Foundations  ## Metadata - Author: [[Crossword]] - Full Title: Foundations - Category: #podcasts - URL: https://share.snipd.com/episode/fab95c45-fc26-4c91-a50c-c97bedd613d2 ## Document Notes ## Highlights - **Luke's WPCC Membership Experience** - Luke is a member of the WordPress Community Collective (WPCC) and involved in its discussions. - GoDaddy recently contributed over half a million dollars to WPCC, boosting its capacity to influence WordPress leadership. Transcript: Luke In other news, also maybe not for profit related have you come across the wpcc the wordpress community collective yeah i've uh i've had multiple uh conversations with say and courtney Jonathan Over the years and uh are you a member i'm i'm not ah the the turntables turn. Luke I am. I am a member of the WPCC. Jonathan Well, it only hit me today in reading the announcement that I didn't realize that there was a membership component, which is probably just me not remembering. But sure, yeah. So what does it mean to be a member of the WPCC? Luke Well, when I saw it come up as some sort of, it was like a crowdfunding campaign, right? Let's raise a little bit of money to create this organization, not for profit, that has the goal of ushering in a new era of leadership inside of the WordPress project, one that is more Geared towards a community-based leadership. And yeah, Say is, Say Reed is maybe the face of it, but she's not the only one involved. There's a whole host of people. And as part of the, it wasn't a Kickstarter, but a similar sort of thing, there is access to a Slack channel. And so I've been invited in there and there's been conversations happening around all of this WordPress drama, but really specifically focused around the leadership of the project And governance. You know, there was that governance project years back and it sort of didn't go anywhere. Jonathan Is sort of the next step that's how i see it it's it's the natural evolution of that something that has to happen outside of the core of the project is that your own personal take or do you Have a sense that it being that's being described as such like by saying courtney yeah that's my personal take. Luke I want to get Say and Courtney on to the show to give a more official take. I think that'd be good. Jonathan Because my guess is that that's not the intention, but I'd want to hear that directly. So I was checking to see, was that your sense of, is this like 2.0 of the governance project? Luke Yeah, no, it's definitely my it's definitely my take on it it's not an official it's not def not described that way really in official terms but there is a slack similar to post chat status And uh yeah that's that there's some chit chat some chatter happening there uh and recently uh from my small $10 donation, there was another one. Yeah. Jonathan So GoDaddy just announced that they're putting in a little over half a million dollars into the project, into this collective, which they've done. ([Time 0:06:39](https://share.snipd.com/snip/d5a03e46-3547-4005-83f6-8aafdbb20976)) - **WordPress Foundation's Role and Rules** - Documents reveal WordPress Foundation owns WordPress.org and reviews code revisions for quality. - The Foundation's founding documents forbid doing business with individuals associated with itself, highlighting governance complexity. Transcript: Luke You know, there's this guy, I can't recall his name, who's also suing Matt Mullenweg at the moment in the United States. Yeah. I think it's William or Willem or something. Yeah. So this person has been doing a little digging around Matt Mullenweg and around the WordPress Foundation and uncovered some interesting documents that talk about WordPress Foundation's Founding documents. Let me read some of this to you, all right? Okay. Because WordPress is open source, it depends on the contributions of hundreds of volunteers from around the world to contribute to the continued development of the software. Volunteer developers identify areas of the software code that can be improved and create revisions. The revisions are then submitted to a central repository, which is managed by the WordPress Foundation. The Foundation then reviews all revision submissions for quality control. Revisions are approved and integrated into the WordPress open source. It goes on to say, and this one's key, WordPress Foundation will not enter into business deals with individuals associated with the foundation. Wait, really? Yep. This is in the founding documents of the WordPress Foundation. And it's interesting because it aligns with what we all thought the WordPress Foundation did. It's pretty clear that the WordPress Foundation from these founding documents considers itself the owner of WordPress.org. Jonathan Which of course sits at odds with the clear sentiment that Matt has repeatedly expressed that WordPress.org is his personal site. I'm having a hard time reconciling those. Is this a case where whatever the setting the site all reading into the intentions, that it was in fact that way and Matt forgot about it or changed his mind? Is this still an active document? ([Time 0:10:19](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c32d55e2-e325-439b-ac88-c3fbb418a32c)) - **Tensions Over WordPress.org Control** - Matt Mullenweg claims WordPress.org as his personal site, conflicting with foundation ownership. - Legal cases could challenge leadership and control, risking possible new governance or shutdown of the site. Transcript: Jonathan What's the nature of the documents we're talking about here? Luke I think what it's going to mean is that it's going to be an important document when it comes to court cases right yeah so so the legal case against matt is that hey you blocked me and i lost So i lost a lot of client work right because of that and you know, my name, my good reputation inside of WordPress is now, uh, you know, ruined. So I deserve some sort of financial compensation for that. That's the case against him. And as part of that, you know, there's going to be discussion about the nature of WordPress.org, whether it's Matt's personal site is going to come up also in the WP engine legal case I think this sort of document might be pretty damning when it comes to that sort of thing it might force some see that's the problem right with the with the legal battles is that it could Really go either way you could you could see it going with a judge or a sort of resolution pre-court where Matt says, you know what? Okay, fine. You can have this, this, and this. And everybody celebrates as the win and we get some sort of new leadership maybe, or at least Matt has some sort of tempered control over his leadership on the project. Or Matt goes, you know what? You can have all the money. I'm just shutting it down. Forget about it. And turns WordPress off. Right. I think both of those are somewhat unlikely. Let's suppose, let's imagine a situation where Matt's legal cases are doomed. There's no hope for him to win. Imagine that scenario. Jonathan The most likely outcome yeah i don't i don't know um i like to imagine that there wouldn't be a any kind of like a scorched earth response um because matt like seems to clearly care about The it seems that he cares a lot about his legacy in the long term and longevity of this like that's why i can't see a burn it down like response but uh i think that's wishful thinking like Luke You gotta you gotta look at what the guy's been doing you know automatics response with like we're not going to contribute anymore that seems fairly scorched earth to me and matt said On twitter that all of these legal fees are building up I might have to turn wordpress.org off he said that on X ([Time 0:12:23](https://share.snipd.com/snip/899ce6aa-4f52-491f-ad25-31060c4696cf))