Episode 457 A Discussion Around Matt Mullenweg’s Key Note at WCUS With Andrew Palmer

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns and Andrew Palmer discuss Matt Mullenweg’s keynote at WCUS.

Show Highlights:

Show Highlights:

• What was said?
• How it could have been presented?
• What we do moving forward.

Show Notes

Everybody Rob Cairns here and today I’m here with my good friend and guest, Mr. Andrew Palmer, a guy who likes to say what he’s thinking and how it .

I’m very good. I’m very I’m a bit tired actually. It’s been a bit of a weekend where it’s been quite long because I did some stuff. I’m walking a lot more these days, but also, you know, paying attention to the little little things that went on over the weekend commenting and you know, obviously getting involved in some quite, you know, interesting.

Good.

Conversations and stuff with various people around the community who. Is weird to me because here I am sitting 24 miles West of London and building websites and building plugins and stuff like that, and I’m just thinking, well, you know, I’m nobody special, really. We’re we’re all part of the WordPress community. And, you know, people seem to. Value my opinion, which is awesome. You know, it’s a great feeling to be able to be understood as a person that really cares about WordPress and what goes on in the. Community. It’s cool.

I I would say you do really care and you’ve always cared. So you know that’s always appreciated I think. I think leadership starts with caring about what people think and I would say you are a strong leader in the Community and thank you for that.

That’s very kind of you to say that’s really, it’s really, really appreciated. It’s good. I’ve had some great calls over the weekend as well. I’m great little chats in DM’s and private messages and stuff like that. And of course I, you know, I was lucky enough to have a little meeting with Matt himself, you know, for an hour or so. So on Sunday, so you know absolutely it’s quite, uh, quite an eventful weekend.

It it was and then some for those who don’t know what we’re talking about. And if you’re on X and you must or LinkedIn, you must have your head under a brick on the weekend. There was a keynote at work and US on Friday that stirred up all kinds of stuff. And I think the keynote was for recall. Right? Wasn’t it, like, 10 minutes long? And in the Q&A was the rest of it pretty well?

Yeah, pretty much, yeah.

And and basically to summarize, Matt took him at WP engine and then the community exploded. Is A is a right way of putting it right without before we’re diving?

I think so. I think it. I think it was more about more about you know contributions and who who contributes and how you contribute and fight for the future and. You know, people taking money or taking an opportunity to make money from something that is built by the community, financed by the Community, financed by word camps and, you know, word, word, word, camp central and whatever you can call it word, press, community support, who are the. Who? Dish out the money that all that comes into WordPress via the foundation, you know? So it’s it. It was a. It would have been better if it if WP engine hadn’t been mentioned. But you know, it’s a it’s a. It’s a drum that I’ve. Been bashing for a good while. You know my WP London presentation was based on how do we get money into wordpress.org, you know, and I and I’ve always been. Commercially minded on that aspect, and I think that the big, big, big, big, big companies that are making hundreds of millions of dollars or certainly getting hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. They’re not really giving back enough, so you know it’s a it was a it was. A. Surprising thing for me to watch it live. I I couldn’t go there personally for personal reason. I got a bad back. And I I saw it and threatened wrong. Please don’t go there. You know, it was it. Don’t name me, Shane. It’s not. That’s not what fight for. The future is all about. It’s voluntary. And yeah, it’s, you know, we don’t need to go down that road, but we could. He could have maybe done. A better way of saying I need we need help we need financial help and we need the big boys and the big. Girls to pull up their big girl pants and empty out their wallets to at least you know, 5% of the revenue. And I think that would have been I think a better way to do it. But you know, we can all 2020 vision and I’m not the owner of automatic and I’m not the owner of wordpress.org and you know who am I? I’m just a WordPress user who loves WordPress and loves the community and thinks that we should be. Financed a little bit more from the big boys voluntarily, not necessarily forced or named and shamed.

Yeah. And we’ve seen this before, if I recall, right? Didn’t they take came my GoDaddy like two years ago and.

I think so, and I think the Silver Lake guy, I mean, I could, I can be can can I can be corrected on this but I think. The. Silverlight Guy was involved in GoDaddy at. That was at the time and I think maybe he’s exited that and. You know, look what happened with GoDaddy is a very positive GoDaddy and now a A proper 5 for the future contributor. They give $150,000 a year through WPCS, which is WordPress community support along with let’s say WP Beginner 150 Grand Blue Host, 150 grand and Automatic 150 grand, that’s 600,000 a year. Coming in anyway, but actually only 4 million comes in through the foundation, then goes goes into WPCS and gets distributed. And that finance is, you know, or allows people to have their own little WordPress meetups. They have their word camps and that finances the lot, all of that. And if you think 2020, three, 500,000 people attend attended meet UPS. Yeah, that’s a lot of people that have got out in global terms and everything but. I don’t if 4 million isn’t enough. You know if if. Even even if the cash was there, 5%, say five companies gave their 5%, you’d you’d be getting between 2 1/2 and 5,000,000 per 5%, right? So 10 companies do that that are making over 100 million. You know, that’s five million, 10 million coming in, you know it it’s it’s it’s a lot of lot of cash. So it’s gotta be distributed and I’ve always felt that contributors should be paid always you know it it depending on the level of contribution you know I said in my my presentation for WP London you know if if you even if you’re a polyglot.

I guess. Any good?

That has fixed a word that’s. Incorrect. German and you fix that and you’ve contributed to, you know what? Get a Starbucks voucher or a Costa Coffee voucher or whatever and say thanks, you know, because WordPress could afford it. Or WordPress, the project could afford it. But you know, I’m so I’m supportive of that in that aspect of FIFA. The future. I don’t think FIFA the future is working. Cozy. It’s it’s voluntary. Can you make it mandatory? Not really, but we’ve gotta be able to persuade people properly. Including actually people like me. People like you.

Yep.

You know, I’m seeing a lot now that people that you know, I’ve just got into post status and because I don’t really log into there very often cause it’s just such a thing. But you know somebody just in the post essence, you know referred to my and Dave Graves little initiative which is fun wp.com which I was on the fence over the weekend of whether we should actually do this anymore because I don’t want to be, you know, part of something that people don’t agree with but. One guy here says I didn’t. I I read that blog and I didn’t even know about the foundation. So there’s a there’s a, there’s a marketing thing there, a marketing thing, missing, an educational thing missing there. But if you also look on fire for the future.

And the education point.

As a contributor or as a company that wants to contribute, it’s massive. It’s a days long read of how you contribute. So we gotta make it easier for people to to to do that. And I think I think 5 for the future needs a fundamental rethink.

Yeah, it is.

And a real kind of call to action to people like me and you, you know, for instance, I I started an initiative only two months ago where I build a website and I get an amount of money for it doesn’t matter. I can get 30 grand for it. I can get 5 grand. For I can get £500 for it. Every time I build a website for a client on a commercial basis, I give $20.00 to the foundation. It’s not, you know, it’s it’s nothing really. But if you know, if we all did that imagine 2000, say 10,000 websites a day get installed.

OK.

2000 of those websites get installed and designed by freelancers agencies and whomsoever. Imagine 2000, a day times $20. If that happened, if we just the the the proletariat, the the minutiae of the community just gave $20.00 for every website we did times 2000, that’s $14 million a year. If it happens every year. Of course, there are improbable numbers. But that’s how we can give back micro payments can become phenomenal to the stuff. But when was the last time or that you have you? Did you ever hear of the foundation?

Yes, I have, actually. Actually, it’s funny. Just before we went to air, I was reading the Foundation trademark page just for. Point of discussion which is coming. So yes, I have heard of the foundation the foundation is made-up of board of three people. Matt is one of those people on the board. Which is my biggest issue is governance and I don’t think there’s enough transparency having somebody the head of automatic and on the board of the Foundation. I think that’s a bit of a conflict in my opinion.

It is and I had some clarity on that because I wrote a blog post, A blog post, blog post, rather blog post about it, and it’s had a lot of views, which is good. Matt connected with me through Twitter and just said if you know, you got a few things wrong here, happy to. Have a meeting. To correct it, nothing in the blog post apart from. Clarity around what? The foundation. How it’s formed and what it is and word camp sorry WordPress community support which is the the the the profit based company that dishes out all the money and the reason it dishes out all the money is for legal purposes because and we’ve got to get rid of the word sponsorship you know because. You know, it’s advertising. Everybody knows it’s advertising and sponsorship kind of says I’m donating and it’s and and you shouldn’t donate if you’re buying a a A podium at a or a place at a an.

Yeah.

Then then you’re you’re paying for advertising and stuff like that. So I think some language has got to be changed around that and people have got to realize that the foundation, the foundation, is actually. And I didn’t know this, and I was informed by Matt, which is great. That he can actually be outvoted. You know, it’s quite public knowledge, I said. My, my, you know, the whole meeting can’t be done because you know, there was some personal stuff that I shared as well. But the basis of it is the foundation is 3 people and they each have a third vote. So Matt can be outvoted. It’s gonna be unlikely, but you know he can be outvoted if the foundation members feel that. Either word press have overstepped the word with overstep the mark with the the the trademark and or the use of the trademark or abuse of the trademark. Or Matt has and or wordpress.org has now. That although that may seem unlikely, it can happen. You know, we had open AI. Don’t forget that we’re an open source.

Non.

Project.

Perfect and perfect.

And non profit and blah blah blah and all of a sudden the the the IT turned around so. I think the reasoning behind the foundation is to protect the open source bit to make sure that either mat or automatic can’t suddenly say right we’re no longer open source. We’re closed source or whatever we’re we’re just not open source. So that’s and also to protect the trader and give licences. So automatic has a licence for the trademark and I think out and also I think automatically give sub licenses to companies that that that sign up to the whatever criteria it is for using the. Being able to use the. Mark and I think that’s a good level of control because I think I think when Matt had automatic, he may have been worried about, you know, what happens if I sell and what happens to the trademark of WordPress and all that kind of stuff because we’ve got a community behind it. So and and they need protecting from really anybody you know, greedy venture capitalists. Let’s say you know, trying to make money out of the market itself, but so it’s a difficult one to navigate for everybody because that’s that’s why I appreciate him contacting me to to make corrections on what the WordPress community support was about and what the foundation was about. It’s because. I’m reasonably intelligent. I’m not degree level educated, but I’m really, really reasonably really intelligent I think. And I couldn’t figure it out. So how the heck does anybody else figure it out? You know, it’s crazy.

That’s true. So. We’ve kinda talked a bit about the foundation. Let’s jump into the trademark as I was looking at the Foundation trademark page before we went there. One of the things the complaints I kind of took out was. That WP engine starts with the name WP. I I I heard that loud and clear, and if you read the treatment page it clearly states WP is not a trade marking. You can use it in any way shape or form.

No problem at all.

It says that right on the foundation page. So that was problem number one and then we. Were. Part of it was this whole issue around Brandy and with some of that conversation going on. I don’t think the branding’s as big a deal like I’ve never having been in this space a long time, I’ve never inferred that like I maybe I’m missing something, but. I didn’t see.

Yeah, I think, well, I think. You’re missing is that you’ve been in this space. You’re in this space. So what? What? You know, when WP engine and other hosts, it’s not just WP engine, there’s loads of hosts that go WordPress hosting word commerce hosting. You know, all this kind of stuff. They’re they’re all they’re trademark words. So the language that people have. Been basically by precedence allowed to get away with. And don’t forget that when you. When you’re. Telling people about trademark and you go to the lawyers, it’s the foundation that’s gonna have to pay for these court cases and anything that may happen if if or or you know for takedown requests. So I’m concerned that that if there is an argument over over trademark, the foundation, it it, it’s going to come out of the foundations. Purse. So I’m worried about that. And I think one of the approaches which would be better and which I think is is, is possibly gonna happen would. The WP engine and others go hosting for WordPress hosting for WooCommerce that’s I think that’s the right wording. I think that’s where Matt’s coming from on that. But you know I’ve said to him and I’m I’m quite open about saying this to him because it’s not, it’s not private, it’s I’m divvy. I come from the divvy world.

I know you do.

Right. So and I love Divi, even though there’s been some controversy around me and divvy and all that kind of crap. I don’t. Really care. But there’s. You know Nick has a great way of saying about if you use divvy in your URL or if you use divvy logos, he doesn’t care as long as you put a disclaimer on the footer that you are not endorsed by or part of elegant themes, right? So that’s a that’s a good way around it. And I think Nick’s Nick’s way. Of doing it is rather than brand protection. It’s kind of brand projection, so it’s getting the brand that the brand name is always out there and it’s on multiple websites, it’s on multiple URLs. So he’s not really worried about protecting his brand. He’s more interested in projecting his brand now. That’s not. He hasn’t said anything to me about that, that’s more where I come from. I wouldn’t be particularly worried. That people are using WordPress the word. To promote their businesses, unless they are genuinely trying to pass off, you know, we have PepsiCo taking people to court all the time because you’re passing off, you know, you’ve called it. Yeah. Topsy Cola or whatever it may be and given a very similar, you know, yin and Yang logo and all that kind of crap. But I think that if we worry more about. Projecting the brand or or or promote the fact that we’re projecting the brand rather than protecting it, I think it will. It will become self protecting and a bit of education needs to be done. With product owners and and hosts and stuff like that, because the all the hosts if if this goes to be silly levels all the hosts are gonna just gonna have to take the WordPress word from the beginning of whatever they do to the end of whatever they do. So hosting for WordPress etcetera. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing. And and also you know Matt was pointing out you know similar design styles, similar language freedom to do this freedom to do that. Is it passing off? I don’t know. You know? I don’t. He didn’t suggest that to me at all, but I just. I just think that part of the problem is that the hosts are. You know. It’s massively competitive. How do I get that edge? How do I make ironically edge? How do I make my hosting business stand out from the rest? Because I want to share of these 470 million websites that are out there and I think. Part of the message is you’re abusing the brand as well as as well as not contributing as much as I feel you should. You are also abusing the brand, but also going against if you put. If you hold 5 for the future up for what it is and what it says, it literally says. It’s not mandatory or obligatory and and by by calling out WP engine he’s kind of made it obligatory, which is a shame.

Yeah.

No questions.

Yeah.

And the and the other issue I have is. We’ll go back to fight for the future. There’s a lot of people contribute, but not in a typical improvisatory way. If you get what I mean to speak to one, there’s people on different teams.

I do.

There’s people who. Run major, meet up groups and you know that’s important to the project. There’s people.

Word counts.

There’s people like me who will manage a LinkedIn group. That’s one of the biggest groups out there, and that time is not considered Ward 5 for the future time, even though.

Massive, yeah. Which I which I which which I think is wrong and and you’ll be pleased to know that I suggested that to it. You know I did say I said you know everybody everybody who uses word press is a contributor. Where do you draw the line to announcing people of contributors and I think. Line is starts at WordPress meetups the groups word you know, LinkedIn, Twitter groups, Facebook groups. They’re massive, you know, they’re absolutely massive, but they’re generally, you know, the admin bar, the focused WP group. You know there’s there’s loads of WordPress hosting group all this kind of thing. They are all contributing to to getting the word. The word out there the, the, the the very vocal podcasters that are both for and against WordPress and you know WordPress is doing this wrong and WordPress doing that wrong. I I would ask people to put themselves in. Josepha Hayden’s Thrombosis’s chair and also Matt’s chair, and the automations that are, you know, contributing to core and the people that are contributing to core, put your sales in those shoes for a moment and say, OK, I am supporting. This massive software iteration and I’m making sure it’s secure and I’m making sure that everybody can use it and I’m making sure that it’s that it’s backward compatible to version 2.1 or whatever it may. Be and I’m not being appreciated enough because these big companies are making gazillions of of, of of dollars a year, and they’re not giving back. And I I don’t, I just don’t feel appreciated because of that. Having said that. Why should they? Really. You know you. You gave me a bit of software. You told me it’s free to use. I’m gonna use it. You’ve also told me within the within the philosophy that I can do anything I like with it. I can redistribute, redistribute it and I. And sell it. So you know on your bike mate, if you want some money then you know make it close source. But at the end of the day it’s up to me as the person that is using WordPress, whether it’s for hosting, whether it’s for distributing to my clients, building websites and making a profit on it, it’s it’s up to my own conscience what I give back. I’m not obliged to do anything. And that’s the key. And as soon as you make people obliged to do some. Thing. They will rail against it and they go well. Why are you doing? Why you nagging me like that? You’ve told me. I can use this for free. What’s? What’s your problem? What are you calling me out for? And I’ll tell you what there is gonna be other people in this community that that make loads of money out of WordPress. And they’re gonna go. Ohh goodness. I’m am I gonna be next?

Hmm.

Am I gonna let you know they’re going? Ohh do I give back? And Can you imagine getting a call off Matt or just safer? As a big say, say brainstorm force, give them a ring or or syad of of or some motives. Thanks. Thanks mate. You give us 150 grand a year. You personally give us a grand a year through foundation. Actually it’s not.

Yeah.

Enough. You know, you know. Yeah. What else can I do? You know, I’m giving. I’m giving as much as I can. That I’m supporting an ecosphere. I’m buying plugins and I’m making them either better or worse or whatever your view is of of whoever buys plugins, you know word, WP engine have a CF. I don’t know 1 developer of WordPress that doesn’t use ACF and their life would literally be ruined if ACF just closed and millions of websites would be broken. So we have to be clear about this. If you’re gonna, if you want people to give back to WordPress. Ask nicely.

That simple? I think so. And I think like. Calling it out at the king at the end of World champ US was the wrong place at. The wrong time. Here we had an upbeat conference where people learned where people enjoyed where people got somewhere. And then at the end of it, we had this massive Kino that that’s caused three days. I think we’re going on day 4, right? Now because I. Looked at the text this morning and it’s it’s kind of blowing up again. Like they’re laughing but and the problem is.

Yeah.

They said in the tweet. And I think the tweet was fair. Good leaders unite people. That’s what they do. And my issue is every time something like this happens it doesn’t unite the community it fractions it. And that’s the problem.

I agree with you and I think that listen, there’s no doubt that Matt is not a bad leader because he’s come through 21 years of WordPress and he’s made some major. Faux pas. Let’s let’s be kind to him. And so GoDaddy even he got the same kind of level of what and other and taking out personal vendettas against people seemingly, you know, it’s not. It’s not a good look for anybody, especially a very. Intelligent person that can can who’s very literate and very he’s a perfect. He’s a great orator. He kind of knows where he’s going. What I saw on stage from Matt was a was a very. Angry person going? I I need to say this I you know whenever you feel wrong you do wanna say you’re you’re your peace and you say that this is so wrong. But actually it is it it may be wrong but you you wrote the book man you wrote the rules and the rules say I don’t need to give back it’s that simple. And there’s nowhere in the rules that said, if I don’t get give back, I’m going to be a. That’s it. At at a massive conference, and I’m gonna pop the balloon of joy and it’ll become the brick of doom, you know, because there are. There are lots of people, you know. I I cut my my phone, went red hot WhatsApp ringing me from the states at 2:00 in the morning and I was going there saying what do you think? What do you think is? Well, you know what I think I’ve written in a blog post. Can read. That. And the. The point is, is that when you when you have that euphoria of getting together, meeting your friends, having all side parties, P engine, by the way, have some of the best side parties ever. They’re very generous. They’re very kind. They do phone you half a dozen times afterwards to try and get you to.

Mm-hmm.

To be on with them, and I was with WP engine for. Is by the simple fact that I was with flywheel. They bought flywheel then it all transferred to WP engine and I moved away because of the restrictions I made my choice. But to ask to ask someone to make a choice with their wallet and go to a another host as the as a leader of or a CEO of a company that owns a host. You know we’re talking. There’s some legal issues there of of maybe even. Defamation not, you know, there’s no clarity there of what he what he what he wanted to aim from there or anything like that so. That. Hanging the ground scaring you.

Know tech crunches gone with this and posted this in its entirety. As of this morning, just add fuel to the fire.

Yeah. And search engine land as well and you know other blog posts, I mean John Jernigan’s blog post. You know, I thought I wrote a pretty good blog post, but man, that man knocked it out. Of the water I. Mean he really did. It’s great. It’s a great blog post because it was. It wasn’t mine. Was pretty emotional but and also with, you know, and written, written very, very quickly. Kind of knee jerky, but it was people have said that blog post reads went very well, which is good, but. The John’s Post is is awesome and one guy commented on my post and I won’t mention him, but he comment on my post that I need. To sort out the the line spacing and I thought, well, OK, is that all you got from my post?

I would you. I would. I read your post just on a mobile phone and the line spacing was good. So there.

You know, I, I take it I’d like, like anybody in, in, in any one of the things that we’ve we are. So lucky with in the Western world, right? Is we have freedoms and one of those freedoms is to be able to be corrected. To have your opinion changed by being educated and also the freedom to change your mind and and also the freedom to to take on criticism in such a way that you view that criticism, whether whether it seems negative at the time. Him, but to view that criticism as constructive, and if someone who’s good at CSS and good at web design and all that kind of stuff says that your spacing is out of kilter, you go and fix it. It’s right. What I was disappointed with with the comment was. Your your you know you need to correct your spacing on your blog post.

Yep.

But it was a pretty good blog post or I thought the blog post was crap. There was, you know? Is that all you got from it? My my spacing was out, you know, as I was a bit. Disappointed by that response, but. Having said that, I corrected the. I corrected the spacing and it looks much better on a mobile phone. Of course it does, but you know.

The.

The as I say we have, we have less of freedom in the Western world. We’re so lucky and blessed with it, where we can basically almost say what we like a bit different in Britain at the moment, but we can kind of say what we like and. With Matt, I think he has an opportunity. To write. This wrong and I’m I’m you know I’m coming out straight with. I told him to his face. I thought you were wrong. I I I know you’re wrong in fact. I. Don’t think you’re wrong. I know you’re. Wrong. And there are there, there’s. If you burn bridges. There’s. There seems to be no way back, but you can always rebuild those bridges. So one would hope that in the future. He will get hold of the community, feel, you know, he did a poll.

Mm-hmm.

Should WP engine be allowed? Back to sponsor and the poll says yes.

Again. And it was.

But because the the.

It was like 65%.

Yeah, but the point is, is that is the. On a whim and I said this in my blog post on a whim, Matt decided that WPCS because that’s who gave the who’s receives all the money is now $75,000 short.

Yeah.

You know, it’s gotta come from, I don’t know where it’s gonna come from. It’s gonna come from some if if WP engine goes. Yeah, give me my money back, you know. But it’s also. Over the next four word camps where WP engine will be a gold sponsor or whatever they are, or whether they have plans to be gold sponsor, I don’t know. It’s actually said goodbye to $300,000. Which is a shame, you know, be from A to to because he feels that they’re, in his words, pillaging the software and and doing stuff like that. So there’s you. You have to find a balance between. Taking money off people that you don’t necessarily agree with or supporting the community and actually it’s it’s not. It’s not a hard decision for me if if I don’t particularly agree with with what somebody’s doing and I’m doing an event that supports a community, you don’t take the money in the 1st place, right? Just saying that actually guys know, but you don’t do it after the event.

Don’t take the money.

I mean, I feel for the staff. I know a I know a few people not very well, but I do know them by sight, that work at WP engine. And it’s hard working for a corporate it’s really, really tough. And I know that Matt says that he spoke with some people that were there and saying WP engine aren’t gonna let us contribute. But I think. Any corporate would? Say. You know, I’ve always had a problem. If you’ve got a full time job and you’re being paid full time. And you have a side hustle, which is prevalent in our business. How do we gauge as the owner of the business the, the, the guy that’s employed the person that’s employing you, paying your health insurance, paying your your perks, doing whatever you’re doing, looking, making sure that the business is profitable so that I can have you here every single day making sure that you’re doing some work. Without the the the kind of the whip going on. Yeah. And then you’re doing a side hustle and I see you answering a tweet, a tweet or a or a Facebook post or an e-mail support thing during working hours. I know because I’m old that back in the day, you’re you’re not allowed to have a side hustle. We have senators and MP’s of Parliament. They’ve got side hustles. You know, in the UK we’re trying to ban those side hustles say it’s illegal for an MP to have another. Job we know we know that when you have a limited company in this in this country, in the UK, in the articles of association in every single limited company is is the director, is not allowed to do something. Similar or something that will interrupt their working working day in the articles of solution. Basically I’m paraphrasing so. It my my point is, is that we’ve got to get this. I can see why WP engine don’t want people spending time on core, because by even by then running a WordPress hosting business which. Every WordPress hosting business does they alter WordPress, they add their own things. They either take things away or they put them in, so there’s enough maintenance going on with WordPress. Anyway, do you know what I mean? So where am I going to spare the time?

What I would argue is. Depending on how you. Around the line around 5:00 for the future BP engine in some spots does give back beyond the plugins they run. They run loops, run Gutenberg and blocks groups. They run other discussions. People would argue and say those are self fulfilling, that I would argue and say. But to giving back to the community and not small importance, so there is stuff going on. It’s just every time we have a blow up like this, it seems to get lost in the shuffle.

I totally agree, and I, as I say you know, they just who they just bought Nitro pack. So everybody that they bought or everybody that they now own has been affected by this as well because it’s WP engine. So Nitro pack won’t be allowed back in, in, in yeah camps either which is a shame and that’s it’s not just word camps, it’s word press meetups as well. You know, if I’m a WordPress meet up organiser which I’m unpaid.

Yes.

And pretty much under a feel pretty much underappreciated. You know, I’ve been to three word press meetups in the last three months, presented at 2:00. And the and the meet up people are knackered. They’re absolutely shattered because they’re doing their day job and they’re organizing a meet up, maybe only for 60 or 100 people and not feeling appreciated by it because we’re camp central, whoever’s running that has given them a set of rules to go by and saying, no, you can’t do that. You can’t do that. You can’t do that. Now, you can’t do another thing. You can’t accept sponsorship. WP engine or or or Nitro pack or ACF or anything to do with WP engine potentially? So it it it, it divides the community because WP engine hosts one and a half million websites, which is a minute when you compare it to what the hosting businesses do together 470 million websites out there that built on Word Press 1.5 million is a tiny tiny piece but it brings them in 400. Million a year in revenue so. You know you can see where the money is. It’s in hosting. If you can do it to scale and you’ve got, you know, lovely companies like rocket.net that have just just started contributing to WordPress because they they were in startup mode right now they’ve started to make some money now they sponsor everything. But if you look on the. Or they they sponsor, you know, a few hours a week on call. But if you look at all of the core contributors of people who give, like hosting companies and other companies that give ours. Automatic obviously gives so much more. They give 3 1/2 thousand or whatever most 95% of the rest of them give between 5 and 40 hours a month. Of course they’re not sizes WP engine, but.

Minus.

You cannot force people to give you your time, their time. You cannot do it. And that’s what 5 for the future doesn’t do. It doesn’t force you, but it seems now with Matt’s. Rant that you’re obligated.

Yep.

That’s not good.

For the other problem is this little rank that happened on Friday. Does that now scare off other companies from saying maybe we won’t spend $75,000 US in sponsor because we might get called out too?

Definitely, definitely. The repercussions. The domino effect from this is incalculable in Community Domino effect. People leaving, you know, I know one guy who’s left the access to.

Be.

Doesn’t appreciate it and doesn’t get hurt. And he’s blind, you know? So he’s a perfect candidate and he’s a great coder and and a lovely man so. There are people leaving and I’m pretty sure people left over the weekend thought well, you know what? If you’re gonna. If you’re going to do this, I’m not really interested. And also I think that collaboration or contributions. If you’re a contributor, kudos, well done. Brilliant. I love it. But don’t tell me that I don’t contribute to WordPress as well. Don’t tell me. Don’t. It’s not. It’s not any of your business you. So you should not look down from me on your on your. From your podium and or your pedestal, you shouldn’t put yourself up just because you contribute to WordPress doesn’t make you any better than anyone else that uses WordPress. You’re it’s great that you do it, but don’t look down on me because I don’t contribute and that’s and that, that, that attitude. Will prevail itself more through Matt’s rant on Friday, because through leadership, you have to lead from a from a perspective of being a good leader, right? And you lead by example and if. If Matt feels that it’s OK to slag off for want of a better word. A company that isn’t contributing, then that will go naturally to the contributors and they will say to individuals you can’t. You got no argument. You can’t criticise WordPress cause you don’t contribute and do you know why I say that? It’s because that’s exactly what’s been said to me when I criticise something that’s going into contribution. One guy tweeted me and said yeah.

Sure.

So what are you giving back? What are you contributing? Yeah. So what are you contributing? I. That’s the one, the rudest thing that’s ever been said. I’m allowed to criticise WordPress because I own WordPress. Matt told me on Friday that WordPress is as much mine as it is his.

Yep. MHM.

And I’m allowed, therefore to say I love this. I don’t love this, and I shouldn’t be lambasted for it. I should be saying. OK, well, let’s look into it and why you feel that way. And I should be educated into why maybe this has happened.

Yeah.

Or why? Why are certain things happening in core even though I don’t necessarily agree with it and be persuaded that it is the right direction to go? So we we have to be careful that Matt’s. Keynote on and Q&A on Friday doesn’t filter down to people saying, yeah, if you don’t contribute, you’re a piece of crap. You.

Know so I I have a bigger question. So with luck of our contributions, we’ve got all these major companies running WordPress websites open source.

Sure.

And places like whitehouse.gov like like Taylor Swift in all times. Should they be putting money back into the WordPress Foundation I think.

Yeah, yeah.

Ohh no, I don’t, I don’t. I don’t think they should be obliged to do that because they’re paying loads of hosting. They’re paying those. I mean, you know, they can. Can they make a donation to WordPress Foundation? Yes, please do. If you feel that you want to please do. But really if. We want to support so there was an agency that built the wordpress.gov site, right?

Yeah, of course.

Millions of dollars, no doubt that agency made or or or got in revenue from, that millions cause what we know. Governments pay far too much for their websites, right? So whoever did that website, they should be the ones giving to WordPress because they wouldn’t be able to build that website without WordPress, right?

This. Yes, of course. Of course.

So that’s where I’m going. So we know that human made give back. We know we know that 10 up give back we know that the big agencies give back but do they give back as much as they get. So this has opened a whole plethora of questions does does does or some motive give back as much as they get no.

Yes.

Not even 1%.

No, that’s the problem.

That’s so you know if if you’re all gonna have a go at WP engine, have a go at everybody, because no, there’s only one company that I know of that gives pretty much 5% back into into WordPress through 5 for the future and that it’s it’s automatic. Yes, there it could be for self self preservation.

I’m sorry.

Reasons and yes, automatic have got a good nice revenue and I think Matt said. Was in a tweet, he said it was about 450 million cause it’s a similar amount that that WP engine get. So they do give the 5% back. So that’s a lot of money. That’s a lot of commitment, right. And it’s hard for a company to say, Oh my God, I’ve gotta pay for. I’ve got. I’ve now got to start.

BP engineers.

Paying for WordPress, but you know what? Even if the hosting company. He’s. Gave a cent per one cent per word press install. Let’s not forget that blue Host and others, and there’s a there’s a company out there that I’m a I’m an affiliate to because I’m basically stopping hosting my own websites cause I’m trying to sort of cut down on what I’m paying for, but they give me five times the monthly payment. For an affiliate Commission for giving them a customer.

Interesting.

White blue host. I think it’s $60.00 per customer on a $3.50. Package Shopify give you 50% of your of the rental of of a pretty sure I’m sure of you. I can’t. I’ve just got. I’ve just got a notification. That well done for launching. So 50% of what? Over the monthly rental is for a year. It used to be forever, but they changed it to a year because obviously they needed the. So if you’re on, if you’re, if you’ve got given something to Shopify, it’s 2 1/2 grand. You’re gonna get £17150 back or whatever it may be, yeah, £17150 back. So there there, there’s an awful lot of money going out there in affiliates.

Right.

So. I know that or some motif have an affiliate scheme. Why not put an affiliate link in the plugin directory? As a courtesy, and then every time you that affiliate link gets clicked and people have upgraded, give that affiliate payment to the to the WordPress Foundation. We you know, we could we, there’s many, many ways to skin a cat if.org need money. They can use the biggest market, biggest free marketplace out there for WordPress plugins and what we’re not talking about and what Matt doesn’t talk about is the fact that WordPress repository is free. Yes, it’s free. It’s a free marketing platform for anyone that wants to do a plug in, freemium or free. It’s up to them up to them if you want to give it away for free. Like like contact form 7. Millions of downloads, 10 million plus downloads. It’s free forever. Yes, other people have made money on the back of contact form 7 by making an add-ons to them which are. Premium. And they use, they use the repository as the as the marketplace. So if they put in their voluntarily a UTM code or an affiliate code. And then give them an affiliate payment, which doesn’t need to equal the 50% or 30% or 10%. It can be 5%. They’re giving immediately. They’re giving 5 for the future, so they’ve solved the problem straight away. I’m giving you 5% of my revenue every time you you down every time somebody upgrades from your UTM link in the repository. I have solved the fine for the future issue and I’ll donate that every. Water millions of dollars will come. In.

That would solve a lot of that would solve a lot of the problem.

Millions. It would be self financing and heartbeat literally within two years and and that’s and then the hosts you know, as I say, even a dollar even if they gave a dollar every time somebody signed up left it, they left it three months and then they say, OK WordPress here’s. Here’s a dollar from every WordPress install that went in because I gotta wait three months cause it’s the the. Churn rate is quite high, especially with the crappy hosts, right? We know if people go on, I’m moving on to a new host.

Yeah, of course.

That would be millions of dollars. Imagine if we’ve done that from the very beginning. Right? 470 WordPress foundations income would be 470 million a year. If they gave a dollar a year per website, it’s phenomenal money, isn’t it? And we wouldn’t have these problems of nagging people to give us money. Put giving out the begging bowl. You know, how many times do you see a contributor asking to be supported?

All the time.

You know, donate. You know how many times do you do you see, you know, word camps going or meetups going? Give me some money. I need money. Donate, sponsor. No. Advertise, you know, don’t sponsor me. You know, I’m asking you to pay for access to my customers. Simple as that. Or to people that that may wanna use your services. We gotta we gotta kind of commercialize wordpress.org without commercializing it, because it shouldn’t be for any one person’s profit. The the the actual funds when they arrive in a bank, so it shouldn’t be for any one person’s profit and it shouldn’t be for one person’s or 1 Corporation’s profit. It should be for the Community, and if we turn wordpress.org into a a marketplace. I think we will solve. 95% of the funding issues for WordPress to org, and I think we could pay contributors. Substantially, and I think that’s the way forward. That’s my my mantra being the way forward.

And I think that’s a really good long term solution to be honest with you is to do that, Andrew, just under the wrap up if you wants to read that blog post you wrote and it was really, really well written. Where can you find?

Fundwp.com. So FUND wp.com and then just go to blogs and it’s it’s the first one you’ll find. It. Yeah, it’s the.

Yeah.

But it’s a a very quick website that Dave Gray and I set up. You know, ages ago and we haven’t had time. It’s not brilliant. It’s time, you know, we’ll get there, but it’s the. It’s the concept of. Whatever you feel about WordPress. It needs funding and however you feel about it, is funded at the moment. There is only one way to to to put money into WordPress and that is through the foundation. So there’s a direct link there to the foundation. And if you know we get we got we had a load of hits and people would die for this. This kind of conversion rate of actually a a thing being clicked on we’re at around about four and a half percent conversion rate. So people go to the website and 4 1/2 percent of the visitors. Actually click the the donate to the foundation. I don’t know how many have converted into actually donating, but at least it’s it’s getting the visibility of the fact that you can donate to the foundation. You can donate annually and you can donate as a one off, and I recommend that people, if they feel as strongly as I do about the funding and the. And the foundation of WordPress and the fact that we’re earning money out of it every single day. I I would encourage people to go and donate to the foundation, whoever whatever you feel about who’s running it or who’s got the vote or. You know whatever, but it it’s up to you. There’s no obligation. But if if we don’t act properly in the funding of word press. We’ll see a doom, the situation where we’ll run out of money and we’ll become a minor part of the web, and that’s not in my mind I don’t want. That to happen.

Nor nor do I. Thanks for a great conversation. I assume that somebody wants to get ahold of you. The best ways to make it more. We still use it.

While I’m hiding away from the next week, I’ve had enough. I’m not even going to tell you. I mean it. I don’t want anybody to know I’m joking at Arnie Palmer on Twitter and fund WP. You can get through to us. There is a contact form on there and also, you know, obviously Bertha dot AI, my little AI baby.

Yes.

There, if you wanna support me and make sure that I’m a voice, continue to be a voice in WordPress. You know, subscribe to a paid plan on Bertha dot AI please because you know I love doing what I do. I love being part of the community, but also I need to get paid as well. So you know, it’s up to you. You can use it for free or you can. Pay for it. It’s up to you.

I agree with it. Thanks Andrew. Have an amazing day, my friend. Be well.

Cheers man.