The War in WordPress  ## Metadata - Author: [[Michele Jones]] - Full Title: The War in WordPress - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#WordPress, #Community, #OpenSource, #Governance] - #WordPress - #Community - #OpenSource - #Governance Author: Michele L. Jones Source: Blog Post Reference: [https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/](https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/) date created: {{date:2024-09-29}} {{time:HH:mm}} --- # Title: The War in WordPress: Challenges in Balancing Community and Corporate Influence ## Table of Contents: 1. 📝 [Summary](#summary) 2. 📖 [Main Content](#main-content) - 🗒️ [Notes](#notes) 3. 📖 [References](#references) 4. 🗣️ [Paraphrase](#paraphrase) 5. 📰 [Newsletter](#newsletter) 6. ✅ [Action Items](#action-items) 7. 🧪 [Hypotheses](#hypotheses) - 📊 [Methodology](#methodology) 8. ❓ [Questions](#questions) 9. 🔮 [Future Research](#future-research) - 💡 [Implications](#implications) 10. 🧠 [Learning Styles Assessment](#learning-styles-assessment) 11. 📊 [Accessibility Assessment](#accessibility-assessment) 12. 🌍 [DEIB Assessment](#deib-assessment) 13. ✅ [Logical Validity](#logical-validity) 14. 🔍 [SEO Evaluation](#seo-evaluation) 15. 🎯 [Conclusion](#conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: The article "The War in WordPress" by Michele L. Jones addresses the growing tensions in the WordPress community as corporate involvement continues to rise. It details the challenges in maintaining a community-driven open-source spirit while navigating the pressures of increased commercial interests. The author emphasizes the need for transparent governance, equitable power distribution, and ensuring that the core values of the WordPress project are not compromised. ## 📖 Main Content: The article delves into the evolving dynamics within WordPress as it deals with the dual pressures of community needs and corporate influence. The author critiques current governance practices and highlights the potential risks of prioritizing business interests over community-driven goals. ### 🗒️ Notes #### 1. **Corporate Influence and Community Challenges** - **The Rise of Corporate Involvement**: - **Growing Power of Corporates**: The author highlights that major corporations, due to their substantial financial contributions, are becoming increasingly powerful in shaping the direction of WordPress. This development has led to fears of decision-making that may favor corporate interests. - **Shift in Governance**: There is a growing concern among community members that the shift towards business influence could threaten the democratic and open governance structure that WordPress was built upon. - **Concerns from Community Members**: - **Exclusion of Volunteers**: Independent contributors feel sidelined as corporate-backed contributors gain more influence. The community has voiced that decision-making processes have become less accessible to those who aren’t financially contributing on the same scale. - **Transparency Issues**: The author argues that the lack of transparency in governance decisions has led to distrust. Clear guidelines and public involvement are essential to ensure fair governance that represents the entire community. #### 2. **Governance and the Open-Source Spirit** - **Balancing Open-Source and Profit**: - **Maintaining Community Ideals**: The original WordPress ethos focused on democratizing publishing. The author emphasizes that this vision should not be compromised for profit-driven goals. - **Financial Contributions vs. Community Contributions**: The article points out the imbalance where financial contributions seem to outweigh code, documentation, and other forms of community involvement. This imbalance risks alienating contributors who have dedicated time and energy to WordPress for years. - **Inclusivity in Governance**: - **Equal Opportunities for All Contributors**: The author calls for governance reforms that ensure everyone, regardless of financial contribution, has an equal opportunity to influence decisions. This would require transparent election processes and structured representation from different community groups. #### 3. **Future Pathways and Potential Solutions** - **Reforming Governance**: - **Transparency and Inclusion**: The author suggests adopting more transparent processes, such as open forums and town hall-style meetings, where all contributors can voice their opinions. - **Creating Community Councils**: Introducing independent community councils that work alongside corporate representatives is proposed as a way to ensure balance and prevent over-centralization of power. - **Corporate-Community Partnerships**: - **The Role of Corporations**: Instead of viewing corporations as a threat, the author proposes redefining their role as partners who contribute resources while respecting the values of the open-source community. Successful collaboration requires clear boundaries and mutual respect. ## 📖 References: - Michele L. Jones, "The War in WordPress," [https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/](https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. **Growing Corporate Influence**: The article argues that the increasing influence of major corporations in WordPress governance has led to concerns about the community’s democratic nature. Independent contributors fear that governance decisions are increasingly being made behind closed doors, favoring corporate interests over the open-source community. 2. **The Need for Transparency**: The author stresses the need for transparent governance to maintain community trust. By involving all stakeholders—whether they are financially contributing or not—WordPress can stay true to its open-source values and ensure fair decision-making. ## 📰 Newsletter: **Community in Focus: Navigating the WordPress Governance Divide** 📝 WordPress is at a critical juncture. 📊 With rising corporate influence, how do we ensure that the open-source spirit isn't overshadowed? Michele L. Jones dives into the ongoing tensions between corporate stakeholders and independent contributors, calling for reforms that prioritize transparency and community voice. Join the conversation and be a part of the solution. 🌟 Read the full article here: [Read More](https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/) ## ✅ Action Items: This article aligns with your mission to promote transparency and inclusivity within the WordPress ecosystem. You can use this as a foundation for discussions on how GoDaddy can support open governance models in WordPress. Consider hosting a community webinar that discusses practical steps for balancing corporate and community interests. This effort would also tie into your aspiration of becoming an OSPO director, showcasing your dedication to creating an equitable open-source ecosystem that values all contributions equally. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: 1. Enhanced transparency in WordPress governance will lead to increased trust and engagement from independent contributors. 2. Structured community representation in decision-making will reduce the perception of corporate dominance. 3. Corporations that actively support community initiatives will improve their standing within the WordPress community. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Community Surveys**: Develop surveys to understand community sentiment about corporate influence and governance transparency. - **Interviews with Key Contributors**: Conduct interviews with long-standing contributors to gain insights into their perspectives on recent governance changes. - **Comparative Analysis**: Compare governance models from other open-source projects to identify practices that could benefit WordPress. ### ❓ Questions: 1. How can WordPress balance corporate funding with maintaining open governance and community-driven ideals? 2. What specific governance structures could ensure more equitable representation for all community contributors? 3. What role should corporations play in the WordPress community without overpowering individual contributors? ### 🔮 Future Research: - **Effective Open-Source Governance Models**: Study various open-source projects with balanced corporate and community governance to draw lessons for WordPress. - **Impact of Transparency on C - Document Tags: [[5fftF]] [[governance]] [[Matt Mullenweg]] [[open source corporate contribution]] [[wordpress]] [[wpdrama]] [[wp engine]] - Summary: WCUS 2024 started a feud between Matt Mullenweg and WPEngine. Michele Jones shares her thoughts on the war on WordPress. - URL: https://micheleljones.com/2024/09/28/the-war-in-wordpress/ Disclaimer: *This post is my own thoughts and ideas. I did not receive any information outside of what is public knowledge. They are in no way connected to WordPress, Automattic, Audrey Capital, WPEngine, or any other entity. I am not a lawyer, nor do I practice law. Opinions are my own.* [](https://i0.wp.com/micheleljones.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/bw-Michele-Jones-hs-2023-897.jpg?ssl=1) In my 14 years of working in WordPress, I never once really feared for its future. That was until this past week. Since leaving WCUS in Portland, my stress level has been high with thinking about the future, my career, and the WordPress Community in general. #### The TL;DR Matt Mullenweg announced during what should have been is yearly Q&A at WordCamp US on Friday, September 20, 2024 that WPEngine owed Automattic a whole lot of money over Trademark discrepancies and they were a bad company for not giving more back to the WordPress Community via Five for the Future. WPEngine retaliated with a Cease and Desist. Matt wrote an open letter on Make.WordPress.Org that stated WPEngine is not WordPress. Matt and Automattic retaliated with their own Cease and Desist letter. WPEngine blocked the News and Events widget from the dashboard. [Matt blocked WPEngine](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/) (and their other hosting platform Flywheel) from being able to connect with WordPress to run updates or installl plugins and themes from the repo. Friday he took away the block on WPEngine until October 1. I think we are caught up for now… I debated for a long time to say anything publicly. Before when it was more of Matt vs Silver Lake, I was completely okay with staying out of it. Now though with seeing people outside of the WordPress Community and outside of being “privileged” of seeing the events unfold now have their websites being blocked from getting any security updates for anything that is housed within the WordPress.org repositories, it is time to share my voice. [](https://i0.wp.com/micheleljones.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/bw-Michele-Jones-hs-2023-900.jpg?ssl=1) I had seen [Matt’s post that he put up after Contributors Day](https://ma.tt/2024/09/ecosystem-thinking/) the following morning. I could understand his frustration with thinking that WPEngine should contribute more than they do. That was one thing that bugged me about a former agency I had worked for. The agency made a ton of money off of building websites on WordPress and enjoyed all of my connections I have in the WordPress Community but would never chip in to pay for any of the expenses occurred at WordCamps to build those relationships and to hone our skills better let alone actually contribute back the Open Source project. This year at WCUS I was an organizer on the photography team. Part of my assignments was to take pictures of Matt before and as he walked onto the stage. Little did I know at the time I was standing over talking to Mo and Matt before he went on stage that he was also texting the people over at WPEngine their “last chance” as he put it before the proverbial poop hit the fan. Imagine my surprise when I was reading through WPEngine’s Cease and Desist letter and came across a screenshot of the text that he sent with the picture of the people waiting for Matt to go on stage that I stood beside him when he took it! After Matt went on stage and I swung around to the middle of the room to get some more shots of him talking, he started his “talk” saying that he wanted to read to us one of his recent blog posts, I instantly knew which one he meant and thought “well shit, here we go!” Oh to be that naive again! HAHA. I was a bit put back that he did put up the slide that shown a headshot, name, and even the email address for the head at SilverLake [Lee Whittlinger](https://www.silverlake.com/people/lee-wittlinger/) (investment firm who has a large stake in WPEngine). *Fun side note: Whittlinger was on the board for GoDaddy back in 2022 when the whole “existential crisis” gate happened*. However, being someone who has been known to do “God and everybody” emails in the past, I could understand the want to call someone out. [](https://i0.wp.com/micheleljones.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/bw-Michele-Jones-hs-2023-898.jpg?ssl=1) I could even agree with Matt with people getting confused thinking that WPEngine is “WordPress Engine” which would be owned by WordPress/Automattic. I have actually witnessed this happening to people. I have had people convinced they hosted on “WordPress” so I would think they had a WordPress.com business account to find out later that their site was on WPEngine. It did not happen much in my almost decade in a half but it has happened. I said at the after social event to mark my words WPEngine or SilverLake will file a suit against Matt and this will get ugly. People with money will always get the lawyers involved and make a whole ordeal about it. At this time I do believe that most people were pretty sympathetic to Matt’s stance against WPEngine even if they did not agree and/or like how he went about it. At that time the Community was under the impression this was mostly aimed at SilverLake and how they are not good for Open Source. [](https://i0.wp.com/micheleljones.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/gunfight-boondocks.gif?ssl=1) Then the mud started flinging. The following morning Matt wrote a piece on the WordPress.org blog about [WPEngine is not WordPress](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/). If you are still following at home, first the issue was with contributing, then it became about the trademarks/confusion, and now in the post on the org news blog, it is being brought up that WPEngine has “modified” core so that one can only keep up to 3 revisions of any post/page/custom post type. WPEngine sent a [Cease and Desist letter](https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf) to Matt on Monday stating their side of the events. Automattic also sent their own [Cease and Desist](https://wptavern.com/automattic-responds-to-wp-engines-cease-and-desist-with-legal-action) to WPEngine stating the trademark violations for WordPress and WooCommerce. WPEngine removed the “News & Events” widget from their code base so that people who are hosted on WPEngine and Flywheel could not see a link that went to the WPEngine is not WordPress post. In retaliation, Matt [banned WPEngine and Flywheel sites to be able to call WordPress.org servers](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/) to be able to download or update core, themes and/or plugins. This sent a lot of people into a frenzy. Rightfully so, as now there is a lot more people in the crossfire Then on Thursday Matt does an interview with ThePrimeagen on Twitch. You can find the replay on [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6F0PgMcKWM&pp=ygUObWF0dCBtdWxsZW53ZWc%3D). This is where it comes out that not only did WPEngine have the “trademark issues” with WordPress but they are also “stealing” from WooCommerce with their managed Woo Hosting. Now while I did not know first hand any of this back when Matt did his “Q & A”, I did say that night at the After Social to a few friends that there was something more that we were missing and I bet it had to do with their [Stripe Connect integration](https://wpengine.com/blog/stripe-connect-integration/). On Friday, [Matt did take off the block for the WPEngine sites until Tuesday (October 1)](https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/) so they can get their whatever figured out. While that is a very short amount of time, at least they can get their sites updated and have a little time to decide on what their next move is. #### My Thoughts on the Whole Ordeal First off this whole mess freaking sucks! I feel completely horrible for the Automatticians, WPEngine & Flywheel employees, and every website owner going through this. This site was on WPEngine up until 2 days ago but I moved it before publishing this post. I do see both sides of the debate. Fortunately and unfortunately my brain is really good at seeing both sides of a discussion. Which usually puts me right in the middle and having both sides angry with me. Everyone is having very strong opinions on both sides and the strife that is happening is taking a big toll on everyone. I understand the want to make sure everyone who is making money from WordPress to give back to the project. I think that if Stripe has a partnership with Automattic for WooCommerce there should be a bit more predefined president between them that these fights between hosts can stop. I do not think this should be held against the hosts as they were only doing what most would do when seeing an opportunity. I do see where WPEngine execs feel like they were also being unfairly pressured. I do not think that employees of any of the companies involved in this should be getting some of the hateraid I have seen on Twitter. I could be mistaken (it has happened once or twice in my life) but I do not think that a WPEngine employee like Brian Gardner could cancel the cease and desist and sign any legal paperwork for WPEngine and go over Heather Brunner’s head. Don’t get me wrong, I do have some mad love for BG but I would bet dollars to donuts he does not have that level of authority in his job description. I do hope that for the community they come to a peaceful and quick resolve as there is so much collateral damage happening. I do not think that will happen though. I think this wil drag out until a judge or jury calls it or one side runs out of money. I think there will be so much litigation happening that it very well could destroy our amazing community. #### The Future of Five for the Future of WordPress We are at a huge crossroads for what will happen to WordPress and its community. I am still very hopeful for the best as that is the way I roll. It really depends on how this plays out. If Matt/Automattic does win everything, I wholeheartedly believe this could jeopardize the relationships between the WordPress Foundation, Automattic, and every outside hosting company. I think that would break the trust as well between Matt and the community and I really hate to see that happen. Even though it has already happened. If WPEngine wins, I fear that the “Open Source” of WordPress could become a thing of the past. Automattic could start locking things down, charging, and it could destroy the community. There is definitely no clear cut win out of this situation. I do believe that now is the time for some governance. There needs to be a board of people who are a mix from Automattic, the larger companies who make money exclusively on WordPress, and community contributors from around the world who can come together with Matt and Josepha to have a round table discussions and rulings of what is best for the project. It should be a mixture of people from around the world and of different levels in WordPress. I do not think it should be the same people “it always is” when having the community summits and things like that as there should be a mixture of opinions. It should also be people who can remain respectful when sharing differing opinions but also have the ability to say something that others may disagree with. This “board” should be at minimum 12 people but at most 25 people and there should be tenures for them where we are putting new people in the seats every few years (other than like maybe 4-5 of them being the heads of the top companies/foundation that must be included. We could even have the community to vote on the people to join the board and maybe make it a part of State of the Word or something like that. No matter what, we have hit a time where WordPress should be more than just one person and for there to be a true democracy in WordPress. Again, these are only my thoughts and opinions. Some of which I have expressed privately and publicly. As this progresses on, please remember to have grace with your fellow WordPressers. We are all in this together., The War in WordPress, Michele Jones, 01j8xpjp88bf6byrq9xkb6s7dg.