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dot20@lemmy.world 8 months agoThe 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!).
Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world 8 months ago
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. (I don’t know if you’re intentionally being obtuse. Would you also consider Volkswagen and the Nazis are “the same people”?) 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 that is essentially 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 (wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/) or the logo for your business. 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!
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? Image
dot20@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Is Red Hat a conflict of interest? MongoDB (pre-2018)? Docker? Nginx? They all sell proprietary software alongside their open-source offerings.
Is it a conflict of interest that I can pay Plausible Analytics for a hosted version of their software, even though it’s open source? How about GitLab? How about Bitwarden?
If you take issue with companies selling products based on open-source software they created, 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).
(Incidentally, even the Free Software Foundation encourages charging money for FOSS software.)
Lord_ToRA@lemmy.world 8 months ago
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.
dot20@lemmy.world 8 months ago
So, all the companies I named and many more, then.
Go on, go on Docker’s or GitLab’s website, and let me know how clear the distinction between their proprietary and open-source software is.