An Operating System for the Web  ## Metadata - Author: [[Dan Knauss]] - Full Title: An Operating System for the Web - Category: #articles - Document Note: Read each prompt below and return one complete response for everything. Format each step below as a markdown with an emoji symbol at the start of headings, followed by the word.  Be incredibly thorough about the notes and darvo portions, with a very comprehensive outline that provides the direct timestamps as links throughout.  --- tags: [Assign relevant tags or keywords to the notee to facilitate organization and retrieval. Add a # before each tag. Tags cannot have special characters. Do not use the tag #articles] - #tag 1 - #tag 2 - # tag 3 Author: [Author's Name] Source: [Author/Book/Article/Website] Reference: [Page numbers/Link] date created: {{date:YYYY-MM-DD}} {{time:HH:mm}} --- # Title: [Title of the Note] ## Table of Contents:  [Develop a table of contents based on the article's structure and main points. Link to the subheadings with anchor tags. Include the emojis in all subheadings]  ### References: Include a list of sources consulted and cited in the article. ## 📝 Summary: [Provide a brief summary or abstract of the main points or arguments presented in the source material.] ## 📖 Main Content: [Elaborate on the main ideas, concepts, or arguments found in the source material. Use your own words and examples to deepen your understanding. Add personal insights, reflections, or connections with other notes or concepts.] ### 🗒️ Notes [Generate a comprehensive bullet list detailing the main points of the article. Include several subpoints for each section to ensure depth and completeness.] ## 📖 References: [Include a list of sources consulted and cited in the article.] ## 🗣️ Paraphrase:  [Select two particularly intriguing or insightful paragraphs from the article and paraphrase them. The meaning should remain the same, but the language should be distinct.] ## 📰 Newsletter: I maintain a popular WordPress newsletter read by millions of subscribers. Please write a comprehensive and concise blurb covering the following information: learning web development, recent updates, community highlights, new plugins, etc. The blurb should reflect the tone and style of my newsletter, which is friendly, professional, humorous, and informative. Please include any important links or references to enhance the reader's understanding. This blurb will be featured in our upcoming issue, so make it engaging and informative. ## ✅ Action Items: I am a Developer Advocate at GoDaddy with a specialization in open source and WordPress, with a strong background as a professional educator and instructional designer. I have extensive experience teaching PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, Git, and GitHub.. As someone deeply involved in supporting and growing the open-source community, including onboarding new contributors and advocating for sustainable funding solutions, I need a prompt that clearly outlines how each article I provide aligns with my professional focus on open-source advocacy, contributor engagement, and education. Additionally, consider my aspiration to become an OSPO (Open Source Program Office) director and my commitment to transparency and inclusivity within the WordPress ecosystem. The prompt should reflect my dedication to merging educational efforts with technological passion, both on and off the stage, and my goal of fostering a sustainable and inclusive open-source community. Outlines how the article provided aligns with my professional focus and career objectives. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: [Develop several hypotheses for future studies based on the current research.] ### 📊 Methodology: [Suggest methodologies that could be used to explore these new research areas. Include potential data sources, research designs, and analysis techniques.]] ### ❓ Questions: [Generate thought provoking questions based upon the article.] ### 🔮 Future Research: [Identify potential areas for future research related to the topic of the article. Consider gaps in the current study, unanswered questions, or new directions that emerged from the findings.] ### 💡 Implications:  [Discuss the potential implications of this future research for the field. How could it advance knowledge, influence practice, or inform policy?] ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: Provide the readability of the article scored by the reading level. Assess which **learning styles** are present in the article and suggest improvements for better inclusivity across all learning preferences: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - **Present**: Are there any diagrams, images, or visual aids in the article? Does the structure and layout support easy visual navigation? - **Improve**: If visuals are lacking, suggest adding infographics, flowcharts, or other graphical representations to support complex ideas. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - **Present**: Are there any opportunities for auditory engagement, such as embedded podcasts, audio versions, or links to related auditory content? - **Improve**: Recommend providing audio summaries or using tools that convert text into speech, allowing auditory learners to absorb the material. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - **Present**: Is the language rich in description, analogies, and examples? Are there links to further readings or additional textual resources? - **Improve**: If not, consider enhancing the article with detailed explanations, storytelling techniques, or analogies that can help verbal learners better understand concepts. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - **Present**: Does the article include any interactive components or suggestions for hands-on application? - **Improve**: Suggest adding actionable tasks, exercises, or real-world application examples to engage kinesthetic learners. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - **Present**: Are there data points, step-by-step logical progressions, or analytical frameworks provided? - **Improve**: Where appropriate, recommend including problem-solving exercises, charts, graphs, or logical breakdowns of complex topics to appeal to logical learners. 6. **Social Learners (Interpersonal)**: - **Present**: Are there opportunities for discussion, collaboration, or group learning (e.g., links to forums or social groups)? - **Improve**: Encourage including prompts for group discussions, peer reviews, or community engagement opportunities to foster social learning. 7. **Solitary Learners (Intrapersonal)**: - **Present**: Does the article offer reflection points, journaling prompts, or personal exercises? - **Improve**: Suggest integrating personal reflection activities or individual assessments to engage solitary learners. 8. **Naturalistic Learners**: - **Present**: Are there any references to nature, environmental contexts, or sustainability that can connect concepts to real-world environmental scenarios? - **Improve**: Where possible, introduce nature-based analogies or examples to create a connection with the natural world for naturalistic learners. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: Evaluate the accessibility features of the article and provide suggestions for improvement: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: Assess whether the article uses proper semantic HTML and has alt-text for all images. - **Improve**: Ensure that all images and diagrams include alt-text descriptions, and that the article is fully navigable using screen readers. - **Keyboard Navigation**: Can users navigate the content using only the keyboard? - **Improve**: If this isn't supported, suggest optimizing for keyboard navigation and ensuring all interactive elements are accessible. - **Contrast and Readability**: Evaluate whether the color contrast and font choices make the content easy to read for those with visual impairments. - **Improve**: Recommend using high-contrast color schemes and fonts that support resizing without losing clarity. - **Text Resizing**: Is the content responsive to different text sizes? - **Improve**: Ensure that users can adjust text sizes without breaking the layout or functionality of the article. ### 🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment: Examine the article's adherence to DEIB principles and offer recommendations for improvement: - **Cultural Re - Summary: What if WordPress, growing as an operating system for the web, spawns distributions and spins, like Linux? What do nine years of Jetpack teach us about Automattic and WordPress — the project and the dot-com? Rethinking how we think about SaaS, hosting, and the WordPress ecosystem... - URL: https://poststatus.com/an-operating-system-for-the-web/ What if WordPress, growing as an operating system for the web, spawns distributions and spins, like Linux? What do nine years of Jetpack teach us about Automattic and WordPress — the project and the dot-com? Rethinking how we think about SaaS, hosting, and the WordPress ecosystem… Speaking at Pressnomics in 2015, Matt Mullenweg claimed that without Jetpack, WordPress’ market share would be in decline. Why? Because “naked” WordPress wasn’t competitive with SaaS site builders like Wix and Squarespace. On Twitter last month, Jeff Chandler [reminded](https://twitter.com/jeffr0/status/1524440072463872002) the WordPress community of Sarah Gooding’s [terrific article](https://wptavern.com/how-important-is-jetpack-on-wordpress-road-to-50-market-share) stemming from Matt’s remark seven years ago. It took on new significance in the context of recent market share discussions. > Jetpack surely helped fan WordPress’ growth — especially with many millions of entry-level users. > > Whether Matt was overstating its importance or not, Jetpack surely helped fan WordPress’ growth — especially with many millions of entry-level users. The downside was how it blurred the distinction between SaaS WordPress (.com) and self-hosted WordPress (.org) to compete with SaaS Wix, Squarespace, etc. That never sat well with the larger WordPress community — the fraction of us in the largely .org half of all WordPress users who know the difference between .org and .com. Apropos of [nothing Rob Howard hasn’t already said](https://masterwp.com/mullenweg-godaddy-is-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress/) about shark-infested red oceans, I’ve been thinking about the consequences of trying to mirror your main threats (like SaaS website builders and hosting companies) rather than making moves only you can make (combine SaaS and open source) while drawing on a superpower — the goodwill and creativity of a diverse and inclusive community based around a shared, open source project. For better or worse, that may sum up where Automattic, other large WordPress companies, and the WordPress ecosystem are now in terms of threats and opportunities. #### Lessons from nine years of Jetpack — acquiring, consolidating, and now decoupling plugins **2015** was a long time ago. [Jetpack itself is 9 years old as of June 25](https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/blob/trunk/projects/plugins/vaultpress/CHANGELOG.md)! Many exits and acquisitions ago, Steve Burge shared [his thoughts](https://ostraining.com/blog/general/matt-jetpack/) about Jetpack’s importance to WordPress’ market share back then, and the questions he asked — and the comment discussion that followed his post — are still timely and relevant. Especially his observation about the threat of SaaS… > The real threat to open source’s market share is SaaS. To survive, open source projects need to offer some of their own centralized SaaS tools otherwise they’ll lose the low and middle end of the market. > > Steve Burge …and his prediction — or hope — for open source: > The most successful open source projects in 2015 will […] combine the best of open source and SaaS. It’s worth remembering that WordPress powers over 20% because it has a SaaS product already. WordPress.com users are about 50% of all WordPress users already, so it’s fair to say that WordPress is already a SaaS-first product. > > Except for that .com/.org thing. > That .com/.org thing…. if only it could be a happy marriage! > > One is SaaS and one isn’t. Jetpack was and is a way of combining them — if only it could be a happy marriage! Install Jetpack and you have a SaaS+self-hosted WordPress hybrid — whatever “self-hosted” means in the age of “managed WordPress hosting.” (Hold onto that thought; I’ll come back to it.) #### What if Jetpack had stuck with a decentralized approach from the start? Jetpack debuted with easy-to-install SaaS tools and their APIs for developers. Everyone from no-code site builders to developers and agencies could leverage the WordPress.com network on WordPress.org sites hosted anywhere else. It was and still is a great idea. It just never caught on with the WordPress professional community. For reasons. > Imagine what might have happened if that was how Jetpack worked from the start and had focused more on developer API support for its various services. > > Jetpack grew and grew in size and scope — sometimes by acquiring popular free plugins that provided unique features and then died as independent projects after being acquired. Complaints about performance and bloat grew too, along with Jetpack’s features. Jetpack became a tiny app store for Automattic inside WordPress. Even brand new users were confused — [and upset](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/jetpack-is-not-for-newbie-with-multiple-plugins/). Post Status [joked](https://poststatus.com/wordpress-jetpack-bundle/) WordPress itself would be packaged within Jetpack. It was called a “Trojan Horse.” [Critics were harsh](https://brianli.com/2021/02/jetpack-wants-to-be-better/) — for reasons. Multiple forks of de-SaaSified Jetpack sprang up and quickly died. Slightly longer living [forks of Jetpack modules](https://github.com/shogo82148/jetpack-markdown) repackaged its features [as individual plugins](https://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack-widget-visibility/), [stripped it down to a single feature](https://wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack-lite/), and [allowed modules to be selectively de/activated](https://en-ca.wordpress.org/plugins/jetpack-module-control/) — something Jetpack eventually reincorporated. And now Jetpack is [decoupling all its modules as individual plugins](https://jetpack.com/blog/build-your-own-jetpack-now-with-individual-plugins/) so users savvy enough to do so can pick and choose which features they use for a particular site. It’s the right thing to do. The *smart* thing. It always was. Imagine what might have happened if that was how Jetpack worked from the start and had focused more on developer API support for the last decade. At a time when many developers feel the focus in WordPress core development on Gutenberg has created deficits and technical debt in other areas — especially [those specialized in PHP and concerned with back end, server-side WordPress](https://developerka.org/2022/05/21/wheres-that-elephant-in-wordpress-community/) — it’s a shame Jetpack didn’t immediately live up to its potential for widespread developer support. But maybe it still can. #### You can’t please everyone, especially when they don’t know what they could do with your product Recently we’ve been hearing concerns that WordPress’ market share [may have declined](https://poststatus.com/the-state-of-wordpress-market-share/) for the first time. People looking for a simple blog or basic development framework miss having a lean WordPress option. Ghost and Substack have a solid grasp on the market for membership-based, monetized publishing. It’s drop-dead simple: a blog, newsletter, and restricted content all working together seamlessly out of the box. > Pressable, WordPress.com, and WordPress VIP all use the same data network and similar architecture; they’ve all consistently aced [the gold standard of performance benchmarking](https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/) in all pricing tiers. > > You may be as surprised as I was to notice WordPress.com offers pretty good solutions nowadays to these perceived feature gaps. You can create a feature set similar to Ghost or Substack in a [relatively quick and easy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEN8_Ot_mvo) way. Expect these to continue to be refined in the future — especially if WordPress.com integrates some form of a WordPress-based Tumblr blog as a “lite” option. Repackaging Pressable as a third “Business” (code-optional) tier of traditional “managed WordPress hosting” next to the current “Professional” (no-code) plan would be logical too. Pressable, WordPress.com, and WordPress VIP all use the same data network and similar architecture; they’ve all consistently aced [the gold standard of performance benchmarking](https://wphostingbenchmarks.com/) in their pricing tiers. Automattic properties like Pocket Casts and Day One could make new flavors of WordPress.com the best way to podcast or journal. As the plugin/block marketplace evolves and continues to open slowly at WordPress.com, there’s increasing opportunity for others in the ecosystem to sell their products across channels that seem likely to expand if the ecosystem remains strong. There’s a lot of potential and a lot that’s already in there, but if you’re a .org person, you may not have looked. Not that you’ve been given many good reasons to, especially at [key moments like a major pricing change](https://poststatus.com/what-might-wordpress-coms-pricing-changes-mean-for-the-wordpress-ecosystem/). It’s hard to look back over the years and not ask if what got Automattic and the portfolio of its brands where it is will take it where it needs to go without painful changes. Walking the tightrope of SaaS and open source, it’s always a balancing act between centralization and decentralization — not just in products but in organizational structure and management. #### What actual distinction is there between “Managed WordPress Hosting” and “WordPress-as-a-Service?” If you don’t need to “self-host,” why not WordPress.com? But then, what is “self-hosting” when it’s being “managed” (i.e., not by you) that makes it different from SaaS WordPress? WordPress.com has way more in common with any managed WordPress host than either does with “less-managed” (or “mostly left to you”) server control panel middleware like ServerPilot and SpinupWP as they exist now. There’s really not much more needed than marketing and fresh interfaces to get people to realize [WordPress.com is managed WordPress hosting](https://poststatus.com/what-might-wordpress-coms-pricing-changes-mean-for-the-wordpress-ecosystem/#wp-dot-com-hosting) — and arguably the first to do it before the term existed. (If you care about that kind of thing.) #### A game of cathedrals and bazaars they can’t fully control WordPress SaaS is Managed WordPress is WordPress SaaS. That seems likely to be how “SaaS and open source” will converge not just for WordPress.com but other major managed WordPress hosts who offer extension marketplaces and turnkey “custom” WordPress installs for common use-cases. > [Pippin Williamson and Austin Ginter](https://cdn.poststatus.com/pippin-williamson-on-awesome-motive-acquiring-sandhills-development/) have addressed the upsides and downsides to this future scenario. […] It could be more competitive or collaborative. It has to be some of both. > > If things go that way, it might work out like the Linux ecosystem, with the major WordPress hosting platforms acting as “[derived distributions](https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Derived_distributions)” (and maybe offering something like [Fedora spins](https://blog.packagecloud.io/what-are-the-best-fedora-spins/)) of WordPress core. [Pippin Williamson and Austin Ginter](https://cdn.poststatus.com/pippin-williamson-on-awesome-motive-acquiring-sandhills-development/) have addressed the upsides and downsides to this future scenario — possibly an ecosystem of ecosystems that expands the total marketplace — with multiple marketplaces. [Brian Coords’ shopping center analogy is apt](https://masterwp.com/when-the-cathedral-owns-the-bazaar/) — or a maybe cluster of cathedrals, basilicas, and chapels each facing a series of bazaars they sponsor, host, or loosely control. (In such a zealously religious, maybe over-churched culture, the bazaars are bound to be bizarre.) A puzzle and game I’ve had sitting on my coffee table for years… It could be more competitive or collaborative. It has to be some of both. How well will they play together, support developers, help WordPress businesses and common users do creative work — and grow their businesses? #### What is “open?” Who do you trust? How do we do this together? Maybe a decade ago, WordPress (the community/project/ecosystem) was too SaaS-led for its own good. Trust issues followed inevitably from the brand being tied to Automattic, and inside a SaaS product, your limited level of control (which is nine-tenths of ownership) is clear. Inside a hosting panel, or the WordPress admin, or WP-CLI connecting to “your server” you may think otherwise. The reality is virtually the same. The experience — how you think or feel about it — is very different. > As always, the important and perennial questions are, “What’s really “[open](https://poststatus.com/open-web-manifesto/)?” Who do you trust? How do we maintain this [big messy thing](https://poststatus.com/wordpress-as-a-commons/)… [together](https://poststatus.com/common-things-unite-us/)?” Because, after all, [we are impossibly knotted together](https://poststatus.com/impossibly-knotted-together-meditations-on-the-wordpress-community/). > > As always, the important and permanent questions are, “What’s really “[open](https://poststatus.com/open-web-manifesto/)?” Who do you trust? How do we maintain this [big messy thing](https://poststatus.com/wordpress-as-a-commons/)… [together](https://poststatus.com/common-things-unite-us/)?” Because, after all, [we are impossibly knotted together](https://poststatus.com/impossibly-knotted-together-meditations-on-the-wordpress-community/). Clearly, you can’t please everyone all of the time. But try to think of a brand other than WordPress (in open source, tech, or beyond) with such popularity, growth, and market dominance that has a community always ready to see the glass half full or have a go at each other. It’s a culture of altruists who fear mercenaries lurking everywhere. And the fingers point in all directions. For reasons. But try to think of anything comparable — [a commons](https://poststatus.com/wordpress-as-a-commons/) — that’s this big, diverse, and decentralized with lots of opportunities for everyone. Chronic discontent may just be the weather that goes with that. Let’s call it “constant questioning,” to put the accent on the positive value in it. [](https://poststatus.com/) [Dan Knauss](https://poststatus.com/author/dan-knauss/) is the **Editor** at **Post Status**. He’s a writer and editor, sometimes a teacher, and occasionally still an open-source web developer and consultant., An Operating System for the Web, Dan Knauss, 01j92rrm17j09k78zfxc1s1r07.