In 2005, being a remote-first company was anathema to investors and business leaders* at the time…
I can’t predict everything that will change over the coming decades, especially with AI making the next few years particularly hard to predict. Still, I do know a few things that won’t change: everything flows from our people, open source is still the most powerful idea of our generation, growth is the best feedback loop, and no matter how far away the goal is, the only way to get there is by putting one foot in front of another every day. People will always want fast, bug-free software; instant, omniscient customer service when they need it; and experiences so intuitive that they usually don’t. And once they’ve had a taste of freedom, it’s hard to return to their previous state. (For more, see our creed.)
WordPress.org is Matt Mullenweg’s personal website (source: the Automattic account on X.com). Matt is also the owner of our largest competitor, WooCommerce. The conflict of interest was always there, but in the weeks following WordCamp US 2024, Matt crossed several lines that make it crystal clear that he has no intentions of running WordPress.org as an open and fair platform.
Today, those same values have driven us to leave the WordPress.org plugin repository.
We would not be supporting open source if we were to distribute our plugin from a site where Matt will lock out users for any reason or even take over complete plugins if it suits him.
It would not be purposeful work to continue using the .org site or contribute to a WordPress project that could lock us out at any time or take over our plugins if it suits the one person in control of it all.
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the WordPress and WordCamp names and logos. We have developed this trademark usage policy with the following goals in mind:
We’d like to make it easy for anyone to use the WordPress or WordCamp name or logo for community-oriented efforts that help spread and improve WordPress.
We’d like to make it clear how WordPress-related businesses and projects can (and cannot) use the WordPress or WordCamp name and logo.
We’d like to make it hard for anyone to use the WordPress or WordCamp name and logo to unfairly profit from, trick or confuse people who are looking for official WordPress or WordCamp resources.