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Courtney Robertson
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Which open source projects does Merge Conflicts compare, and why these?

Merge Conflicts compares 12 open source projects, WordPress included, plus three extra cases. Here is who holds each name, which license each uses, who decides, where it is written down, and why these projects.

Courtney
Courtney@courtneyr.dev
Nov 9, 202616 min read

erge Conflicts compares 12 open source projects, WordPress included, plus three extra cases. The 12 answer the same 17 questions about who decides. WordPress sits in the table as one row. I picked these open source projects because WordPress runs on them, renders them, builds with them or does the same job as them.

Key takeaways

  • The big picture: Merge Conflicts compares 12 open source projects plus three extra cases, all on the same 17 questions.
  • Why it matters: each row names the document that says who decides, so you can check your own project’s answer.
  • Yes, but: the sample leans English and large. Python, Rust, Debian, Kubernetes and Apache aren’t in it.
  • What’s next: Season 2 takes the 17 questions one at a time.
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🧭 Why compare open source projects at all?

If you contribute somewhere, you probably read your project’s governance page once a year, when something breaks. This post is for the other 364 days.

A rule looks normal until you see another project do the same job a different way. So the series asks one set of questions of every project and puts the answers side by side.

Two rules keep that fair:

  • Same questions, same order. WordPress gets no special color and no extra column. It’s one row, sorted A to Z like the rest.
  • Equal jobs, not equal shapes. A standards body has no admin screen, and a solo project has no board. That’s a different structure, not missing governance. So each answer names the body that does the job, whatever it’s called.

I’ll show you the documents, and you can check every row yourself. Most links in the tables go to a page you can open today.

📋 Which open source projects are in the table?

The research brief named 13 items. CSS and HTML share one profile, so the research has 12 profiles. The table below has 13 rows, because the two web standards come from two separate bodies: W3C for CSS and WHATWG for HTML.

ProjectWhat kind of unitWho holds the nameLicenseLabel
Backdrop CMSSoftware project in Software Freedom ConservancySoftware Freedom Conservancy1GPL v2 or laterverified
DrupalSoftware project, with the Drupal AssociationThe project’s founder, as an individual2GPL 2.0 or laterverified
GhostSoftware project; the hosted service funds the Ghost Foundation3Ghost Foundation4MIT5verified
JoomlaSoftware project, with Open Source MattersOpen Source MattersGPL 2.0 or laterverified
MariaDBSoftware project, with a foundation and a companyMariaDB Corporation Ab, per the published agreement6GPLv27verified
MySQLA company’s productOracleGPLv2, plus a commercial license8verified
Node.jsSoftware project at OpenJSOpenJS FoundationMITverified
OpenJS FoundationFoundation (a membership corporation)OpenJS FoundationIts projects pick from five approved licensesverified
PHPSoftware project; the PHP Foundation runs through a fiscal hostNo trademark foundBSD 3 Clause, as PHP License 49verified; name unknown
TYPO3Software project, with the TYPO3 AssociationTYPO3 Association, which decides how the trademark is used10GPL 2.0 or laterverified
W3C (CSS)Standards body (a nonprofit)W3C11W3C Software and Document Licenseverified
WHATWG (HTML)A contract among four browser makersNot foundCC BY 4.012verified; name unknown
WordPressSoftware project, with the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation13GPLv2 or laterverified
The open source projects Merge Conflicts compares, A to Z: what each one is, who holds the name and which license it uses

“Unknown” means I searched and didn’t find it. It doesn’t mean the thing doesn’t exist.

analysis

One row needs a note. The MariaDB Foundation’s trademark page names the owner as “MariaDB Corporation Ab,” a Finnish company. The company’s own legal page calls itself MariaDB plc.14 I’ve named the owner exactly as the published agreement does.

🗂️ Who decides in each of these open source projects, and where is it written down?

Same rows, two new columns. The last column is the one document I’d open first if it were my project.

ProjectWho decides, and how they’re chosenWritten down atLabel
Backdrop CMSA Project Management Committee; new members need a unanimous committee vote15backdropcms.org/about/leadershipverified
DrupalThe project lead decides license changes; the Licensing Working Group can only recommend16Licensing Working Group charterverified
GhostGhost lists its founders as CEO and CTO; no board page found17ghost.org/aboutverified; board unknown
JoomlaA board of three department coordinators and four officers, elected by members of official teams1819volunteers.joomla.org; Open Source Matters election policyverified
MariaDBThe Foundation’s board, which “does not make technical decisions”20mariadb.org/aboutverified
MySQLOracle; there’s no foundationMySQL license fileverified
Node.jsA Technical Steering Committee, “a subset of the collaborators”21GOVERNANCE.md on GitHubverified
OpenJS FoundationA board with one director per Platinum member, plus seats elected by Gold and Silver members and by the Cross Project Council22OpenJS 2026 board announcementverified
PHPProposals called RFCs, passed by a two thirds vote23wiki.php.net/rfc/votingverified
TYPO3About 1,100 members elect the board at a yearly general assembly24typo3.org/project/associationverified
W3C (CSS)A Board of Directors with “ultimate authority”; members elect part of it25W3C Groups pageverified
WHATWG (HTML)A Steering Group of browser engine makers, with “final say in all matters”26whatwg.org/sg-agreementverified
WordPressA core leadership team “led by co-founder and lead developer”; lead developers hold “final authority on technical decisions”27Core Handbook, “Project Organization”verified
Who decides in each of the open source projects Merge Conflicts compares, and the document that says so

The WordPress row quotes WordPress’s own handbook, the same way the others quote theirs. Season 2 goes question by question; this table is only the map.

🛠️ Why these open source projects?

These are my reasons, so here they are in my words. Each one has a WordPress page behind it. None of these open source projects is ranked; they’re the ones a WordPress builder already touches, or sits one step away from.

The four reasons as a diagram. The sections below give the same groups in text. Diagram made with Claude.

🐘 The stack WordPress runs on

  • Projects: PHP, MySQL and MariaDB.
  • Why they’re here: WordPress’s requirements page asks for PHP 8.3 or greater and “MariaDB version 10.11 or greater OR MySQL version 8.0 or greater.”28 Without them, your site doesn’t run.
  • What they add: two ways to run a database project. MariaDB pairs a foundation with a company. MySQL is one company’s product.

🌐 The standards WordPress renders

  • Projects: CSS through W3C, and HTML through WHATWG.
  • Why they’re here: every WordPress page is HTML and CSS. WordPress’s own coding standards say pages “should be verified against the W3C validator.”29
  • What they add: standards bodies decide differently from software projects. One is a nonprofit with members. The other is a contract among four companies.

🟩 The JavaScript side

  • Projects: OpenJS and Node.js, as two rows.
  • Why they’re here: the Block Editor Handbook calls Node.js “essential” for block development.30
  • What they add: a foundation and a project it holds the name for. Keeping them apart shows which body decides what.

📰 Other content management systems

  • Projects: Drupal, TYPO3, Joomla, Backdrop and Ghost.
  • Why they’re here: they do the same job WordPress does. If you build sites, you may have met one of them in a client’s old stack.
  • What they add: five different answers to “who’s in charge of a CMS?” Drupal and Backdrop also share a history, which the fork section covers.

Disclosure: I work at Pantheon, a WordPress and Drupal host.

➕ Which three extra cases fill the gaps in the comparison set?

The brief asked for a small project run by one maintainer, a community with little money, and a fork or a handover. The three cases below cover those. They aren’t full profiles; each shows one mechanism.

🔑 xz-utils: one maintainer holds every key

analysis

xz-utils is a data compression library.31 No foundation, board or written succession rule stood behind it. Release access passed by one maintainer’s choice.

verified

  • 2024-02-24 and 2024-03-09: releases 5.6.0 and 5.6.1 shipped from a second maintainer account.32
  • 2024-03-29: a downstream engineer posted “backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma” to the oss-security list.33 The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) told users to downgrade the same day.34

account

  • 2024-03-30: the original maintainer wrote that the second account never had access to the project’s own site or git server. It could reach only the assets hosted on GitHub.35

unknown

The second account’s motive isn’t on the record. A downstream engineer caught the backdoor, not an institution.

🍴 ClassicPress: a small fork votes on its own future

verified

ClassicPress is a fork of WordPress, run by a small nonprofit. Its governance page states the rule first: “No single person within ClassicPress has the power to force through a valid change.”36 The page names no vote threshold.

source-derived

  • 2022: the directors resigned and named their successors, with $352 in the bank at the time.37
  • December 2022: core contributors polled on the next step. A director reported 20 votes to fork WordPress again and 18 to continue as is.38

analysis

So a near tie, among a few dozen people, set the direction. With no written vote rule, the poll was the process.

💎 RubyGems: who runs a package service when its steward and maintainers disagree?

Disclosure: I used to sit on the Technical Steering Committee of the FAIR Package Manager, which also distributes packages.

Ruby Central, a nonprofit, owns and operates rubygems.org, the service Ruby developers install code from. Its stated reason comes first.

verified

On 2025-09-19, Ruby Central wrote that it acted “in consultation with legal counsel and following a recent security audit.”39 Only engineers it employs or contracts would hold admin rights to the RubyGems.org service. It would also temporarily hold admin access to the GitHub repositories. Its later report dates the access changes from 2025-09-10 to 09-18.40

account

Former maintainers answered that Ruby Central never owned the RubyGems or Bundler code. LWN found no sign the maintainers agreed to hand over that authority.41

account

One public post alleges that a funder, Shopify, pushed for the change and threatened to withdraw funding.42 Ruby Central’s executive director denied that sponsors directed its actions, as LWN reported.43 I found no statement from Shopify. No official body has made a finding.

📅 What happened after the RubyGems access change?

verified

  • 2025-10-17: the Ruby core team took ownership of the repositories, with “no changes to licensing terms.”44 Ruby Central would keep managing the projects, now jointly with the Ruby core team.
  • 2026-03-31: Ruby Central published an incident report by a member of its Open Source Committee. It said Ruby Central “lacked the structural ability to make this change directly.”45

account

In a 2026-07-30 post, a former maintainer wrote that Ruby Central’s lawyer had reported the maintainer to the FBI.46 The post says Ruby Central’s three audits found no evidence that the maintainer caused harm. I found no response from Ruby Central. Silence means only that.

source-derived

DevClass reported that the board approved the report, so it isn’t fully independent.47

🔀 Forks already in the comparison set

You don’t need extra cases for forks. Four of them sit inside the main rows:

  • Databases: MySQL to MariaDB.48
  • JavaScript: io.js and Node.js.4950
  • Content management: Mambo to Joomla,51 and Drupal to Backdrop.52

Season 2’s fork post compares what each one kept.

❓ What questions does every project answer?

Seventeen questions, the same for every row. This post’s tables touch three of them: what each project is made of, who holds its name and license, and how it decides. The other fourteen include infrastructure, money, labor, events, conduct, accessibility, inclusion, sustainability, newcomers, security, history and who carries the risk. Season 2 fills them in, one post per question. Each of those posts asks its question of all the open source projects in the table, sorted the same way.

⚠️ What can’t these open source projects tell you?

analysis

A sample has edges. Here are this one’s:

  • Size: big foundations aren’t all of open source, and this sample can’t speak for the many small projects outside it.
  • Language: English records dominate. I read German primary documents for TYPO3, and nothing else outside English.
  • Geography: no case from the Global South, and no large community that works outside English.
  • Missing names: no Python, Rust, Debian, Kubernetes or Apache rows. The research didn’t cover them, so the series won’t make claims about them.

If you want a study that asks what “community managed” means, start with Siobhán O’Mahony’s 2007 paper on open source governance.53 This series isn’t the first comparison, and it won’t be the last.

📊 How big is the record behind the comparison?

ItemCount
Distinct incidents (WordPress history only)86
Claims2,417 (2,406 public)
Sources2,840
The Merge Conflicts research record, counted 2026-11-06

Every claim carries one of six evidence labels, which the methods page explains. Counts are floors, not totals. The incidents cover WordPress’s own history; the claims and sources cover every project. The methods page publishes these counts and dates them.54

📋 Quick answers about open source projects

Why does WordPress get only one row?

Because a fair comparison sorts everyone the same way. WordPress gets no extra column and no color.

Why not other open source projects, like Python or Kubernetes?

The research didn’t cover them. The series only claims what its documents show.

Can I correct my project’s row?

Yes. Reply from your own site or in the post’s discussion, and the methods page logs every correction.

❓ Which questions can you ask about your own open source projects?

Pick your project, or the one you’re about to join. Find its row, then ask its records:

  1. Name. Who holds the trademark, and where’s the policy?
  2. License. Which license, and who could change it?
  3. Decisions. Who decides, how are they chosen, and where’s that written down?

Mark each answer documented, unclear or not found. If you find a document I missed, send it. That’s a merge I’d like to see.

My relationships that bear on this post
  • Pantheon, my employer, a WordPress and Drupal host.
  • GoDaddy, where I managed the Five for the Future contributors until July 2026. I also picked which foundations and projects got its open source funding, among them the PHP Foundation, OpenJS and W3C.
  • The WordPress Training Team, where I was a faculty member and a team rep. I’m not active on the team now.
  • The FAIR Package Manager, where I used to sit on the Technical Steering Committee.
  • The WPOCC, where I’m one of the founding board members.
  • Questions I asked on stage at WordCamp US 2024, the WordCamp Europe 2025 fireside and WordCamp Canada 2025.
  • My own words appear in court exhibits in WPEngine v. Automattic (Dkt. 18-28, 107-4, 18-5 and 69-16). The series reports that litigation in pairs.

🔗 Where this post sits in the series

This post follows 1.4, How do open source licenses work, and what do they leave out? It uses the labels on the Merge Conflicts methods page. Next up is 1.6, the open source in tools you already use. Follow along on the Merge Conflicts series page.

    Footnotes (54)
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