Automattic’s Anne McCarthy Joins the PHP Foundation Board

McCarthy says they want to bring the PHP and WordPress communities closer together, starting with conversations at WCUS in Phoenix.

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DocsBot Launches Free AI Sidekick for WordCamp US 2026 Attendees, Builds It a Physical Body Too

It started as an internal travel tool. Then university students helped make it too useful not to share. And now they’re building it a body with a 3D printer won at a previous WCUS.

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Patchstack Challenges WordPress.org to Fast-Track Security Fixes Under Protect the Shire

Patchstack tracked 114 releases and found no difference in hold times between a critical security fix and a cosmetic update. The Plugins Team says authors can email to skip the wait.

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Issue #313 - Protect the Shire's first win, WP Engine alleges Automattic destroyed evidence, and WP Engine launches SaaS with BigCommerce

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Jamie Marsland Among Educators Leading WordCamp US 2026 Beginner Workshops

The workshops started as a one-off in Portland last year. Now they’re a four-day track, and attendees will leave with a site, a domain, and a free year of hosting.

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Protect the Shire Scores First Win as Wordfence AI Agent Catches Plugin Backdoor Before It Reaches Users

A supply chain backdoor planted in a plugin with 20,000 active installs was caught by Wordfence and quickly shut down within Protect the Shire’s hold window.

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First Student Survey Shows WordPress Credits Building Skills and Satisfaction, With Focus Now On Retention

The first analysis of student feedback since WordPress Credits started shows strong satisfaction scores, with the focus now moving to quality and retention.

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WordPress Credits Calls for Help Designing a Developer Track Ahead of a US College Pilot

A US college wants to join Credits but needs its students writing code. It’s prompted the program to build its first pathway shaped around a field of study.

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WordPress 7.1 Beta 4 Adds Opt-Out for Responsive Styling, Punts Inherited Styles Display

WordPress 7.1 Beta 4 gives sites a way to turn off responsive style editing, and drops the inherited styles display after contributors couldn’t agree on a design approach.

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WP Engine Partners With BigCommerce Parent Commerce to Launch Ecommerce Platform for High-Growth Merchants

WP Engine’s second vertical platform launch this year targets mid-market merchants doing millions in revenue who’ve outgrown their existing commerce stack.

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WP Engine Accuses Automattic of Destroying Evidence, Asks Court to Dismiss Trademark Counterclaims

WP Engine claims sworn declarations and deposition testimony contradict months of assurances that Matt Mullenweg’s WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram messages had been preserved.

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Class Action Against Automattic to Proceed After Judge Finds Company Tracked WP Engine Customers

After their proposed class action was dismissed in December, two agency owners have survived a second motion to dismiss thanks to the WordPress Engine Tracker website.

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Issue #312 - WordPress 7.0.2 patches rare RCE, WP 7.1 Beta 3 ships, and Mullenweg responds to calls to bring back data

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The WP Community Collective Rebrands as The WPOCC After WordPress Foundation Files Trademark Application for ‘WPCC’

New name, same mission. The WP Open Community Collective says it has rebranded to better reflect its intent to support open source contributors beyond WordPress.

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WordPress 7.1 Beta 3 Now Available, Punts Unicode Email Support Over Security Concerns

Unicode email address support was merged into core six weeks ago after 11 years of development. It’s been pulled from 7.1 and will move to a community plugin.

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WordPress Playground Team Calls for Testers as New Dock-Based UI Aims to Fix Feature Discoverability

Playground has supported persistent sites since March, but users keep telling the team they don’t know that. A new dock-based UI aims to fix the discoverability problem.

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Matt Mullenweg Responds to Active Install Growth Data Ticket for First Time in Four Years, Cites “Competing Interests”

Four years after WordPress.org pulled the active install growth data for plugins, Matt Mullenweg has responded with a new reason for not bringing them back.

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Security Researcher Used OpenAI’s Sol Ultra to Find WordPress’s Worst Vulnerability in Years

The full exploit chain abuses six internal WordPress mechanisms to go from anonymous visitor to admin in two HTTP requests.

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WordCamp US 2026 Publishes Schedule With Expanded AI Programming and New Beginner Track

The WCUS 2026 schedule is now live, with AI dominating the program as organizers look to attract attendees with a beginner track and a small business marketplace in Phoenix next month.

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WordPress 7.0.2 Patches Rare Pre-Authentication RCE as Hosts, CDNs Get 24-Hour Head Start

A private Slack channel, 24 hours’ notice, and strict information-sharing rules. How the WordPress project coordinated industry-wide defenses before going public with vulnerabilities.

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Issue #311 - WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 out now, Seahawk sues CloudLinux, and WCUS 2026 plays catch-up again

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WordPress Security Team Details 18 Months of GitHub Actions Hardening, Plans Org-Wide Enforcement

The Security Team has been tightening CI/CD workflows across WordPress’s GitHub repos since January 2025. Here’s what they’ve done, and what’s next.

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WordPress 7.1 Beta 1 Ships With Responsive Styling, Media Overhaul, and Persistent Toolbar

The WordPress 7.1 roadmap promised collaboration as a throughline. What’s shipped in Beta 1 is a styling and media release — and it’s solid.

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WordCamp US 2026 Plays Catch-Up for Second Year Running as Ticket Sales Lag and Community Waits for Schedule

Is it the Phoenix heat, the yet-to-be published schedule and speaker lineup, or something deeper? The WordPress community has ideas — and opinions — about why WordCamp US 2026 has low ticket sales.

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Delaware Court Blocks CloudLinux From Launching AutopilotWP After Seahawk Alleges Competing Tool Was Built Using Its Trade Secrets

A Delaware court has halted CloudLinux’s planned launch of AutopilotWP after Seahawk accused the company of using confidential business information to build a competing WordPress maintenance platform.

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Matt Mullenweg Vetoes Plan to Merge Knowledge Post Type and Guidelines in Core, Says AI Features Need Real-World Adoption First

WordPress co-founder says features should have impressive week-to-work growth before they land in core. A proposal for a new Knowledge post type and Guidelines feature didn’t meet that bar.

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Issue #310 - WP Engine fights Foundation trademark bids, $372K community event deficit, and are declining plugin sales the canary?

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WordPress 7.0.1 Now Available, Fixes 31 Bugs

The first maintenance release for 7.0 fixes admin reskin issues, a CSS sanitization bug, and block editor regressions ahead of the 7.1 release.

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Are Declining Plugin Sales the Canary in WordPress’ Coalmine?

Declining plugin sales are real, but they don’t tell the whole story. In this op-ed, Matt Cromwell examines the forces reshaping the WordPress product market — from AI and search disruption to…

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WordPress Community Support Recorded a $372,000 Deficit in 2025 Even as Event Attendance Rose 27%

The WordPress Foundation’s annual financials show a $722,000 swing in the event subsidiary’s bottom line, and include an warning about WP Engine’s legal action.

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