Are you committed to WordPress? Then how do you feel about Automattic?
According to TechCrunch, there’s rumors that the Automattic founders will make a bunch of money from the investors in the company, in response to the turned down $200m buyout offer. Good for Matt & Co. of course, I won’t begrudge anyone making money out of good products such as WordPress.com and Akismet.
However, Automattic also controls the opensource self-hosted version of WordPress, and that raises some questions:
- Are you comfortable with a company being the driving force behind the opensource platform you’re committed to?
- What would happen to WordPress if someone bought Automattic?
- Are all decisions being made for opensource WordPress with it’s best at heart, or does the company’s best come first?
Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m a big WordPress fan, and Automattic have so far not done anything to piss me off. In fact, I think they’re doing a pretty good job, despite the whole sponsor links debacle, and the unfriendly designer credits talked about in the WordPress.com Theme Marketplace idea. And Akismet is great, free, and everything, so I’m committed to WordPress myself.
However, having a company running an opensource platform is scary stuff. How do you feel about this?
I’m fairly comfortable with it to be honest. I think there are natural barriers to the steps they could take if their priorities shifted because of the open source nature.
Ask yourself this: If, for whatever reason, they did do something unforgivable, how long do you think it would take the community to create an open source alternative with a similar enough architecture to allow most of the themers, and plugin builders to switch?
I’d wager not long, even with the inevitable tangental versions. That should keep them fairly honest.
By Andrew on November 15, 2007 1:56 am
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2004/05/14/freedom-0
It doesn’t matter who “runs” an open-source project. If there’s a problem, the community always has a recourse.
By David on November 15, 2007 3:15 am
While the community could always fork out and use the available code, it doesn’t mean that the company might have a hidden agenda while running the platform. I realize we can take WordPress and move in another direction if we like, but that’s not likely unless there’s any obvious misuse from Automattic’s side.
I’m a bit torn at this. There are good things with a company using an opensource platform, since they’ll contribute to it with paid developer hours, but it can backlash as well.
And again, I’m not kicking dirt on Automattic or anything, but the recent rumors (linked above) made me think about it.
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 15, 2007 3:22 am
I see what you mean, but I think it would have to be a fairly obvious misuse in order to matter. I can’t think of much that wouldn’t be corrected by the community, one way or another, fairly quickly. Whether that means altering the code or just setting up alternative market places.
Personally I don’t think there is much, if anything, to be concerned about.
By Andrew on November 15, 2007 3:47 am
Really? I have absolutely no fear of a company owning any open source project. I think it would be better if a company pushed a project forward, rather than letting it be left to a community for direction. The majority of the new ideas and features in Ruby on Rails are pushed/decided by 37signals, and the framework is better for it.
On the other hand look at textpattern, a good/potentially great CMS that seems to be falling apart due to the lack of leadership, and perhaps due to the lack of a truly invested party.
By Garrett on November 15, 2007 8:13 am
I agree with Garrett’s comment. I think having a profitable company behind an open source application or project can (in most cases) only help it. I think a great example of this is Canonical and the way they have helped to push Ubuntu to become a unified alternative to Windows and OS X.
So for most of my sites I will remain committed to WordPress.
By Will Wilkins on November 15, 2007 12:49 pm
I too am committed to WordPress. I still advice clients to use it when they’re on something else, and so on.
However, what would happen if Automattic got bought by AOL, Sun, or whatever, and focus shifted? People might come in charge that aren’t as interested as the current staff in maintaining the opensource version, which would slow down updates.
Sure, anyone can make a fork, or you could switch to something else, I’m not saying this is a huge problem or something that should scare us away.
I do think it’s a factor though, but it appears I’m pretty alone in this. :)
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 16, 2007 9:40 pm
If the company got bought and someone changed the direction, most of the community would fork it, us included. Which is pretty easy, considering we employ half the WP dev team ;-)
By Jeremy Wright on November 19, 2007 12:23 pm
b5Press then? ;)
By Thord Daniel Hedengren on November 19, 2007 9:24 pm