Lots of stuff going on around WordPress for the last couple of years, and every bit of is a distraction from what I want to do to help the web get back on its feet. I remember how great it was when everything could hook into everything else. The web was like Unix.

Today’s “web” is like Disneyland. Safety first. Nothing interesting ever happens there.

So ask me what I’d like to see WordPress do, and this is what I’d tell you. Start something new, don’t change what you do with WordPress, it is what it is. It’s a 20+ year old project with market problems. Most software doesn’t even make it that far.

The fresh start I’d like to see done is WordPress from the point of view of the web. The new mission is not about a dollar return on investment, rather it’s measured by how much the web becomes Small Pieces Loosely Joined with All Parts Replaceable. How empowered are developers, not WordPress developers, but web developres. The more that’s happening in the web, the better it will be for everyone, but especially WordPress. Why WordPress? Because as they say it’s 89 percent of the web. The web is like a huge oil spill that has never been cleaned up. Everything has to improve if we start work on cleaning up the messes.

I come from NYC where all the bodies of water were cesspools when I was growing up. The Hudson River had garbage floating in it. When I went to school the incinerators in the buildings we lived in burned garbage on the kids, all nicely washed and dressed by our mothers, we arrived at school smelling like smokers. My grandfather took me to Knicks games at the Garden, and the arena was filled with smoke by half-time.

We can clean things up. Humans as a species are good at this if we put our minds to it. If you made billions on the web, why not put some of it to use in making it a web worth using. I used to say shit like this to Bill Gates, to no avail. He liked to point out he was going to give away all his money when he retired, and he kept that promise. But what if he started dealing with the world with charity when he had the biggest seat of power in the tech world? Think of how much more good he could have done.