. It created a rift. And history shows us what happens when communities don’t manage their conflicts: they splinter. #### A house divided That’s what our ecosystem feels like today. Out of this fracture came projects like FAIR — an effort at reform — while the wider community has been caught in endless debate, anger, fear, uncertainty, and doubt. And, as in every division, others profit: the lawyers, our competitors, the SaaS platforms, even Drupal—despite Dries’s constructive contributions—are gaining ground while we are consumed by internal conflict. The financial cost is staggering. Ten million dollars per side would not surprise us. That money could have advanced our shared mission, enriched WordPress core, and improved the open web. Instead, it fuels the machinery of division. But the greater loss is not money, it is spirit. We have lost unity, trust, and credibility in the wider open-source world. #### Learning from other open source projects Open source projects thrive when they write down and commit to the values that guide them. In 1997, Debian did this with its *Social Contract*, a short, powerful document that promised freedom, openness, and non-commercial capture. The Apache Software Foundation defined *The Apache Way* to guide governance through consensus and transparency. These texts endure because they gave their communities clarity, accountability, and direction. That is what we need now. Not more lawsuits. Not more silence. But a promise – a contract – that defines what we stand for and how we work together. #### WordCamp Pisa 2025, or elsewhere We need such a contract of our own. Not a metaphor, but a real document. Pisa, at WordCamp Pisa 2025, could perhaps be the place where we sign this contract. That’s close, and that’s the goal. We don’t have the time as a community to take a year to figure this out. It could be our moment to agree on what is essential: * WordPress is open source, and must remain so. * The ecosystem thrives when community and commerce cooperate. * Leadership must be accountable, transparent, and collaborative. * Disagreements should be resolved through dialogue, not division. We’d like to invite everyone: Matt, Mary, and others from Automattic, all hosts, major and minor, people involved with FAIR, core contributors, companies, and community leaders. The goal is not to re-litigate grievances but to sit at the same table, listen, and chart a way forward. The goal is to define what we want WordPress to be like and what it means to be a “WordPresser”. We’ve taken a stab at a first draft. See if you like it. If you could agree to it. What you’d like to discuss. #### The Pisa Social Contract (Draft) We believe in WordPress, born of open source, sustained by community, the software that gives publishing freedom to the world. We believe in the four freedoms, that anyone may use, study, share, and improve the code, and that this freedom must remain at the heart of our work. We believe in cooperation between contributors and companies, that commerce and community can strengthen each other when guided by transparency and trust. We believe in accountable leadership, not of one, but of many voices, serving the project with humility and openness. We believe in dialogue over division, that disagreements should be resolved with honesty and respect, not with silence or schism. We believe our labor is not only for ourselves, but for the millions who publish, and the billions who read, learn, and connect through WordPress. We look forward to a future where WordPress remains open, remains free, and remains built by us all. #### A house renewed If we take that step, WordCamp Pisa 2025 could be remembered as the moment we stopped fighting and started building again. The moment we defined what holds us together, even when we disagree. The moment we proved that an open-source community can grow stronger through conflict, not weaker. The question is no longer whether a schism exists in our community: it does. The question is whether we will seize the chance to heal it. WordCamp Pisa could give us that chance. And if not there, then somewhere soon. Because the longer we wait, the weaker we become. , A Social Contract for WordPress, Joost de Valk, 01k595d7jdc8gr43hgmr681w7j.