Fuck WordPress.com. They intentionally lead people to conflate the free and open-source software WordPress (WordPress.org) and their own proprietary and overpriced version.
You can’t install plugins on their platform until you pay them $40/mo ($25/mo if you pay annually). That’s one of the most expensive WordPress hosting out there and it’s a completely different proprietary version with less access and control than you’d find elsewhere for far less.
No, they are not the same people. Automattic is owned by one of the creators of WordPress and they donate some work to the open source project, but they are two entirely separate entities.
WordPress.org is a non-profit organization and Automattic is a for-profit business. Legally they have to be separate and different. Though, that doesn’t stop them from influencing the WP org to promote their ‘free’ plugins over others that are often mostly advertisements for their paid services.
WP Engine provides more development work to the non-profit than Automattic does.
The guy who, in the first place, came up with the idea for a fork of b2/cafelog (which would come to be known as WordPress), is Matt Mullenweg. He’s still the lead developer of the open-source WordPress project to this day, 20 years later.
It is true that Mullenweg’s company Automattic gave the WordPress trademark to the WordPress Foundation in 2010. The founder of said foundation is the very same Matt Mullenweg. It is not the case that Automattic and the Foundation “legally […] have to be separate”, that’s a choice that Automattic/Mullenweg made.
It is a fact that without Mullenweg, WordPress would not exist, period (neither .org nor .com). Mullenweg/Automattic do not only “[influence] the WP org”, they created (and still lead!) the WP org.
Of course, I’m sure WP Engine is a fine host, and all the better that they also contribute back to the WP project (that’s the power of open source!).
It is not the case that Automattic and the Foundation “legally […] have to be separate”, that’s a choice that Automattic/Mullenweg made.
Yes, it is literally illegal in the US for a for-profit business to also be a non-profit entity, thus Automattic and the WordPress Foundation are separate entities. The WordPress foundation does contain some of the same people, and contributors to the free and open-source software also has some of the same people but it also consists of many others that contribute equally or possibly more., which is why I brought up WP Engine (though I personally don’t consider them to be “a fine host”). I don’t know if you’re intentionally being obtuse about this useless pedantry. Additionally, while the software on WordPress.com is a fork of the WordPress software and based on it, they are very different. I have had to migrate sites away from WP.com to use the open-source WordPress software many times and it is a pain in the ass every time because of that.
Nothing of what you mentioned has any bearing on my point. Automattic is a for-profit business that is using the name and trademark of a non-profit business to trick people into thinking that Automattic/WordPress.com and the free and open source software provided by WordPress.org are the same thing.
It is particularly fucked up when you consider the WordPress Foundation’s clear stance on using the name WordPress in your domain or the logo for your business (https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/) . Why does WordPress.com get a free pass? They are a for-profit business just the same as many others with the main difference being that the owner and CEO of the for-profit business is the same person as the founder and lead developer of the non-profit organization. That is super fucked up! It is a clear conflict of interest.
Also, WordPress.com does nothing to make it clear that they are a separate entity from WordPress.org, particularly for people who don’t know any better. They hear “You should make a WordPress site.” from people and stumble on WordPress.com and then learn they have to pay significantly more money to simply install plugins, which is a big reason why WordPress has such a large userbase, and there are more issues that they run into than just the ridiculous costs.
WordPress.org even has a link to WordPress.com in their footer. Do they provide any other link to competitor for-profit businesses?
Can you tell which of these two tabs you can find the free and open source software?
Is Red Hat a conflict of interest? MongoDB (pre-2018)? Docker? Nginx? These for-profit companies all sell proprietary software alongside their open-source offerings with the same name.
Is it a conflict of interest that Plausible Analytics profits off a hosted version of their open-source software? How about GitLab? How about Bitwarden?
If you take issue with companies selling products based on open-source software they created (and using the same name), there are a LOT more companies you should take issue with than just Automattic (who, as discussed, voluntarily spun off their trademarks into a non-profit, unlike the companies named above).
A for-profit business also offering an open-source software is not a conflict of interest and perfectly fine, and like you show, there are plenty of examples of this behavior.
However, what absolutely is a conflict of interest, and is scummy as fuck, is running an non-profit that actively works as an advertising platform for your for-profit business as well as making it intentionally confusing to people that there are two separate entities of a non-profit and for-profit while giving preferential treatment towards that business among other competitors in the market.
So, all the companies I named and many more, then.
Go on, go on Docker’s or GitLab’s website (just to name two examples), and let me know how clear the distinction between their proprietary and open-source software is.
Wordpress is an ancient cursed technology, but hey this is kinda cool
Ancient cursed technology that powers 43% of all websites
(source)
Doesn’t make it good. But really the worst part is the vast sea of poorly made plugins and themes, other than the concept of ‘everything is a post’ that puts nearly all of the data into a single database table. You know, instead of a sane system that stores different data types in separate tables and manages the relationships with an ORM.
Working with their APIs and their plugins’ APIs is atrocious.
I’ve been following my own wordpress site from pixelfed and mastodon for months… Why is this news?
At the time, however, WordPress.com blogs were not yet supported. But that changes today.
I wonder why the plugin was held back from their users.
Yeah, this was posted weeks ago.
It’s now available on all wordpress.com plans. The article is from the 11th.
