| If 5-10% leave and WP Engine decides it's better to pay a royalty rather than fork that probably works out well enough. For context see https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/automattic_wp_engine_... "In an email, Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the open source movement who drafted the original Open Source Definition, told The Register, "Let's be clear about WP Engine: It's built on WordPress. There would be no business without WordPress. And it's a large business with big revenue, operated as if it's funded by private equity." "Private equity always demands big returns, regardless of the harm they do to the business. One of my customers has been completely destroyed by them – they are still operating but on such thin resources that they can't dedicate the time of one engineer to work with me on an open source compliance review, even if I do it for free. "So, WP Engine is in that situation, and has to increase returns to the investors. What do they do? Cut any voluntary expense, which includes returning any value to the creators of WordPress. I'm told that WordPress asked for eight percent of revenue, which sounds fair to me considering that it's the basis of WP Engine's business. "But because it's an open source project, WordPress can ask but can't demand that money, so they have to turn to hostile enforcement of their trademark and denying access to their updates." |
Being "built" on something does not in itself imply value. What has to be taken into account is also "value that is added." If the underlying platform had high intrinsic value in itself, then no value would have had to be built on it to profit from it, which would mean WP Engine would not be the only entity profiting from it.
And to add to the reductio ad absurdum, are PHP engineers required to "donate part of their salaries" to the project just because "they're profiting off of that language?" (/sarcasm)