WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Contributions and Community  ## Metadata - Author: [[Aditya]] - Full Title: WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Contributions and Community - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#wordpress, #open-source, #community-contributions] Author: Aditya Source: Bombay Pirate Reference: [Original Article](https://bombaypirate.com/wordpress-situation/?__readwiseLocation=) date created: 2024-11-24 17:30 --- # Title: WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Contributions, and Community ## Table of Contents:  - 📝 [Summary](#-summary) - 📖 [Main Content](#-main-content) - 🗒️ [Notes](#-notes) - 📖 [References](#-references) - 🗣️ [Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - 📰 [Newsletter Blurb](#-newsletter-blurb) - ✅ [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 Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - ✅ [Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - 🔍 [DARVO Analysis](#-darvo-analysis-prompt) - 🔍 [SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - 🎯 [Conclusion](#-conclusion) --- ## 📝 Summary: This article examines the ongoing "WordPress situation," focusing on leadership, contributions, and community dynamics within the ecosystem. Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, critiqued WP Engine for insufficient contributions to WordPress’s open-source foundation. This escalated into trademark disputes and legal battles, sparking intense discussions about governance, equity, and the future of WordPress. The narrative explores the delicate balance between fostering open-source collaboration and addressing disparities in contributions by major commercial players. The author reflects on personal experiences in the WordPress community, emphasizing its imperfections but advocating for sustained engagement. --- ## 📖 Main Content: The "WordPress situation" encapsulates the challenges of balancing open-source ideals with commercial realities. It highlights leadership dilemmas, contribution inequalities, and the persistent tension between large corporations and smaller community-driven contributors. ### 🗒️ Notes: #### **Key Issues:** - **Matt Mullenweg’s Critique of WP Engine**: - Criticizes WP Engine for insufficient contributions while heavily benefiting from WordPress’s ecosystem. - Labels their approach as "taker-like," suggesting an imbalance in the give-and-take relationship that underpins open-source principles. - This criticism extends to other large corporations perceived as profiting disproportionately without giving back. - **Trademark Disputes**: - WP Engine’s alleged misuse of WordPress trademarks sparked a legal battle. - Automattic controls the licensing rights, creating tension with commercial entities using the WordPress name. - This dispute has evolved into broader questions about the role of Automattic in governing trademarks tied to the open-source WordPress project. - **Impact on Contributors**: - Some community members have paused or ceased their contributions due to dissatisfaction with the project’s governance and leadership. - Others continue to contribute while voicing criticisms, emphasizing the importance of sustaining the project despite its flaws. #### **Author’s Perspective:** - **Support for Matt’s Critique**: - The author agrees with Matt Mullenweg’s call-out of corporations that profit without contributing. - Frames this as a necessary function of leadership to safeguard the commons and address the “tragedy of the commons” dynamic. - **Nuanced Governance**: - Advocates for leadership that balances critique with actionable strategies for inclusivity and collaboration. - Stresses the importance of leaving room for disagreement while fostering commitment to the broader goals of the community. - **Reflection on Community Dynamics**: - Highlights microaggressions and cultural biases within the WordPress community, particularly toward contributors from underrepresented regions. - Shares personal anecdotes of resilience and persistence in navigating these challenges. #### **Challenges Highlighted**: - **Imbalanced Contributions**: - Larger corporations contribute significantly less than their earnings from the ecosystem warrant. - This disparity erodes trust and discourages smaller contributors who feel unsupported. - **Lack of Inclusivity**: - Microaggressions and tokenism alienate contributors from diverse backgrounds. - Efforts to create a welcoming environment often fall short, leading to underrepresentation of certain groups. - **Sustainability Concerns**: - The ongoing disputes risk undermining the cohesion and stability of the WordPress ecosystem. - Loss of core contributors due to dissatisfaction or burnout could harm the long-term viability of the project. --- ### 🔍 DARVO Analysis Prompt: #### **Objective**: Identify and evaluate signs of DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) in the content. #### **1. Deny**: - **Instances in the Dispute**: - WP Engine denies the validity of Matt Mullenweg’s criticisms, framing their contributions as sufficient given their business model. - Automattic’s leadership denies allegations of exploiting their dominant position in the WordPress ecosystem. - **Impact of Denial**: - The refusal to acknowledge shortcomings by both parties fuels mistrust within the community. - Denial shifts the focus from resolving the root issues to defending positions, delaying meaningful progress. #### **2. Attack**: - **Automattic’s Strategy**: - Publicly criticizes WP Engine’s practices as exploitative, labeling them as a "taker-like" entity. - Highlights WP Engine’s reliance on WordPress trademarks, framing their actions as a misuse of communal resources. - **WP Engine’s Response**: - Counters by accusing Automattic of monopolizing WordPress trademarks for commercial gain. - Positions themselves as unfairly targeted due to their success in the WordPress ecosystem. - **Consequences of Attack**: - Personal and professional reputations are damaged, leading to polarization within the community. - Contributors are forced to choose sides, exacerbating divisions and hindering collaboration. #### **3. Reverse Victim and Offender**: - **WP Engine’s Narrative**: - Portrays themselves as victims of Automattic’s monopolistic tactics, emphasizing the perceived inequity of the trademark dispute. - Suggests that Matt’s actions are driven by a desire to stifle competition rather than protect the community. - **Automattic’s Narrative**: - Frames WP Engine as an offender exploiting the ecosystem without due contributions. - Positions their actions as necessary to preserve the integrity of the WordPress project. - **Impact of Role Reversal**: - Both narratives shift accountability away from the central issues of contribution equity and governance reform. - The community is left to navigate conflicting stories, creating uncertainty and disillusionment. #### **Recurring Themes**: - **Blame-Shifting**: - Both parties deflect responsibility for the broader systemic issues within WordPress. - This tactic undermines trust and creates an adversarial environment. - **Emotional Manipulation**: - Appeals to the community’s sense of fairness and loyalty are used to garner support. - This emotional framing detracts from objective discussions about governance and contributions. #### **Suggestions for Improvement**: - Establish a neutral third-party mediation process to address disputes. - Shift the focus from personal attacks to collaborative problem-solving. - Promote transparency in governance decisions to rebuild trust within the community. --- ## 📖 References: - [Bombay Pirate Article](https://bombaypirate.com/wordpress-situation/?__readwiseLocation=) - [FOSS Core Principles](https://osssoftware.org/blog/free-and-open-source-software-foss-core-principles/) - [Tragedy of the Commons Definition](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons) --- ## 🎯 Conclusion: The WordPress situation exemplifies the complexities of balancing open-source ideals with - Document Tags: [[WordPress]] [[wordpress contribution]] [[wpdrama]] - Summary: WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Contributions and Community - URL: https://bombaypirate.com/wordpress-situation/ The view outside the WordCamp Kerala 2024 conference in Kozhikode. I started writing this post while on a hopping flight from Kozhikode to Bangalore to Pune. The night time layover hours in Bangalore allowed me to write down some thoughts about the WordPress community and some things going on in the project. I have mostly not commented about the WordPress situation over the past two months. This is partly because I have not been keeping well for almost a month. Additionally, I dislike reading or adding to hot takes on social media. These often do not stand the test of time. I currently contribute efforts to the [WordPress Community Team](https://make.wordpress.org/community/) as a Program Manager and along with being a member of the [Incident Response Team](https://make.wordpress.org/community/handbook/irt/). Locally in Pune, I am leading [WordCamp Pune 2025](https://pune.wordcamp.org/2025/). This is a very experimental event with only workshops. Each workshop has several facilitators. The focus is that all attendees should learn or teach something to each other. This will help each attendee to hopefully interact with the WordPress software from the next day onward. I work on these things self-sponsored. This means no one pays me for doing this. Not since the year 2020. A week ago, at [WordCamp Kerala](https://kerala.wordcamp.org/2024/), [Sheeba Abraham](https://profiles.wordpress.org/sheebaabraham/) and I had the opportunity to conduct a hands-on workshop on building a block theme using the [Create Block Theme plugin](https://wordpress.org/plugins/create-block-theme/). There were some WIFI issues to begin with but getting dozens of new WordPress people to start building a block based page was great to experience. I personally find the Create Block Theme plugin a better onboarding experience for the block editor than any other theme out there. But that topic is for another day. Back to the WordPress situation. I prefer the word “situation” and dislike the word “drama”. #### The WordPress Situation [Matt Mullenweg](https://ma.tt/), the co-founder of WordPress and also ultimate lead of the project, is also the CEO of Automattic, a company that runs the hosting service WordPress.com, WPVIP, WooCommerce, Tumblr and many other things. The owner of the WordPress trademark is an entity called WordPress Foundation. Automattic holds the commercial rights to the WordPress trademarks. This means they can monetise the trademarks or even sub-license it to other entities. WP Engine (WPE) is a hosting company that was criticised by the WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp US 2024 for being inadequate contributors to the open source project. He also suggested that WPE is misusing the WordPress trademark, for which only Automattic holds the commercial license to use and sub-licence it. WPEngine has gone to court. Automattic and Matt Mullenweg have also responded and all parties have lawyered up. I am not a lawyer, so I won’t comment on the trademark and licensing dispute between Automattic, WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, and WP Engine. Some community members disagree with Matt’s position and have left the project. Some have paused contributing. There have been heated discussions on several Slack groups, forums and of course Twitter/X on topics, such as Matt Mullenweg’s leadership to the direction of WordPress. #### Who do I think is right? Since the days I started organising WordCamps in Mumbai about 10 years ago, I have had some very successful names in WordPress tell me that their sponsorship to an event was more or less like charity. Some claim that their success in selling their WordPress theme or plugin to several thousands of paying customers was contribution enough.  It is like some person who becomes rich and buys a lot of cars and a private jet and says they contribute to society by simply being rich and spending money. This is obviously absurd. Those roads, electricity network, waste collection, public parks are the commons that benefit society and all of comes from taxes. We all have to contribute to the commons and if you are richer, you need to contribute more. Taking advantage of the commons with a taker-like approach, often called an example of the “[tragedy of commons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons)” has and will always be a concern for any open source project or open system. I am not suggesting that we have a tax collection system in WordPress. That wouldn’t really work well. But if a company is making hundreds of millions of USD in revenues and sponsors only one or two individuals on the WordPress project, then at the very least, the leader of the open-source project, by all means has the right to call out this “taker – like” approach. > **Freedom to take from the commons without giving back might exist in open-source. But that freedom doesn’t mean one cannot be called out for the “taker-like” approach by leaders of the project. In many ways, I think it is a primary duty of the caretakers and leaders of the project to call out this practice.** > > **In that sense, I do think Matt Mullenweg is right!** > > There are many actions I might disagree around WordPress.org — but that is the nature of open-source. As long as I have the space to [disagree and commit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disagree_and_commit), I do not feel any disagreement should lead down to the road of disengagement. That said, I do miss my comrades who have left the project or paused their contributions. I don’t necessarily think they were wrong in their choices. Choices are hard, complicated and nuanced and I respect their choices and them as people. #### Harking back to the Community of the old! n the background of this situation, some in the WordPress community have complained about how the community is not the same anymore. I hear them out, but I also feel that it is important for them to listen to this feedback. I might not be articulating this as well as I would like but I have some thoughts on this. I am very wary of people who think they understand the size, scope and impact of WordPress, and the vastness and diversity of its ecosystem. Most people who are confident in estimating WordPress remind me of the story of the [blind men and the elephant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant). The community was not always welcoming. I am from India (South Asia) and many of us from South Asia have ignored slights and small micro-aggressions from time to time. To share an example, I have been told plenty of times by someone from North America/ Europe that my name “Aditya” sounds wonderful or fantastic. I am guessing this is their way of making the sole South Asian person on a call feel welcomed. But exotifying my name or ethnicity to make me feel comfortable is irritating. People like me will mostly ignore such experiences along and collaborate. The community is by no means perfect, nor was it ever perfect for many. But a lot of us have always chosen to stay in the project and get things moving. Mainly because we got to learn things, teach them to others and enjoy our time. **Yes, the WordPress community is for all.** And we all should strive to keep it that way. But it was always a “work in progress” and continues to be so. We should always be mindful of this. #### In conclusion Sheeba and I at the workshop. I think I was messing around with the “Color Palette” there. As I started this post with WordCamp Kerala, I want to end it on that note. [Sheeba](https://profiles.wordpress.org/sheebaabraham/) and I were conducting a workshop on building an FSE block theme for people new to WordPress. The time given to us was a bit condensed and we were finding it difficult to help 40 -odd attendees configure Playground and download the CBT plugin and get started. I noticed [Hardeep](https://profiles.wordpress.org/hardeepasrani/) and [Saurabh](https://profiles.wordpress.org/saurabhshukla/), both WordPress stalwarts, were in the audience. They offered to help out and I recruited them on the fly. Now we were four instead of two and covered a lot more people and a lot faster. It felt like a bunch of random jazz musicians trying to help each other with our familiarity and WordPress being the music I guess. While our concert was not perfect by any means, we knew each other enough to collaborate and pick up from each other. I was down with high fever and on medication while the workshop was taking place. Despite that, it was the most fun I seemed to have had in months! Soon we were seeing questions being asked. Some moved around a few blocks on the homepage and raised their eyebrows and gave that look. That look of surprise that they just figured out something cool and started building things. ♥️ **What’s there to not love about this?** So yes, I am not going anywhere and I will continue contributing to the WordPress project in various ways, as far as I can see. Long live and prosper WordPress! 🖖 Some content could not be imported from the original document. [View content ↗](https://jetpack.wordpress.com/jetpack-comment/?blogid=160266491&postid=8190&comment_registration=0&require_name_email=1&stc_enabled=1&stb_enabled=1&show_avatars=1&avatar_default=identicon&greeting=Leave+a+Reply&jetpack_comments_nonce=ec048852fe&greeting_reply=Leave+a+Reply+to+%25s&color_scheme=light&lang=en_US&jetpack_version=14.1-a.3&iframe_unique_id=3&show_cookie_consent=10&has_cookie_consent=0&is_current_user_subscribed=0&token_key=%3Bnormal%3B&sig=1a839b56b76c4b8a54a31e6421826317361a0c90#parent=https%3A%2F%2Fbombaypirate.com%2Fwordpress-situation%2F), WordPress, Matt Mullenweg, Contributions and Community, Aditya, 01jd8ex0fe5d45ja5jfqg0k0af.