Welcome to another edition of Let's talk tech Thursday, the newsletter that's cheese but not toasted.

A shorter one this week, so you can spend more time in the sunshine (and maybe so I can spend more time in the sunshine...). This week we're looking at:

• A new way to install themes and plugins for the world's most popular website builder,
• The government are training civil servants in AI. Which can't possibly go wrong.

Also, two different types of fox story.

Let's dig in...

Top Stories

WordPress Co-Founder Mullenweg's Reaction to FAIR Project

Summary

Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress, expressed concerns about the security and complexity of the newly announced FAIR Package Manager project, which aims to decentralize WordPress plugin and theme repositories. He acknowledged the potential benefits but cautioned that it could complicate trust and safety measures for users. Mullenweg emphasized the need for collaboration and careful consideration before fully embracing such a federated system.

So what?

This week's first top story has a fair amount of context to go with it, but I'll make it brief.

WordPress itself is a free platform. Both despite and because of this, it is responsible for a huge portion of the web development economy. Companies can make huge money from WordPress, for example through the creation of paid plugins. However, Mullenweg's organisation has come under criticism in the past for folding features into the core of WordPress and undermining the paid plugin infrastructure, sometimes without notice.

On top of this, Mullenweg specifically came under fire a few months ago for the way he handled a dispute with hosting company WP Engine. This in itself is worth a whole series of newsletters, but the hyper-short version is that, in return for providing WordPress for free and yet allowing companies to effectively charge for it, the larger ones (like WP Engine) are expected to contribute. Mullenweg argues that WP Engine isn't pulling its weight in that department, and so banned them from using parts of WordPress, which caused a huge problem for a lot of people.

Which brings us back to FAIR. There have been a lot of responses within the WordPress user community, as it has become more apparent that, while WordPress is a Free and Open Source product, Mullenweg still maintains an enormous amount of control. FAIR is an attempt to take some of this control back. At a very basic level it does this by providing a place for people to get extensions for WordPress from somewhere that isn't WordPress. Additionally, it provides community that brings in developers, infrastructure providers, and open web contributors.

This might seem like one of the nerdier stories I've shared. And that's because it is. But I also think it's important. In part because it's one of a growing number of stories about a move towards a more open and transparent web. It's a big deal that this is coming from the Linux Foundation. But I also think it's important for another reason.

This article in particular focuses on Mullenweg's response, which was largely focused on his concerns that this could pose security risks for WordPress users. While I suppose not technically untrue, it's worth remembering who it is that's making the claims. Not all open source is created equal.

All civil servants in England and Wales to get AI training

Summary

All civil servants in England and Wales will receive AI training starting this autumn to improve productivity. The initiative includes a pilot AI tool called "Humphrey," which helps officials complete tasks faster and more efficiently.

So what?

I'm going to skip right over the part where they named the AI tools after a character famous for making long-winded and confusing rambles specifically to distract others from making any kind of progressive change.

Name choice aside, I agree with their new mantra of "No person's substantive time should be spent on a task where digital or AI can do it better, quicker and to the same high quality and standard". Even if it is a little wordy.

The bit I am concerned about, it what the content of the training will be. Typically, government's have not had a strong track record of implementing AI in a way that acknowledges the inherent biases that can come through.

AI trials in the UK government have apparently been going well, but for sure keep an eye on this one.

Any other news?

Mozilla shuts down even more Firefox services you might still be using A few weeks ago we spoke about Mozilla closing down their Pocket service. This week they've announced more products on the chopping block, including the Firefox extension Deep Fake Detector. This extension was supposed to let you know if a piece of text was AI generated or not.

Also being axed is the lesser know Orbit, another AI adjacent Firefox extension. This one helped users summarise content from within the browser, but without the need for sending your data to third party services like OpenAI or Google. While the accuracy of Deep Fake Detector waxed and waned over it's time, the loss of Orbit will likely be a huge blow to users keen on their privacy - which, given that they were using Firefox, you'd have to assume was a sizeable portion.

Google battling fox infestation on roof of £1bn London office

Ok, so this isn't really a tech story, but I thought I'd end of what I think is a funny note. And it sticks to the fox theme (#nerdjoke). The new "landscraper" office block in King's Cross is home to more than just Google's only fully owned and designed HQ outside of the states. A group of foxes have taken to frequenting the rooftop garden, presumably living off of leftover hot pockets and pizza (#nerdjoke). It's nice to see nature fighting back against the tyranny of big tech.

And we're out! Have a great weekend, and I'll see you next week.

Will