Tuesday, June 24, 2025  ## Metadata - Author: [[Scripting News]] - Full Title: Tuesday, June 24, 2025 - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #wordpress - #openweb - #federation Author: Scripting News (Dave Winer) Source: Blog post Reference: http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524 date created: 2025-08-21 00:00 --- # Title: WordPress as the OS of the Open Social Web ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#📝-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#📖-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#🗒️-notes) - [📖 References](#📖-references) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#🗣️-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#📰-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#✅-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#🧪-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#📊-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#❓-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#🔮-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#💡-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#🧠-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#📊-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#🌍-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical validity](#✅-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#🔍-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#🔍-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#🎯-conclusion) ### References: Include a list of sources consulted and cited in the article. ## 📝 Summary: The author highlights positive feedback from Automattic developer Jeremy Herve on the idea of “WordPress as the OS of the open social web.” The post argues that WordPress uniquely embodies open web principles in both philosophy and practice: it supports writers, avoids lock-in, maintains backward compatibility, and treats developers and users as first-class citizens. The author commits to building deliberately around this open, competitive ecosystem, emphasizing “there is only one web.” A closing section quietly promotes the Scripting News nightly email with an emphasis on consent, ease of unsubscribing, and reader respect. Notable quotes: - “WordPress as the OS of the open social web.” - “It never locks its users in. That’s a deal-stopper.” - “They also appear to never break users and developers.” - “There is only one web.” Approximate anchors: - Opener and WordPress thesis (~0%): http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524 - Newsletter invite (~50%): http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524 ## 📖 Main Content: The post positions WordPress as a foundational layer (“OS”) for a federated, writer-centric open social web. It distinguishes WordPress from closed platforms that “couldn’t even realistically claim to be part of the web,” citing lock-in and poor support for writers. The author praises WordPress’s culture of backward compatibility and openness—“never break users and developers”—and its alignment with web fundamentals where “everyone is a guest.” The practical commitment is to build “slowly and deliberately,” welcoming competition to preserve openness. The post ends with a soft, opt-in call to subscribe to a nightly email, underscoring user agency and trust. Personal insight: - Framing WordPress as an OS highlights its plugin/theme APIs, REST endpoints, and content portability. This metaphor can guide architectural choices for social features (activity streams, identity, moderation) that remain interoperable with broader web standards (RSS/Atom, WebSub, ActivityPub). - The cultural point (“never break users”) is not just technical—it’s governance. It suggests community norms and policies that reinforce stability and respect for creators and developers. ### 🗒️ Notes - Thesis: WordPress can be the OS of the open social web (~0%) - Emphasizes writer support and content ownership. - Contrasts with closed platforms lacking web-native openness. - Openness and non-lock-in (~0–10%) - “It never locks its users in”—a core requirement of web platforms. - Competition is welcomed to keep the ecosystem healthy. - Practice over rhetoric (~10–20%) - “Embraced the concepts of the web… in their practice.” - No artificial barriers to extend or replicate functionality. - Backward compatibility (~20–30%) - “Never break users and developers” as a rule. - Stability enables long-term investment by creators and plugin authors. - Web ethos (~30–40%) - “There is only one web… everyone is a guest.” - Anti-walled-garden stance; inclusivity via open standards. - Newsletter invitation (~50%) - Polite, no pop-ups; consent and easy unsubscribe. - Value proposition: daily digest + linkblog; reader-respecting design. ## 📖 References: - “WordPress as the OS of the open social web” framing in the post: http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524 - Context on ActivityPub for WordPress (external): “ActivityPub for WordPress” plugin page: https://wordpress.org/plugins/activitypub/ - General background on open web principles: “The Web’s Founder on Openness” by W3C/Tim Berners-Lee: https://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/ - Automattic/WordPress backward compatibility culture: “Plugin Developer Handbook” (best practices): https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/ ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1) Original idea (~0%): “WordPress as the OS of the open social web… It has so much more than the other possible platforms… They don’t support writers very well.” - Paraphrase: WordPress can serve as the foundational layer for a federated, open social ecosystem. Compared to alternatives, it’s substantially better at empowering writers with robust tools and autonomy. 2) Original ethos (~20–40%): “They also appear to never break users and developers… there is only one web… everyone is a guest.” - Paraphrase: WordPress tends to preserve stability for both users and developers, reflecting a core web philosophy: the web is singular and shared, and platforms should behave with humility inside that commons. ## 📰 Newsletter: This week in WordPress and the open web: we’re leaning into a powerful framing—WordPress as the “OS of the open social web.” That means content you truly own, interoperability by default, and zero lock-in. If you’re learning web dev, this is your playground: experiment with REST API endpoints, ActivityPub integration, and RSS/WebSub for distribution. Community highlights include creators doubling down on portability-first publishing and developers shipping compatibility-minded updates. New plugins worth a look: ActivityPub for cross-network follows, and consent-first newsletter tools that keep unsubscribing painless. Keep building for people, not walled gardens—and remember, there’s only one web. Explore the ActivityPub plugin on the WordPress directory and revisit the Plugin Developer Handbook for rock-solid compatibility patterns. ## ✅ Action Items: Strategic prompt for alignment with your Developer Advocate/OSPO trajectory: - Map to open-source advocacy: Identify how the article’s “no lock-in” ethos supports contributor rights, data portability, and transparent governance within WordPress projects you champion. - Contributor engagement: Extract practices from “never break users and developers” to inform contribution guidelines, backwards-compat policies, and newcomer-friendly review processes. - Education: Design curricula on content ownership, federation (ActivityPub), and sustainable plugin maintenance; include hands-on labs for RSS, WebSub, and migration/backup. - OSPO readiness: Translate the “one web” principle into policy proposals for procurement (favor open standards), license compliance, and de-risking vendor lock-in. - Transparency and inclusivity: Publish decision logs on breaking changes, adopt consent-first UX (e.g., newsletter patterns), and build inclusive onboarding documentation. - WordPress ecosystem impact: Showcase case studies where competition and interoperability improved user outcomes; propose a portability pledge for projects you support. Prompt to reuse per article: “Analyze how this article advances an open, federated web aligned with WordPress culture: identify implications for contributor onboarding, backward compatibility, data portability, and community governance. Propose educational modules (PHP/JS/HTML/CSS/Git/GitHub) and OSPO policies that promote transparency, inclusivity, and sustainable funding. Outline measurable steps to foster an interoperable, lock-in-free WordPress ecosystem, connecting on-stage advocacy with concrete contributor pathways.” ## 🧪 H - Summary: Dave Winer, OG blogger, podcaster, developed first apps in many categories. Old enough to know better. It's even worse than it appears. - URL: http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524 [](https://herve.bzh/wordpress-wordland-and-the-open-web/) [Jeremy Herve](https://github.com/jeherve) is a developer at Automattic. Here's [what he said](https://herve.bzh/wordpress-wordland-and-the-open-web/) about yesterday's [podcast](https://shownotes.scripting.com/scripting/2025/06/23/wordpressAndMe.html). He liked the idea of WordPress as the OS of the open social web. Glad that resonated. It has so much more than the other possible platforms. The others couldn't even realistically claim to be part of the web. They don't support writers very well. We're going to build slowly and deliberately around this idea, always staying open for competitors, because that's the most important thing about the web, beyond its simplicity, it *never* locks its users in. That's a deal-stopper. As I've learned how WordPress works internally, I immediately saw that they embraced the concepts of the web not just as words, but in their practice. I never hit a wall that kept me out of doing something they already did. And they also appear to never break users and developers. That's one of the basic rules of the web, it's an unchanging thing, no one can break it because everyone is a [guest](https://this.how/googleAndHttp/). Anyway, there is only one web. Keep that in mind. Nothing exclusive about it. [#](http://scripting.com/2025/06/24.html#a115524) © copyright 1994-2025 Dave Winer. Last update: Tuesday June 24, 2025; 8:49 AM EDT. You know those obnoxious sites that pop up dialogs when they think you're about to leave, asking you to subscribe to their email newsletter? Well that won't do for Scripting News readers who are a discerning lot, very loyal, but that wouldn't last long if I did rude stuff like that. So here I am at the bottom of the page *quietly* encouraging you to [sign up for the nightly email](http://scripting.com/email/). It's got everything from the previous day on Scripting, plus the contents of the linkblog and who knows what else we'll get in there. People really love it. I wish I had done it sooner. And every email has an unsub link so if you want to get out, you can, easily -- no questions asked, and no follow-ups. Go ahead and do it, you won't be sorry! :-) Thanks for listening., Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Scripting News, 01jyj407v2cxpmywtek3n9g9zc.