Imagine a more open web where people can switch between any platform of their choosing. A web where being locked into a system is a thing of the past. This is the web I’ve always wanted to see. That’s why I announced a new initiative called Data Liberation for 2024. Migrating your site to WordPress, or exporting all your content from WordPress, should be possible in one click. I want WordPress’ export format to become the lingua franca of CMSes, whether coming to WordPress or moving within WordPress.
I often hear about folks across the WordPress community duplicating efforts when creating scripts and workflows to move users to WordPress. Imagine if we shared those resources instead and built community-owned plugins that anyone could use!
But it should be more than plugins; workflows, tutorials, and helper scripts should be shared, too. I want this resource to have space to include moving from social networks, moving from a page builder to core blocks, switching from classic to blocks, and improving WordPress current canonical plugins for importing.
You can help!
Of course, the heart of any open source project is the community that shows up to build it. My hope is that this marks the start of a new contribution pathway, separate from core teams, that allows folks to contribute what they’ve learned and what they’ve created to help others move to WordPress. I expect this emphasis on migration will also influence future development, both in core and with recommended community or canonical plugins.
There are a few things that I think will be key to making this project a success:
A dedicated landing page on WordPress.org following a WordPress.org/and/[platform-name] format.
A forum used for non-review user feedback and general discussion.
A dedicated Slack channel.
Moderation within hours rather than days.
Listed on WordPress GitHub with syncing for individual commits to SVN for history in both places.
It’s never been more crucial to champion openness on the web. Bringing focused attention to improved portability will untether users and increase their freedom like never before.
When it comes to designing a website, one size doesn’t fit all. We understand that every WordPress user has unique needs and goals, whether you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, a passionate photographer, a prolific writer, or a bit of them all. That’s why we are thrilled to introduce Twenty Twenty-Four, the most versatile default theme yet—bundled with WordPress 6.4 and ready to make it uniquely yours.
A theme for every style
Unlike past default themes, Twenty Twenty-Four breaks away from the tradition of focusing on a specific topic or style. Instead, this theme has been thoughtfully crafted to cater to any type of website, regardless of its focus. The theme explores three different use cases: one designed for entrepreneurs and small businesses, another for photographers and artists, and a third tailored for writers and bloggers. Thanks to its multi-faceted nature and adaptability, Twenty Twenty-Four emerges as the perfect fit for any of your projects.
As you dive into its templates and patterns, you will notice how the new Site Editor functionality opens up different pathways for building your site seamlessly.
Patterns at every step
Whether you’re looking to craft an About page, showcase your work, handle RSVPs, or design captivating landing pages, Twenty Twenty-Four has got you covered.Choose from an extensive collection of over 35 beautiful patterns to customize and suit your needs.
For the first time, this theme features full-page patterns for templates like homepage, archive, search, single pages, and posts. Some are exclusively available during the template-switching and creation process, ensuring you have the right options when you need them.
Moreover, you can take advantage of a variety of patterns for page sections, such as FAQs, testimonials, or pricing, to meet your site’s most specific requirements.
With this diverse pattern library, Twenty Twenty-Four offers a flexible canvas to quickly assemble pages without having to start from scratch—saving you time and energy in the creation process. Just let your creativity flow and explore the possibilities!
Site editing in its finest form
Twenty Twenty-Four ushers in a new era of block themes by bringing together the latest WordPress site editing capabilities. Discover newer design tools such as background image support in Group blocks and vertical text, providing an intuitive and efficient way to create compelling, interactive content.
Find image placeholders with predefined aspect ratio settings within patterns, allowing you to drop images that perfectly fill the space. To go one step further, make your visuals interactive by enabling lightboxes. Ideal for showcasing galleries or portfolio images, this feature allows your visitors to expand and engage with them in full-screen mode. Activate it globally for all images throughout your site or for specific ones.
For a smoother browsing experience on your site, you can disable the “Force page reload” setting in the Query Loop block. This allows the necessary content to be loaded dynamically when switching between different pages without needing a full-page refresh.
Elegance with purpose
Twenty Twenty-Four goes beyond versatility with a beautiful aesthetic inspired by contemporary design trends, giving your website a sleek and modern look. Key design elements include:
Cardo font for headlines: The Cardo font adds a touch of elegance to your site, creating a sophisticated visual experience.
Sans-serif system font for paragraphs: The sans-serif font ensures that your texts are cleaner and easier to read, enhancing overall readability.
Eight style variations: Twenty Twenty-Four presents a light color palette for a fresh and inviting appearance out-of-the-box, but you can customize it with seven additional style variations. Each includes fonts and colors carefully curated to work beautifully alongside the patterns and templates.
Sans-serif variations: Besides the default styles, the theme offers two additional sans-serif variations, providing more choices for your site’s typography.
Along with its design, Twenty Twenty-Four has been meticulously optimized for performance. This ensures that your website not only looks great but also delivers a fast and efficient user experience.
WordPress 6.4.1 is a short-cycle release. If you have sites that support automatic background updates, the update process will begin automatically. If your site does not update automatically, you can also update from your Dashboard.
This release was led by Aaron Jorbin and Tonya Mork. Thank you to everyone who tested the RC and 6.4.1, and raised reports.
WordPress 6.4.1 would not have been possible without the contributions of the following people. Their quick and concerted coordination to deliver maintenance fixes into a stable release is a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.
To get involved in WordPress core development, head over to Trac, pick a ticket, and join the conversation in the #core channel. Need help? Check out the Core Contributor Handbook.
Say hello to WordPress 6.4 “Shirley,” named after the iconic jazz artist Shirley Horn. Her distinctive voice and extraordinary connection to the piano established her as one of the leading jazz musicians of her generation. Horn’s journey from the Washington D.C. jazz scene to the international stage is a testament to her dedication and perseverance. Her influence reached far beyond the confines of traditional jazz, breaking boundaries and inspiring audiences worldwide.
This latest version of WordPress introduces a new, versatile default theme and a suite of upgrades to empower every step of your creative journey. Craft your content seamlessly with further writing improvements. Explore more ways to bring your vision to life and streamline site editing with enhanced tools. Whether you’re new to WordPress or an experienced creator, “Shirley” has something for you. Discover the unmatched flexibility of building with blocks and let your ideas take flight.
Many of the features and enhancements in WordPress 6.4 fall in the “small but mighty” category. Along with the adaptable beauty of the Twenty Twenty-Four theme, these updates help content creators and site developers alike save time and effort while delivering the high value, low hassle WordPress experience the world has grown to expect.
Josepha Haden Chomphosy, Executive Director of WordPress
Experience site editing at its finest with Twenty Twenty-Four. This new multi-faceted default theme has been thoughtfully crafted with three distinct use cases in mind, from writers and artists to entrepreneurs. Save time and effort with its extensive collection of over 35 templates and patterns—and unlock a world of creative possibilities with a few tweaks. Twenty Twenty-Four’s remarkable flexibility ensures an ideal fit for almost any type of site. Check it out in this demo.
Let your writing flow
New enhancements ensure your content creation journey is smooth. Find new keyboard shortcuts in List View, smarter list merging, and enhanced control over link settings. A cohesive toolbar experience for the Navigation, List, and Quote blocks lets you work efficiently with the tooling options you need.
The Command Palette just got better
First introduced in WordPress 6.3, the Command Palette is a powerful tool to quickly find what you need, perform tasks efficiently, and speed up your building workflow. Enjoy a refreshed design and new commands to perform block-specific actions in this release.
Categorize and filter patterns
Patterns are an excellent way to leverage the potential of blocks and simplify your site-building process. WordPress 6.4 allows you to organize them with custom categories. Plus, new advanced filtering in the Patterns section of the inserter makes finding all your patterns more intuitive.
Get creative with more design tools
Build beautiful and functional layouts with an expanded set of design tools. Play with background images in Group blocks for unique designs and maintain image dimensions consistent with placeholder aspect ratios. Do you want to add buttons to your Navigation block? Now you can do it conveniently without a line of code.
Make your images stand out
Enable lightbox functionality to let your site visitors enjoy full-screen, interactive images on click. Apply it globally or to specific images to customize the viewing experience.
Rename Group blocks
Set custom names for Group blocks to organize and distinguish areas of your content easily. These names will be visible in List View.
Preview images in List View
New previews for Gallery and Image blocks in List View let you visualize and locate where images on your content are at a glance.
Share patterns across sites
Need to use your custom patterns on another site? Import and export them as JSON files from the Site Editor’s patterns view.
Introducing Block Hooks
Block Hooks enables developers to automatically insert dynamic blocks at specific content locations, enriching the extensibility of block themes through plugins. While considered a developer tool, this feature is geared to respect your preferences and gives you complete control to add, dismiss, and customize auto-inserted blocks to your needs.
Every release is committed to making WordPress accessible to everyone. WordPress 6.4 brings several List View improvements and aria-label support for the Navigation block, among other highlights. The admin user interface includes enhancements to button placements, “Add New” menu items context, and Site Health spoken messages. Learn more about all the updates aimed at improving accessibility.
Other notes of interest
PHP 8.1 or 8.2 are recommended for use with WordPress 6.4. Find in-depth details on PHP support in this post.
Check out the new WordPress 6.4 page to learn more about the numerous enhancements and features of this release.
Explore Learn WordPress for quick how-to videos, online workshops, and other free resources to level up your WordPress knowledge and skills.
If you are looking for detailed technical notes on new changes, the WordPress 6.4 Field Guide is for you. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Developer Blog to stay on top of the latest development updates, tutorials, and more.
For more information on installation, fixes, and file changes, visit the 6.4 release notes.
The 6.4 release squad
The WordPress 6.4 release comes to you from an underrepresented gender release squad to welcome and empower diverse voices in the WordPress open source project.
Being part of the 6.4 release coordination team has allowed me to closely observe the intricate release process, where every detail, no matter how minor, is meticulously addressed—taking into account various factors like performance and backward compatibility. There’s still much to learn, but I feel fortunate to have had the chance to contribute to WordPress 6.4.
Akshaya Rane, 6.4 release coordinator team member
Over several weeks, the 6.4 release squad kept the release on track and moving forward by leading collective work, connecting ideas, and removing roadblocks.
WordPress believes in democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source. Supporting this idea is a global and diverse community of people working together to strengthen the software.
WordPress 6.4 reflects the countless efforts and passion of more than 600 contributors in at least 56 countries. This release also welcomed over 170 first-time contributors!
Their collaboration delivered more than 1150 enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all—a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress open source community.
Over 60 locales have translated 90 percent or more of WordPress 6.4 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you to everyone who helps make WordPress available in 200 languages.
Last but not least, thanks to the volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.
Get involved
Participation in WordPress is not limited to coding. If contributing appeals to you, learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress, and use this interactive tool to help you decide which is right for you.
The present and future of WordPress hold exciting opportunities for everyone, builders and enterprises alike. The foundational work for Phase 3 of the roadmap continues, with efforts focused on fostering real-time collaboration and streamlining publishing flows to improve how creators and teams work together in WordPress.
In an effort to keep the WordPress community up to date, this post provides an update on the PHP compatibility of the upcoming WordPress 6.4 release scheduled for November 7, 2023.
Recommended PHP version for WordPress 6.4
It’s recommended to use PHP 8.1 or 8.2 with this upcoming release. Please refer to the Hosting page for more detailed information, including a few known issues.
Reach out to your hosting company to explore PHP upgrade options.
Why does compatibility matter?
PHP is a programming language on which the WordPress code is based. This language runs on the server, and it is critical to keep it updated for security and functionality. Various teams within the WordPress open source project work to both test and fix any issues with new PHP versions so you can update with confidence that the WordPress core software is compatible.
Each year, the WordPress community (users, site builders, extenders, and contributors) provides valuable feedback through an annual survey. The results can influence the direction of the WordPress project by identifying areas that need attention. Annual surveying can also help track trends over time, with data points often finding their way into the yearly State of the Word address.
This survey helps those who build WordPress understand more about how the software is used and by whom. The survey also allows WordPress open source project leaders to learn more about our contributors’ experiences.
To ensure your WordPress experience gets represented in the 2023 survey results, take the survey now (link).
You may also take the survey in other languages by using the link above and switching to another language, thanks to the efforts of WordPress polyglot contributors.
The survey will be open for five weeks. Results will be published on the News blog in early December.
This year, like last year, the survey has undergone some improvements to the flow and question set. A new platform is also being piloted, offering an updated interface, enhanced multi-lingual support, expanded analysis and visualization tools for the results, and more. The new platform also has built-in accessibility and privacy controls, ensuring the survey meets the diverse needs of the WordPress community.
Spread the word
Please help spread the word about the survey by sharing it with your network, through Slack, or within your social media accounts. The more people who complete the survey and share their experience with WordPress, the more the project will benefit.
Security and privacy
Data security and privacy are paramount to the WordPress project and community. With this in mind, all data will be anonymized: no email addresses or IP addresses will be associated with published results. To learn more about WordPress.org’s privacy practices, view the privacy policy.
Thank you
Thank you to the following WordPress contributors for assisting with the annual survey project, including question creation, strategy, survey build-out, and translation:
Nearly 2,000 attendees gathered for two days of keynotes, sessions, and community-building conversations at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in the largest attended WordCamp US ever. Saturday’s sessions concluded with back-to-back keynotes by WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Executive Director Josepha Haden Chomphosy.
What’s Next for WordPress
Josepha launched her keynote by celebrating 20 years of WordPress and reflecting on its journey from a blogging tool to the world’s most popular community-driven web platform. On WordPress as a platform for empowerment and change, Josepha shared, “The more people that know about WordPress, the more people can access the incredible opportunities that WordPress can provide.” And that sustaining the platform for future generations ensures these opportunities will persist. She added, “We exist for as long as people want to use our software.”
The community is the key to sustaining WordPress, and Josepha touched on the importance of WordCamps, workshops, and events that create value, promote inclusivity, and spark inspiration. WordPress can be a catalyst for positive change in the life of a contributor, end user, or site builder.
Concluding her keynote, Josepha asked the audience to think about the story they’d want to tell about themselves and their time in WordPress; and the story they would want WordPress to tell the world.
What’s Next for Gutenberg
Matt began his keynote with a touch of nostalgia, referring to a comment on his personal blog in 2003 by WordPress Co-founder Mike Little, and then looked ahead to the most recent release, WordPress 6.3. As this year’s largest release, it includes new features such as the Command Palette, a quick way (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows) to search your site and access common commands.
Matt continued, “WordPress never rests, so right around the corner is WordPress 6.4 on Nov 7… with some cool new features.” He shared that 6.4, like 5.6, will be an underrepresented gender-led release. A new default theme, Twenty Twenty-Four, is tailored for entrepreneurs and small businesses, photographers and artists, and writers and bloggers. Additionally, 6.4 will feature integrated font management and Image block options to expand single images for optimal viewing.
Looking further into the future, Matt highlighted Phase 3 of the Gutenberg project, which will focus on workflows and collaboration, “moving WordPress from a single-player to a multi-player tool.” In that spirit of collaboration, a new #LMS working group will also bring WordPress learning management systems together to improve the web standards for courses and learning content.
Beyond Phase 3, Matt shared thoughts about what it means to support WordPress many years from now. A new 100-Year Plan from WordPress.com is an exploration into long-term planning for your online presence. He encouraged attendees to be inspired by the region’s history, reflecting on what it would mean to honor the past while anticipating and planning for the future.
Q&A
A Q&A session followed the keynotes, with questions submitted by the in-person audience and live stream viewers.
Earlier this year, WordPressers around the globe united to celebrate 20 years of community and innovation. There were parties, blogs, videos, and social media posts aplenty. And, of course, the trending hashtag, “#WP20”.
Throughout April and May, community members reflected on their journeys – what brought them to WordPress and its personal meaning. The stories, tweets, and videos were inspiring, nostalgic, and even humorous at times. There was swag, and the cakes were epic.
WordPress celebrates 20 years tomorrow. It's grown from a comment on a blog post to a web spanning phenomenon. Thanks to an outstanding community and the freedoms of Open Source. Happy Birthday, WordPress! #WP20#WordPresspic.twitter.com/fght4XMJXb
I'm sure you've seen by now, but today is WordPress' 20th birthday! Thank you to @photomatt and @mikelittlezed1 for following through with a seemingly wild idea. I don't think anyone could have predicted we'd end up where we are today. Happy birthday @WordPress! #WP20pic.twitter.com/tAZRlYThuS
A WordPress event is not complete without a Wapuu, and not only was there one, but there was a whole campaign to color it in! Thanks to Em DeRosia for creating the commemorative Wapuu!
The Marketing team ran an interactive campaign, From Blogs to Blocks, a series of prompts across 20 days for WordPress enthusiasts to celebrate all-things WordPress.
Additional campaigns took place on social media and included prompting folks to share their favorite WordPress memory and most cherished WordPress swag item, to highlight the 21 contributing teams, and even to share a birthday greeting.
Say hello to WordPress 6.3 “Lionel,” named after Lionel Hampton, the celebrated American jazz artist. A prolific jazz vibraphonist, pianist, and percussionist, Hampton gained notoriety working in harmony with greats from Charles Mingus to Quincy Jones and as bandleader of the eponymous Lionel Hampton Orchestra. His artistry and charitable work have been recognized with a Grammy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and the National Medal of Arts.
Be sure to turn up the volume of the musical stylings of Lionel Hampton as you discover all “Lionel” has to offer.
With “Lionel” you can create beautiful and compelling websites more efficiently than ever. Whether you want to build an entire site without coding or are a developer looking to customize every detail, WordPress 6.3 has something to pique your interest. As you unpack and explore this latest release, you will discover updated functions and navigation designed to help you work and create with less effort, design tools that give you more control over layout, and added functionality enriching the site-building experience.
“Lionel” marks a major chapter in the evolution of WordPress as a tool for expression. It’s the culmination of years of work from hundreds of contributors, bringing a more powerful and cohesive editing experience for crafting websites with blocks. It continues the quest of making web publishing approachable for everyone—so it’s also just a new beginning!
This momentous release opens new possibilities for the creative expression of designers, creators, and builders. Powerful tools and refined controls give users confidence and allow them to easily manage their sites.
Do everything in the Site Editor
WordPress 6.3 brings your content, templates, and patterns together in the Site Editor for the first time. Add pages, browse style variations, create synced patterns, and enjoy fine-tuned control over navigation menus. Spend less time switching across different site areas—so you can focus on what matters most. Creation to completion, all in one place.
Do everything in the Site Editor
Preview Block themes
Experience block themes before you switch and preview the Site Editor, with options to customize directly before committing to a new theme.
Preview a new block theme before you switch and commit
Create and sync patterns
Arrange blocks and save them to the ‘My Patterns’ section for use throughout your site. You can even specify whether to sync your patterns (previously referred to as “Reusable blocks”) so that one change applies to all parts of your site. Or, utilize patterns as a starting point with the ability to customize each instance.
My patterns: All your patterns in one place
Work faster with the Command Palette
Switch to a specific template or open your editor preferences with a new tool that helps you quickly access expanded functionality. With simple keyboard shortcuts (⌘+k on Mac or Ctrl+k on Windows), clicking the sidebar search icon in Site View, or clicking the Title Bar, get where you need to go and do what you need to do in seconds.
Get to know the new Command Palette
Sharpen your designs with new tools
New design controls bring more versatility for fine-tuning, starting with the ability to customize your captions from the Styles interface without coding. You can manage your duotone filters in Styles for supported blocks and pick from the options provided by your theme or disable them entirely. The Cover block gets added settings for text color, layout controls, and border options, making this powerful block even more handy.
New design tools
Track design changes with Style revisions
With a new audit trail, you can now see how your site looked at a specific time. Visualize these revisions in a timeline and access a one-click option to restore prior styles.
Style revisions: See your style revision history
Annotate with the Footnotes block
Footnotes add convenient annotations throughout your content. Now you can add and link footnotes for any paragraph.
Add footnotes effortlessly with the new Footnotes Block
Show or hide content with the Details block
Use the Details block to avoid spoiling a surprise, create an interactive Q&A section, or hide a long paragraph under a heading.
Display or hide content with the new Details Block
Performance gets a boost
WordPress 6.3 has 170+ performance updates, including defer and async support for the Scripts API and fetchpriority support for images. These improvements, along with block template resolution, image lazy-loading, and the emoji loader, can dramatically improve your website’s perceived load time.
Accessibility remains a core focus
Incorporating more than 50 accessibility improvements across the platform, WordPress 6.3 is more accessible than ever. Improved labeling, optimized tab and arrow-key navigation, revised heading hierarchy, and new controls in the admin image editor allow those using assistive technologies to navigate more easily.
Other highlights
Set aspect ratio on images
Specify your aspect ratios and ensure design integrity, especially when using images in patterns.
Build your site distraction-free
Distraction-free designing is now available in the Site Editor.
Rediscover the Top Toolbar
A revamped Top Toolbar offers parent selectors for nested blocks, options when selecting multiple blocks, and an interface embedded into the title bar with new functionality in mind.
List View improvements
Drag and drop to every content layer and delete any block you would like in the updated List View.
Build templates with Patterns
Create unique patterns to jumpstart template creation with a new modal enabling access to pattern selection.
Changes in PHP support
Support for PHP 5 is discontinued. The new minimum supported version of PHP is 7.0.0.
Failed update safeguards
WordPress will now auto-restore the previously installed version of plugins or themes if something goes wrong during a failed manual update.
Learn more about WordPress and 6.3
Explore Learn WordPress for quick how-to videos, online workshops, and other resources to level up your knowledge of the latest features in WordPress.
Check out the WordPress 6.3 Field Guide for detailed developer notes to help you build with WordPress and get the most out of the latest release. Read the 6.3 release notes for additional technical details about this release, including feature recaps, installation information, file changes, fixes, and updates.
Read and subscribe to the Developer Blog for even more helpful WordPress content.
To accompany this release, a new web experience has been created to provide a more visual way of getting acquainted with the many improvements and new features of WordPress 6.3.
Seeing WordPress 6.3 in action doesn’t stop there! Be sure to watch this brief overview video to get a taste of the many things “Lionel” has to offer.
WordPress is a global software platform
61 locales have translated 90 percent or more of WordPress 6.3 into their language. Community translators are working hard to ensure more translations are on their way. Thank you, gracias, ありがとう, धन्यवाद, and ευχαριστώ to everyone who helps to make WordPress available in 200 languages.
Contributing to WordPress
WordPress believes in democratizing publishing and the freedoms that come with open source. Supporting this idea is a large community of people collaborating to strengthen the software. A big thank you to everyone who makes WordPress.
Our community of contributors has always been what makes WordPress wonderful. You are what makes sure our project continues to thrive, and our software remains secure, usable, and impactful. Thank you so much for joining together to make the web (and the world) a better place!
WordPress 6.3 arrives thanks to more than 650 contributors’ collective passion and effort in at least 52 countries. This release also includes over 205 first-time contributors!
The 6.3 release squad
The 6.3 release was led from start to launch by an active set of contributors from across many disciplines. Over several weeks, they kept the release on track and moving forward by connecting ideas, resolving issues, and removing roadblocks.
Complimenting the release squad is a diverse group of contributors whose global collaboration delivered hundreds of enhancements and fixes, ensuring a stable release for all—a testament to the power and capability of the WordPress community.
Many thanks to the community volunteers who contribute to the support forums by answering questions from WordPress users worldwide.
Get involved today
If contributing to WordPress appeals to you, learning more and getting involved is easy. Discover the teams that come together to Make WordPress and explore the product roadmap on the core development blog. You can also use this interactive tool to help you decide which team is right for you.
Looking toward the future
20 years ago this past May, WordPress shipped the very first version, 0.7. What started with a blog post from co-founder Matt Mullenweg and a subsequent comment by co-founder Mike Little eventually evolved into the world’s most popular web publishing platform.
WordPress software continues to evolve and iterate based on the needs and desires of its robust and diverse user community. This release is the capstone of Phase 2 along the WordPress development roadmap. As the community looks to the future, all efforts turn to 6.4 and, subsequently, the transition into Phase 3, which is expected to introduce powerful collaboration tools to the website creation and management experience.
6.3 Haiku
A capstone release Ships tools for building great sites Collaboration
As the world’s most popular open source content management system, WordPress acknowledges the European Union’s initiative to bolster the cybersecurity of digital hardware and software products with the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). The Act’s effort to counter the increasing threat of cyberattacks and promote informed usage of digital products with increased security updates and transparency is commendable.
While we wholly endorse the objectives of the CRA, we are apprehensive about the Act’s implications on open source software due to unclear terms and definitions.
Specifically, the Act’s prohibition on “unfinished software” and ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could inadvertently inhibit innovation and economic participation in the European digital landscape.
Open source projects, like WordPress, often rely on continual updates and improvements—a process that may technically fall under the label of “unfinished.” Furthermore, the ambiguous definition of “commercial activity” could unintentionally encompass open source projects that are largely driven by communities and operate on a not-for-profit basis.
Our letter to the EU Commission
We have jointly authored an open letter addressing these concerns alongside fellow open source projects Drupal, Joomla!, and TYPO31. The letter emphasizes the significant contribution of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to the EU’s economy and how the proposed regulations might undermine these efforts. Our shared goal is to further bolster the security of digital products without compromising the values of freedom, democracy, and innovation inherent to both the open source community and the EU’s Aims and Values.
The letter invites the EU Commission and interested parties to participate in a seminar in Brussels to discuss how we can align the objectives of the CRA with the realities and needs of the FOSS community. We are optimistic that, with mutual understanding and cooperation, we can achieve secure digital products without limiting the vital contributions of open source projects.
Drupal, Joomla!, TYPO3, and WordPress are the most popular FOSS content management systems on the web today. While all are based on the PHP programming language and distributed under the GPL open source license, each platform takes a different approach to website publishing. With strength in diversity, they form the Inter-CMS Working Group, promoting the values and benefits of free and open source software. ︎
Thanks to 
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