The Haçienda Must Be Built


Estimated reading time: 2 minutes
Category: ex-oss

Yawright love? I’ll tell you what. As long as I’ve been cast as a character in a deranged conspiracy theory about the governance of the WordPress project, I might as well throw out a provocation that does cross my mind, from time to time, when I’m wandering the streets of the city that is my second home.

After all, do remember that the WordPress project had two founders: one from Texas, and one from Manchester. The project became a Texan and an American project, and *looks around* it’s safe to say that has not been a good thing.

I’ve occasionally wondered what the project could have looked like, and what it could have become, if a little bit of Mancunian grit had been given a chance to shape it. If the spirit of the city that invented computers, the labour movement, and kids with the best record collections had been allowed to temper the unhinged American greed that got us, or rather you, where you are today. If the city which has a statue of Alan Turing sitting on a bench, with another bench placed across from it, so that you’re forced to sit down and look him in the eye – as I occasionally do – had encouraged the project to centre the people who make things, and who use the things we make, rather than centering a legal house of cards which is now, rather gloriously, crashing down.

And who knows, perhaps the time has come for others – not me, I have plenty more hell to raise elsewhere – to turn those “what ifs” from the project’s past into “what should bes” for the project’s future.

So, with the helpful assistance of Hello Dall-e:

discuss.

 

A Dall-e generated poster stating "Make WordPress Mancunian Again" in the style of a Hacienda nightclub flier. It took eight nudges to get ChatGPT to do this.

PS: did you know I wrote about half of my book on this spot? That actual spot? The building is long gone, but the cobbles remain.

The Author

I’m a UK tech policy wonk based in Glasgow. I work for an open web built around international standards of human rights, privacy, accessibility, and freedom of expression. The content and opinions on this site are mine alone and do not reflect the opinions of any current or previous team.

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