[onion2k]

I seriously dislike the fact that an exteremely wide-spread open source project - wordpress.org - is driven by a for-profit company, wordpress.com.

Every major open source project from the Linux kernel to a popular web framework has corporate sponsors that profit from the work done on it. Profit is a powerful motivator.

[pmlnr]

There's a difference when there are multiple contributors, as such with the linux kernel; in that case, the power is not with one single entity.

[CM30]

And in WordPress' case, the issue isn't just that so much power is with one entity, but that said entity seems to be trying to push the software in a direction and at a pace that's convenient for them, regardless of what the rest of the community think about it.

For example, Gutenberg is being pushed into core quite a bit before it's really ready, and to some degree it feels like it was designed for WordPress.com to compete with Wix and Squarespace rather than WordPress.org users.

The problem isn't WordPress having a large company contribute it to it, nor just that Automattic has so much power. It's because Automattic are running WordPress to solve their business needs at their pace, everyone else be damned.

[chc]

WordPress also has multiple contributors — it's just mostly under the control of Automattic, just like React is Facebook, TypeScript is Microsoft, and Go is Google.

[chiefalchemist]

I think the difference is the latter three had internal projects the OSS'ed them. On the other hand, WordPress was built on the back of a "community." There is a lot of distrust, and rightfully so, from how Automattic put itself first and the WP community a distant third.