---
title: "On Forking WordPress"
id: "9174"
type: "post"
slug: "on-forking-wordpress"
published_at: "2024-09-24T17:23:08+00:00"
modified_at: "2024-09-24T17:23:11+00:00"
url: "https://sethgoldstein.me/on-forking-wordpress/"
markdown_url: "https://sethgoldstein.me/on-forking-wordpress.md"
excerpt: "It’s been floated with the recent outburst between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, that the community should fork (aka move the OSS) WordPress to a new project, with out the drama (or so it’s thought). I’m not sure how I..."
taxonomy_category:
  - "WordPress"
taxonomy_post_tag:
  - "forking projects"
  - "governance"
  - "open source"
  - "wordpress"
  - "wpeVSmatt"
---

[WordPress](https://sethgoldstein.me/wordpress/)

# On Forking WordPress

![Image](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/776e9f93cb72a6ef49cc303f0f3a5843419a07f0043cb23d64f49db44c56aeba?s=48&r=g)

Seth Goldstein

·

September 24, 2024

Sol 3569

![stainless steel fork with black background](https://sethgoldstein.me/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/ptnca-dyaf4.webp)

It’s been floated with the recent outburst between Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, that the community should fork (aka move the OSS) WordPress to a new project, with out the drama (or so it’s thought).

I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’s not going to be a small feat. When WordPress was forked from B2/cafeblog back on 2004 (correct me if that year is wrong). The Web was smaller, and WordPress didn’t power 40%+ of the Websites on the Web.

I think we need to separate WordPress.com/Automattic/Matt Mullenweg from the WordPress.org/WordPress Foundation.

I think WordPress.com needs to be 301-redirected to .org and Automattic needs to find a new name for their paid-service.

Matt complains about people being confused by WP Engine’s usage of WP, which I might add is not trademarked.

Matt has caused the LARGEST confusion of anyone with Automattic’s usage of WordPress.com!!!!

So to get back to the point. I don’t think forking WordPress.org is the answer. I think governance is the answer. And a clear delineation between DOT COM and DOT ORG needs to be made.

[forking projects](https://sethgoldstein.me/tag/forking-projects/)
, [governance](https://sethgoldstein.me/tag/governance/)
, [open source](https://sethgoldstein.me/tag/open-source/)
, [wordpress](https://sethgoldstein.me/tag/wordpress/)
, [wpeVSmatt](https://sethgoldstein.me/tag/wpevsmatt/)