Matt Talks About WordPress Situation  ## Metadata - Author: [[ThePrimeTime]] - Full Title: Matt Talks About WordPress Situation - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #wordpress - #open-source - #community-contributions Author: [Matt Mullenweg] Source: [Transcript from YouTube: Matt Talks About WordPress Situation] Reference: [Link to the video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6F0PgMcKWM) date created: {{2024-09-26}} {{14:30}} --- # Title: Understanding WordPress Trademark Issues: Matt Mullenweg’s Perspective ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#-notes) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ### References: - [Matt Talks About WordPress Situation (YouTube)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6F0PgMcKWM) ## 📝 Summary: Matt Mullenweg discusses ongoing trademark issues with WP Engine, explaining how the company has failed to contribute back to the WordPress community despite building a business on its open-source code. He highlights the importance of contributing to open-source projects and shares details of his long-term attempts to resolve these issues amicably. ## 📖 Main Content: In the video, Matt Mullenweg shares the history of his communications with WP Engine regarding trademark violations, starting as far back as 2018. He emphasizes that other companies, like New Digital (owner of Bluehost), contribute both financially and through engineering hours, while WP Engine has avoided both. Mullenweg believes that WP Engine’s use of the WordPress trademark has been confusing for consumers and detrimental to the open-source community. He points out that WP Engine built a billion-dollar business but contributed little to WordPress’ growth. Mullenweg offers insights into WP Engine's legal tactics, delays, and refusal to negotiate in good faith over the years, which led to the current situation where legal action was finally taken. ### 🗒️ Notes: - WP Engine violated WordPress trademarks by using "WP" in ways that confuse consumers. - Matt attempted negotiations over many years to encourage WP Engine to contribute. - WP Engine offers no monetary support to WordPress and only minimal engineering contributions. - Other hosting companies, like Bluehost, have proper agreements with WordPress and contribute financially and technically. - WP Engine could resolve the issue by paying 8% of their revenue as either a trademark fee or in engineering hours. ## 🗣️ Paraphrase:  1. Mullenweg explains that WP Engine has not only confused consumers with their use of “WP,” but they have also reaped massive financial rewards from WordPress without offering anything in return. He highlights how other hosting companies have been more cooperative and transparent in their dealings with the open-source community. 2. The situation reached a boiling point because of WP Engine’s constant delays and avoidance of meaningful contributions, which forced Mullenweg to take legal action. He reflects that this decision wasn’t made lightly and only after years of frustration. ## 📰 Newsletter: In this issue, we highlight an important discussion between Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress community regarding WP Engine’s trademark violations. For years, WP Engine has profited from the WordPress name without contributing back to the open-source project. In a candid interview, Matt discusses the challenges faced and the efforts made to resolve these issues. His call for companies that benefit from open source to give back resonates strongly with our values in the community. If you're interested in learning more about how businesses can contribute to WordPress, check out the full transcript here: [YouTube Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6F0PgMcKWM). ## ✅ Action Items: 1. Consider how businesses using open-source projects can balance profitability with community contributions. 2. Explore ways to advocate for more transparent contributions from companies that benefit from open-source software. 3. Align WP community efforts to encourage ethical business practices and continued support for open-source development. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. If WP Engine begins contributing more engineering hours or paying a trademark fee, WordPress will see accelerated development in key areas. 2. The legal action against WP Engine will set a precedent that encourages other companies to be more proactive in supporting open-source projects. ### 📊 Methodology: - Analyze contributions from hosting companies using WordPress to evaluate their impact on the ecosystem. - Track the legal outcome of the WP Engine case and any subsequent changes in community contributions from other companies. ### ❓ Questions: 1. How can WordPress better enforce trademark policies without alienating businesses that use the platform? 2. What other legal or ethical considerations should open-source communities have when dealing with companies that don’t contribute back? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Examine similar cases in other open-source projects to understand how they resolved trademark and contribution issues. - Research the long-term impacts of WP Engine’s legal case on the open-source community and its financial ecosystem. ### 💡 Implications:  The results of this legal situation may set a new standard for open-source projects, influencing how companies and communities interact. The findings could impact how licensing agreements are structured in the future and how businesses approach their relationship with open-source platforms. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: 1. **Visual Learners (Spatial)**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Add infographics showing the contribution timeline and legal case. 2. **Aural Learners (Auditory-Musical)**: - **Present**: The video format supports auditory learning. - **Improve**: Offer a summary podcast or audio interview with Matt. 3. **Verbal Learners (Linguistic)**: - **Present**: Extensive dialogue in the video. - **Improve**: Add a more detailed written breakdown or case study. 4. **Physical Learners (Kinesthetic)**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Suggest hands-on community contributions. 5. **Logical Learners (Mathematical)**: - **Present**: Analysis of the case details. - **Improve**: Provide a flowchart breaking down WP Engine's legal violations. 6. **Social Learners (Interpersonal)**: - **Present**: Interaction between Matt and the community. - **Improve**: Host live Q&A sessions. 7. **Solitary Learners (Intrapersonal)**: - **Present**: Opportunities for reflection on ethical contributions. - **Improve**: Provide self-reflection questions on community involvement. 8. **Naturalistic Learners**: - **Present**: None. - **Improve**: Draw parallels between open-source contribution and sustainability. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: The video content should be transcribed for better accessibility. - **Contrast and Readability**: The transcript needs clear, high-contrast text formatting. ### 🌍 DEIB (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging) Assessment: - **Cultural Relevance**: Provide case studies from diverse communities using WordPress. - **Inclusive Language**: Review video content for any exclusionary language. - **Representation**: Expand examples beyond the U.S.-centric focus of WordPress. ### ✅ Logical Validity: - **Sound Deductive Reasoning**: Mullenweg’s arguments follow logically from the premise that companies profiting from WordPress should give back. - **Appeal to Facts/Evidence**: Evidence of long-term communication and efforts to negotiate adds credibility. ### 🔍 SEO Evaluation: - **Keywords**: WordPress, open-source contributions, WP Engine, trademark violation. - **Met - Document Tags: [[matt mullenweg]] [[open source corporate contribution]] [[wcus]] [[wordpress]] [[wpdrama]] [[wp engine]] - Summary: Recorded live on twitch, GET IN ### Guest Matt Mullenweg | https://x.com/photomatt ### My Stream https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen ### Best Way To Support Me Become a backend engineer. Its my favorite site https://boot.dev/?promo=PRIMEYT This is also the best way to support me is to support yourself becoming a better backend engineer. MY MAIN YT CHANNEL: Has well edited engineering videos https://youtube.com/ThePrimeagen Discord https://discord.gg/ThePrimeagen Have something for me to read or react to?: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePrimeagen Kinesis Advantage 360: https://bit.ly/Prime-Kinesis Get production ready SQLite with Turso: https://turso.tech/deeznuts - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6F0PgMcKWM so here we go this is who we're talking to for those that can't see Matt had how everybody thank you so much for listening thanks for joining yeah look at this look at me following you I'm such a nice guy all right anyways uh okay so by the way Lex fredman has he also said uh thank you for WordPress been using it since the early days oh wow that's awesome I'm a huge fan of Lex there you go all right so help us understand a few things let me just tell you what I understand as of now this is how it looks like looking through a few of the legal docs looking through the post trying to understand it for a long time WP was free to use as part of the terms and conditioning sometime this year maybe middle of the year that was changed and then WP engine shortly before word Camp started receiving messages that they must pay or else that's this is so the so this is this is just what we've read online right sure and that point makes sense from a business point of view right so Y and then word Camp then effectively at word Camp you can we address that first stuff first sure yeah yeah yeah First dress yeah we don't want to Stack too many things so uh WP okay to use yes say thousands of things that use WP WP beginner WP most of them don't confuse consumers yeah um you know WP engine uh is very conf confusing to Consumers for example until to today they had a plan on their website for sale that was called core WordPress it was like their 50 Buck a month plan or something it's called core WordPress what does core WordPress mean to most people what's it mean to you it just means the core features of Wordpress is how I would I guess I would take that I'm more softw so it's probably bad to ask me because maybe my opinions aren't they were selling that as a plan name that that they were selling their customers now they change it to like call it something else growth or something but um you can kind of tell all the stuff that the lawyers are making them do is are all examples of things they were doing wrong so those are trademark violations so okay um yeah so that yes they use WP but they do it they've done so many things on top of that that are really confusing to Consumers far above the legal threshold which by the way is 15% of consumers confused for trademark violations and so um yeah we we try to use the trademark and by the way they built a a billion dollar business they've given nothing back to Wordpress they were contributing 40 hours per week so call that 100 Grand per year um they sponsored yeah Work Camp for 75 grand we allowed them to be a top sponsor by the way lots of people wanted those spots yeah I was about to say sponsorships don't count because you get it's you're buying marketing you're not buying that's not considered giving at least I personally don't consider giving sponsoring a conference giving back to the community I've never considered that I don't think that's fair I I've done everything I can to try to bring WP into the fold I spoke with their conference last year like they have this proprietary marketing conference called the code I allowed them to be a top sponsor and have a big booth at word camp like I was really doing everything I could and these talks and negotiations they said like oh you know he just showed up at Work Camp and said you know pay me now or else no this is going back years and the bad behavior did start in 2018 when Silver Lake took over WP engine they were actually a pretty cool company before um flywheel was also way cooler before WP can you help me on the trademark stuff so when because I know at one point in the Wayback machine it says WP is free to use and that's that so when when did the change happen it still says that so you can still use WP you can like I said WP beginner there's lots of WP plugins there's lots of WP things um just how they were doing it is egregious violation of trademarks and as the trademark holder you know uh automatic has you know the commercial owns the commercial trade Mark um they can choose who to go after right so if someone was using WP in a way that wasn't you know causing harm or maybe they're using WP or WordPress but they're also giving back to the community Awesome by the way WP engine had the option and the deal I offered them um they could pay a trademark fee or they could pay that in salaries an hour and hours of contribution or any combination they could do 4% of 4% 8% of 0% 7 to1 so they had that option to make a contributions and they they chose zero so that was that was why we uh well they just tried to delay and delay which they've been doing for now you know 18 months basically okay um all right so so I guess the next obvious question is why now and not say a year ago when WP engine was still WP engine or two years ago or five years ago or a decade ago like at what point did this BEC something that must be addressed and in this way help me understand from this perspective I I I might be a bit naive um most people most companies in the WordPress ecosystem we have great relationships with and when they say they're going to do something they do it and they contribute back and in fact other hosts do have a trademark agreement and they pay for it and other host give back way more than WP engine even though they make way less Revenue so um yeah so I I just kind of beli that they they kept saying they were going to do something for years and um there's a lot of friendly people there and I just I I I guess I didn't realize how like capricious and evil like private Equity could be so that is totally my fault I apologize for that okay because I always F because that I mean at least from an outsider that that feels very confusing like why today why not a year ago why not at some point because it it it feel it makes it feel more Petty at least from my perspective just throwing that out I think I represent for a long time and like I said I was and people can confirm this I was literally you know calling and trying to connect with them if they had just even said verbally like they could have tried to change it a percentage you know whatever negotiate but they were just like nope not anything you know let's delay delay delay and I assume you have some sort of like actual inp paper uh Trail to represent like the repetitive Communications over the course of years being like hey you're still not contributing back and all that because I I just assume that exists somewhere because at some point that comes out right they published some of my text messages and they tried to make it look like I was you know we read those yesterday yeah it's storting them last minute or something but like that was me like trying like hey I really don't want to give this presentation I don't want this fight I don't want to like I really want there to be peace and Fe to be a like a great part of the community yeah in fact they could do sign a trademark license today and and all this would go away so it's um it's totally in their hands to do a deal um they just don't want to they feel like they can uh sort of smear my name attack wordpress.org do the season assist delay you know putting out all this misinformation yeah they they fired a incident report against me that said I berated them and cursed at them in their booth now if you ask anyone who knows me I actually don't curse like I don't use curse words at all and they put information out there saying that I told them to f off you know which is not true and there were witnesses there and people one of the witnesses left the comment on Reddit Jake mold who's the one of the founders of tenup a large word price agency that comment had like negative 40 Karma um because people were voting it down so they have this whole coordinated campaign to make me look bad and to hide anything that sort of shows all the evil stuff they've been doing something else that uh was posted on Reddit uh is alleged they have taken the stripe plugin so part of how woocommerce makes money they also violate the woocommerce trademark by the way uh part of how woocommerce makes money is with a deal with stripe and so on on WP engine servers they essentially hack the stripe plugin to change the attribution code to go from us to them which is probably tens of millions of years in uh in Revenue so they they override they override the the the stripe attributor or whatever it is that that does that yeah I assume you've talked to them about this that you've had many conversations course of course yeah these things go back months uh so yeah I mean I've had I've had meals with Heather numerous times I've had meals with Lee these are people I've known for years um so please don't think that uh this was some sort of like out ofth blue thing um it was more I was being L on so I feel dumb for that but like at some point it was like okay okay you keep saying you're going to do something and you keep not doing anything um you know I'm going on stage later this week um given this presentation do you want it to be about how you've delayed for years or do you want it to be about well just not mention it at all to be honest I was just going to do a Q&A all right so I guess another question would have to be then there's other like you even mentioned there's a lot of other WP style ones or even uh things that mention the word WordPress do they also have the same requirement to pay some sort of money or what is the threshold in which you approach these other companies and make them pay money like so what what is like I guess the the rules in which you apply that's up to the trademark owner so automatically choose to do deals and uh with anyone that's that's sort of the right of the trademark owner okay and so has there been other people in which you've effectively done similar type things and they are just like okay yes everything is uh this way or is this the first one the I would say that every other web host in the world we have no beef with by the way and that none of them all of them can their servers can access wordpress.org servers WordPress work fine on every other web host in the world this is very singular to WP engine okay um I so just just so you're clear I don't feel anyone who's listening doesn't feel like answer question I'm fine with all of those they're all fine with all of them okay um okay this is good information so then let's just forward to what has been done with the no updating uh I know you speak a lot about the community and how you want the community to be uh really good and healthy H how does this decision help the community or do you think that this hurts the community as much as it hurts WP engine because I from an outsider it looks like the community is collateral in this situation so they're getting hit they're feeling worried I bet you there's a lot of panic communication going from people that maybe feel like the world's on fire and you know in reality not being able to update currently for one day is not like the world's not exploding yet but at some amount of time forward it will start actually becoming a problem so how how do you reconcile those two things caring about the community and also having the community pay a price on behalf of WP engine yeah and this is probably where I haven't done the best job explaining so maybe you can help me um so when you run WordPress on WP engine they actually control the code you don't control the code like on other host so that's part of how for example you know they changed the revisions thing or something they did they actually broke thousands of sites where they tried to hide the meetups widget and the news widget because they didn't want people to see my blog post um and they messed it up so they unilaterally changed the code sorry I'm get the call they unilaterally changed a code across their 1.5 million WordPress installs whenever they want so they can deploy that instantly so they control the code um so they could host a mirror of the plug-in directory they could host a mirror of the updates all it this is GPL and open um you know those 1.5 million sites that uh call all the SAS services on wordpress.org you know you could imagine that probably costing millions of dollars per year in infrastructure and cost development time everything to support those 1.5 million sites yeah that that stuff is very expensive I I get that CDN alone even just transferring data is very expensive and again they have donated zero doar to the WordPress Foundation they have no deal with wordpress.org they have no trademark license they they've done so little and been so successful they built a half a billion a year business and if you have to ask yourself how do they build it it's partially on the backs of confusion with the word first trademark which is what we're trying to ask them to stop and why they're fighting so hard to not do it and so okay so is does that mean there's a there is some level of Monet so is there some sort of understanding or expectation that if you become very successful in WordPress you need to give something back because I'm just trying to understand that because you say they made a billion like half billion dollars like congratulations them they made a half billion dollars that's a that's a lot of money right but is it a requirement that they give back uh what's a requirement you know is there a law that says you have to give back no there is a law that says you can't violate the trademark so that's the law that we're using to try to encourage them to give back but um yeah I mean the code is open source you can do whatever you want now it's a good business practice if your entire business is built on someone else's intellectual property then yeah you probably should contribute to it in some way and that could be in in code it could be in volunteering hours it could be an organizing word camps or something like that everything they say they contribute if you look at their blog post that says here's 10 years of you know giving back it's all just marketing stuff for them you know it's like it's a conference we run that promotes us here's a you know a magazine we run called torque that just promotes us you know they have this they actually have a cool thing called local but if you look at local it just sells WP engine hosting like it's not like a it's not a something they do as a charity for the community but I mean there's also like tons of other open source like I mean think about react react alone has had how many billion dollar companies on top of it but they have no way to enforce some sort of monetary thing back or npm right you make like think about how many people make money off of npm and c and npm yet they don't have there's no kind of takeback on that I think that that might be part of the confusion is that they're is we're trying to understand why like what is this threshold or why is this uh but let me let me try a different things you just said like mpm and react those are like developer tools right so but npm has infrastructure cost right npm pays quite a bit of money because they have to transfer all this data and all that so they I'd say they fall much more in line with WordPress org in the sense that they actually have a bunch of you know they they actually have to set up infrastructure and keep it running at all times yeah you could think of it like lines of code you know so let's say woocommerce is four and a half million lines of code the strip plugin that we wrote that they hack was like you know 35,000 lines of code their modifications were like 3,000 lines yeah so that that's how much value they're creating on the like millions and millions of lines of code and same thing so like yeah react like we use react we we build Calypso on top of and other things um but like what you get from them is WordPress it's by the way it's the same thing you get from all the other hosts so you can get this from blue host or other places so um and I encourage people to explore some of these other hosts because again WordPress will work better and they all give back to the community much more than WP engine currently does um if if you could rewind the clock two weeks would you take any different action than has currently been action or do you think there's better ways you could have gone about this you know I can sleep soundly at night knowing that I did everything I could to try to do a deal with them so I I have no qualms there I I know maybe they're trying to make it look uh bad from the outside but um yeah I feel good there okay okay that's really good um well thanks for uh trying to clarify some stuff I think honestly the things that would really help the community out a ton at least what I'm hearing just a flood of them cuz I don't know if you're paying attention at all to chat it's just a wall of test uh a wall of text of just various questions yeah but those well the the big two are this because I I asked you one and and you you didn't give a solid answer on which is who else effectively has to pay trademarking when do you do trademarking like clear people are saying they don't like me I'm sorry I'm actually really tired right now this stuff I think it attack so much imagine at one point I'm like not feeling the best so I I I know this is a video stream I probably don't look the best but please oh you look great don't worry about how you look you're I mean don't worry you have me next to you I I I'm like don't worry to the questions yeah yeah so I would say that would be just a big one because you didn't give a solid answer on that which is two twofold who C like are there more than just WP uh that's paying tra or attempting to pay trademarket things and do you have some sort of rule in which you apply and if there is any answer to those two things I think that would really help people and then obviously the second one is just historical Communications do you have proof that this has been a long-term long running thing or has this just been said and longterm being you know years versus months versus weeks like what is the what's the communication window in which you can kind of like help like massage people's feelings and say look I've really been trying they've really been doing this it's not it's not that we haven't tried it's not for a lack of effort I wonder if I could pull up I I have photos with Heather like having meals with her so I could pull up some of those but those don't necessarily tell us that you're telling them or asking them about this whole uh confusion over you know uh you know confusion over WordPress and all that um I mean in the nicest possible way I'm not trying to get you this is not a gotcha stream if you haven't noticed I'm really just trying to let you say the the answers you wish to say so what would be helpful there like do you would a email from I it's more for you like if you this is something you you can release at some point showing we've tried like the communication isn't just simply me texting hey I'm going to Nuke you if you don't do X right like because that's what's being portrayed so obviously just for you yourself you probably want something that's a little bit maybe better in that kind of uh world but the second one is just are there my Google Calendar so here's some receipts so I have meetings with Heather Bruner who's the CEO of WP engine October 8th of 2018 um did a call I had breakfast with her November 30th of 2018 I did a zoom with her October 9th of 2019 um we did zoom on June 15th of 2020 and um I met her in person in Austin on October 26th of 2021 uh I had lunch with her in Houston on February 2023 um we had a call on November 23rd of 2023 we had a a call before my sabatical January 26th of 2024 and January 28th of 2024 we were really trying to close this deal before my sabatical in January so is is that helpful yeah again you know like what were they about and all that obviously you can answer that I'm just saying for for writing if there's a blog post or something I think it would help a lot of people understand that this is a long-term matter and not an urgency short-term because from the perspective like my perspective of just reading the legal docs and this it feels like an outof the blue item so but I mean there's half the people saying no WP engine really are bullies and the other half saying no you're the bully so it's very confusing to try to be like okay who's the half that's telling the truth right this is like the classic who's the bad guy and you have to choose one and you don't want to mess this up and so I hope that people look at my history of you know contributions to open source charitable contributions transparency I I open source a lot of my life it's my philosophy if you look at what automatics done you know even when we've acquired apps like pocketcast we open source it uh we're we're switching Tumblr to Wordpress like we're very very very Pro open source we give tons back so my money's where my mouth is to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars of contributions to open source over the years yeah yeah and someone does someone did state in chat that cutting off access to your services as soon as as soon as someone threatens legal action is completely reasonable it is true anytime you say the word Sue or lawyer or anything on any business call anywhere it has been always highly uh required that you immediately hang up and just say we have to talk to lawyers now so I do get that once there's legal action mentioned I get that imagine a store that was giving away free ice cream and then someone across the street is you know taking legal action against me do I need to open my door and give them free ice cream still yeah like what's the obligation there I I I that I mean it does make sense I I I can reason about that one and so the other question which is still they still have access to The Code by the way all the codes GPL they can host it themselves they can run their own update servers they can host their own plug-in directories that they can do all of that they just don't want to because it costs money and they're trying to make more profits they would probably have to spend tens of millions of year a year to replicate an what uh they get for free from WordPress out of work yeah no I I get content delivery is not you know as simple as it is it's also exceptionally complicated um all right so and then of course the only other one is just still the trademark stuff who you don't even have to say who because I don't want you don't have to do that but are there other people in which you have pursued and theyve been fine paying or do you have a measurement that you use sure so there's a number of hosts that we recommend on wordpress. of work so there's you can assume all of those are in very good relations and I think I've said publicly before that new digital which owns a bunch of hosts like HostGator blue host and other things um has a they actually have a commercial license to the WordPress trademark so they're allowed just like automatic is to use WordPress in a more commercial way they can call things WordPress plans they can use WordPress in their advertising stuff like that um okay okay well cool uh thank you for attempting to clear there you know always give you the last word is there anything you want to say that could help clarify or help people understand your positioning or anything you can take as long or as little as you'd like H um well do know that if this is successful um you know WP is going to lose a lot of customer Silver Lake stands to lose billions of dollars so they are going to pull out every dirty trick smear campaign Cambridge analytica stuff paler they're going to try to attack and smear me in automatic and word press. workg as much as possible so you know if you see terrible stuff about me coming out I don't know like just know that there's probably someone paying for that um that's that's one thing I'll say and two I'll just say you know thank you all for listening thank you for engaging thanks for allowing me to come on like I really appreciate it um even if I hope hope it shows like you know WP engine is not doing things like this and so I'm trying to engage and be public and uh I'm happy to have calls with people I'm happy to talk to anyone who wants to talk about this like I'm really like as a community leader I feel it's like my obligation to spend time with community members and over the weekend I've spent probably 10 plus hours in Zoom calls with different community members and talking to people and things like that so like uh like I also run a company called automatic with 1900 people so I'm very busy but like I making the time for the community as well and I hope this is an example of that so thank you uh sorry I I you know just to be completely real if Lex fredman asked a question I'm going to give him the stage here he said how how can WP engine best support open source donate to wordpress.org and what amount do you think is good PS thank you for everything you have done for open source and the web in general yeah so based on W what I understand about WP engines business I think and also how much you know they profit off WordPress and W Commerce um I believe that a fair amount was 8% of the revenue and uh that could either be paid as a trademark license automatic and we would hire a bunch of Engineers and put more you know people on the core and things like that or they could do that themselves hire people and contribute them to the to the core so um and you technically said that they could give back hours or pay automatic and you were fine with either giving to word like donating engineering hours or actual Cash Cash Ola so long it long as it was either or and I think we'll actually try to publish the term sheet it's a one pager it's very simple and short so you can see exactly what they and they could do any combination of that as well so okay um that's that's how they could get back and uh by the way WordPress would be way better if they did yeah I mean any a software that would get millions of dollars worth of engineering effort would always get better so that's I mean and people are say % might seem like a lot like think of how much tech companies spend on R&D you know the budget's usually like 10 15 20% that's what they create the software that they offer to customers so WP engine doesn't have to do that right they don't have to make WordPress or woocommerce they just get the open source code and they sell it to people um so actually 8% would fit perfectly into the business model again it's uh it would would still be making tens of millions of dollars in profit per year um if they pay this fee okay awesome well hey I really appreciate you coming on I hope that uh you get some good sleep obviously I'm sure you'll have tons of communication and a ton of time spent clarifying the same question 900 times so I do not en your position I had bad sleep last night I had good sleep you know I can when I said I sleep soundly I feel comfortable with my decisions but yeah I did have bad sleep last night so sorry about that bye bye take care, Matt Talks About WordPress Situation, ThePrimeTime, 01j8rkwfv7b9c269ebzyrtg0cc.