> * Donated the WordPress trademark to the nonprofit WordPress Foundation in 2010
Fallen at the first hurdle. The WordPress Foundation is Matt’s personal vehicle used to obscure his control over the WordPress ecosystem. He has misrepresented the foundations role for over a decade, it was only following the WP Engine debacle that the true status of the foundation and Matt’s personal ownership of WordPress.org came to light.
The spirit of Open Source is contributing to the world for the greater good, not building your personal fiefdom. Matt is rare because he’s one of the few people in Open Source who are so desperate to launder their reputation. Most either acknowledge their project as theirs over which they exert absolute control or they hand over control to the community. Matt pretended to be a benevolent steward for decades until his position was threatened. He has long since cashed in all the credit he earned for his Open Source contributions.
You’ll find dozens of examples of tech CEOs that spend some of their corporate budget on sponsorships of open source projects and events. Matt was relatively unique in 2006, but not in 2026.
- The Wordpress Foundation has one Chairman (Matt) and until last year had one publicly known employee (executive director, Matt)
- Founded several orgs... that contribute solely to WordPress Core. Which is basically his.
- Made Thesis give up their rights to their own non-derivative work. (If we say literally any CSS or PHP on top of Wordpress is derivative work, that's the same as saying no one is allowed to sell any WP services on their own).
- Jetpack, Calypso, and Gutenberg might be open source, but all depend on closed source infrastructure provided by Automattic (Gutenberg is also one of the worst things to happen to WP)
- Kept WooCommerce after consolidating it into his empire - woo hoo?
- He conveniently became the lowest tier contributor to PHP... right before he started his war
Literally outside of small token contributions, all he has done is contributed to projects that support his own bottom line.
It's not just about giving back. As someone who has made a living from web development, his arbitrary attack on vendors within the ecosystem was a massive rugpull. His whole justification is that people shouldn't profit from the ecosystem without contributing. Well that describes literally everyone using Wordpress for free. I have no reason to trust or use WP ever again - and I might as well go to a paid ecosystem where I'm not treated like a pawn.
> * Donated the WordPress trademark to the nonprofit WordPress Foundation in 2010
Fallen at the first hurdle. The WordPress Foundation is Matt’s personal vehicle used to obscure his control over the WordPress ecosystem. He has misrepresented the foundations role for over a decade, it was only following the WP Engine debacle that the true status of the foundation and Matt’s personal ownership of WordPress.org came to light.
The spirit of Open Source is contributing to the world for the greater good, not building your personal fiefdom. Matt is rare because he’s one of the few people in Open Source who are so desperate to launder their reputation. Most either acknowledge their project as theirs over which they exert absolute control or they hand over control to the community. Matt pretended to be a benevolent steward for decades until his position was threatened. He has long since cashed in all the credit he earned for his Open Source contributions.
You’ll find dozens of examples of tech CEOs that spend some of their corporate budget on sponsorships of open source projects and events. Matt was relatively unique in 2006, but not in 2026.
- The Wordpress Foundation has one Chairman (Matt) and until last year had one publicly known employee (executive director, Matt)
- Founded several orgs... that contribute solely to WordPress Core. Which is basically his.
- Made Thesis give up their rights to their own non-derivative work. (If we say literally any CSS or PHP on top of Wordpress is derivative work, that's the same as saying no one is allowed to sell any WP services on their own).
- Jetpack, Calypso, and Gutenberg might be open source, but all depend on closed source infrastructure provided by Automattic (Gutenberg is also one of the worst things to happen to WP)
- Kept WooCommerce after consolidating it into his empire - woo hoo?
- He conveniently became the lowest tier contributor to PHP... right before he started his war
Literally outside of small token contributions, all he has done is contributed to projects that support his own bottom line.
It's not just about giving back. As someone who has made a living from web development, his arbitrary attack on vendors within the ecosystem was a massive rugpull. His whole justification is that people shouldn't profit from the ecosystem without contributing. Well that describes literally everyone using Wordpress for free. I have no reason to trust or use WP ever again - and I might as well go to a paid ecosystem where I'm not treated like a pawn.
Edit: Nice try, Matt.