This Week in WordPress #309

[00:00:04] Nathan Wrigley: It's time for this week in WordPress episode number 309 entitled the week there was actual news. It was recorded on Monday the 30th of September. 2024. My name's Nathan Wrigley and I will be joined by five, count them five fabulous guests. We have Michelle Frechette, cameron Jones, Courtney Robertson. James Giroux and Taco Verdonshot.

We're here to talk about, more or less the entire time we talk about the story about WP Engine versus Automattic wordpress.org. Matt Mullenweg. We have Matt in the comments giving his side of the events as well, but that dominates what we talk about today.

But we do provide a little bit of light relief in the form of cats, dogs, and sheep. And we also get right in at the end about the gender equality survey, WP accessibility day, which is coming up, and we look at a teeny tiny little hippo as well.

It's all coming up next on this week. In WordPress.

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Hello there this week in WordPress, episode number 309. Thanks for joining us. Goodnight. We'll see you next week on this week in WordPress. It's been a pleasure. no, it's everyone in the hands. Yeah, that's it. That's all we gotta say. How was the hands? episode 309 normally, right? This is called this week in WordPress, and let's be honest, some things happen.

there, there's a week and WordPress sort of trundles along and often not much happens. This week is the week in WordPress and I'm joined by five people now. There's a change right there. joined by five other people today. and we're gonna chat about this week in WordPress. I just wanna get a couple of things out there first, right?

Because I think a few of us, on this panel that we're gonna be slightly restrict, it's restricted in what we can say, and I just want you to bear that in mind. If you've got some comment that you wanna drop and it isn't pleasant, or you just think that somebody's being a little bit odine or sitting on the fence or whatever, and you want them to give more, go and DM them.

Have a conversation with them privately, elsewhere, because it has never been the purpose of this show to drop bombs. I dunno if you've noticed that, but that's something that we don't do. we're polite. In fact, in our Facebook group, the little logo says, be polite. Always. So we're gonna endeavor to get through this week in WordPress.

Talk about all the bits and pieces that have happened. We're not gonna stay on that subject for the whole time, but I imagine it will consume a lot of it. But just have that in the back of your mind. If you've got something to say, frame it in a nice way. Be positive. If you've got something to say about people who are not on the show, do the same thing.

Just be nice, be thoughtful. Put some thought into it before you write anything out with that school mom telling off, let's go through and, say hello to everybody. First of all, let's say hello. She's right over there in the corner on my screen at least. Anyway, got Michelle Frechette. How you doing, Michelle?

[00:05:02] Michelle Frechette: I am well, thank you. How are you?

[00:05:04] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. good, good. I'm gonna read Michelle's bio. I dunno if everybody's dropped in their bio this week. If you haven't, you'll just have to make one up yourself. But Michelle's goes as follows. Michelle Frechette is the Director of Community Engagement for Stella WP at Liquid Web.

In addition to her work at Stella WP Michelle is the podcast barista at WP Coffee Talk. Co-founder of underrepresented in tech.com, creator of WP Speakers and also WP Career pages. She is the director, executive director, I should say, at post status.com Co-host of the WP Motivate podcast and WP Constellation podcast.

She's also an author, a frequent organizer, and speaker at WordPress events. She lives outside Rochester, New York, where she is an avid nature photographer. And if you wanna find out more about her, you can go to meet michelle.online. Always a pleasure to have you, Michelle. Thank you so much. We're also joined by Cameron, let's go next there.

Cameron's got a bio. I can see How you doing Cameron? I am quite tired because it's quite late here. Nathan, how are you? Yeah, I'm good. this is, I suspect, the first time where Cameron's audio and video have entirely behaved. quite often we have. So now you ruined it. I know. Some wood, quickly. Wood.

This is the controversy right here. That's the controversy. That's what we were on about. Cameron Jones enjoys what could be described as an entrepreneur's dream living by the beach in the coastal town of Victor Harbor in Australia, while he runs his web development agency, shorty Designs, he is the, he's also the founder of the premium plugin store, mongoose Marketplace, and the maintainer of the official WordPress plugin for the free donation platform, Kofi, CO dash FI.

You can find him online at, the at symbol Cameron Jones Web on most of the platforms. Now, the other people that are joining us today, I don't have a bio, so let's just go round. There was nothing written down, so let's just go round and do them one at a time in the order that I see you on the screen.

So right there. We've got, Courtney, how you doing Courtney?

[00:07:03] Courtney Robertson: Hello. I am doing well today. Had a good weekend, had some time off. I am an open source developer advocate at GoDaddy, and I contribute to these days, primarily the contributor dashboards. Hari and I are hoping to talk with you maybe on another show soon, Nathan, about that one.

That's good. ex exploring transparency in contributing efforts is what holds most of my attention, but I also contribute to the meta and training team's sustainability and around the project.

[00:07:32] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you so much. Appreciate it. because of my inability to scroll effectively, I, was unable to see Tao's, bio.

He is actually written one. I was just unable to see it because I, of course, apparently I can't scroll. And so here it goes. I always do my homework. Nature. Yeah, I do my

[00:07:49] Taco Verdonshot: homework.

[00:07:50] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Tacho is the head of relations at Yos. You can probably recognize their logo right behind him. The tr a translator for WordPress, WordCamp Mentor and WordCamp Junkie outside of work.

You can find him volunteering as various different organizations. With this family, I've noticed you've dropped the whole bike thing. Where did that go? The whole that's, gone.

[00:08:09] Taco Verdonshot: Yeah. I, figured let's focus on the short and important bits. Okay.

[00:08:14] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[00:08:16] Taco Verdonshot: next to Michelle, anyone's gonna, I. Look like they're not doing.

That's right. You're, gonna struggle to

[00:08:23] Nathan Wrigley: keep up with that. but hi,

[00:08:25] Michelle Frechette: my kids are grown. You still have little kids. Yeah. Nothing the time.

[00:08:28] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, that's fair. Kinda of matters. appreciate that. thank you for joining us, tacho. Appreciate it. And finally joining us. I have to say very kindly, more or less the last minute is, James ue.

the reason for that is Tim Nash was gonna join us. but he's on, he seems to be in the comments, but, but he's not feeling, particularly well. firstly, hope you're feeling better soon, Tim. And, well done. You dodged a bullet is all I can say. So we got James with us, and I don't have a bio written for James.

So over to you. James. Tell us about your stuff.

[00:09:04] James Giroux: Sure. Yeah. I have been in the WordPress ecosystem for about 15 years. Oh. Over 15 years now. I've worked with agencies, plugin companies, hosts, marketplaces, you name it. and I am currently, co-founder for Future of Team, which is a company helping create open people, first workplaces, as well as an automation working in the enterprise division, WordPress, VIP.

[00:09:30] Nathan Wrigley: Nice shiny new job there. I understand. Yeah. Nice. okay. So the first thing I always say is the housekeeping stuff, and that is to say that if you want to join us, head to wp builders.com/live. Once more, wp builders.com/live. If you go onto that page and you're on a desktop, look to the right, you'll find YouTube comments.

So you need to have a Google account for that. If you don't fancy having a Google account, that's fine. Go into the video and just, if you hover around in there, right at the top you'll see this little live chat. It's a black bottom, top right. If you invoke that, you'll be able to chat without being logged into anything.

You just type your name into the little box. And so that's really nice. if you wanna share this, that's probably the place to do it. Wp builds.com. Forward slash live. I've got a caption for that somewhere. Let me see if I can find it. Duh. There you go. wp build.com/live. Maybe go and share it. We are always joined by a friendly bunch of people and they always drop in a load of comments largely about the weather, which is always Peter is there.

Okay. Firstly, David Worsley. What the heck? So nice. David Worsley and I did about, I don't know, 300 podcast episodes together or something like that, but we're now arch enemies. We're not, we just stopped doing podcast episodes together. He says, listen, don't mention the war. I mentioned it once, but I think I got away with it.

All right. Okay. I'll try not to. David, thank you Tammy Lister's joining us. She's obviously commenting on that particular comment. Thank you very much. Oh, there's Tim. There he is. sorry not to be going wall. I would've brought co popcorn, but it's all, the way downstairs and instead I have, oh, instead I, lots of tissues.

Lemon and, oh goodness. I'm sorry to hear that Tim. I really hope that you get better soon. Tammy. See the humans and treat them like human. I guess that was in response to my, let's be polite comment. Yeah. so thank you Tommy for backing me up. I appreciate that. I won't say commons com Cameron's comment 'cause he's right here.

But Peter Ingersol, as he always does, drops us the weather in Connecticut. He's from Connecticut. and after a week of unexpected heat and stormy conditions, we're hoping for karma seas. As for the weather, it's truncated, it appears, it's 14 degrees centigrade, 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and cloudy. Very nice.

and Tammy's responded with the weather in good old Blighty. 16 degrees is a bit windy. Leaves are falling to the ground. It is, it's nice. Oh, look at this. Look. There we go. Matt Mullenweg. Morning folks. Some of my favorite WP people in here. Thank you all. Matt, I think it's fair to say you're gonna get a few mentions during this episode.

here we go. da Wise, art says, good morning. Thank you very much. Who else have we got? Good morning from Jeff. Amber Hin says hello from Equalize Digital and Michelle Hoffer. Good to see you all again. I saw Michelle, at, Portland and we lost somebody. It's, oh, no, I knew it. Cameron. You jinx him.

I totally jinx it.

[00:12:26] Courtney Robertson: roll the footage.

[00:12:27] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Roll the footage. Tammy

[00:12:29] Courtney Robertson: will like it.

[00:12:30] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah. Okay. So roll the footage right in case things get a little bit heated this week I've prepared a little video. And this is just to calm us all down. If any of us receive some nasty comment in the comments.

Or if, if one of us says something that we don't agree with, what we're gonna be exposed to is this.

Now, depending on how egregious the, the comment is that could go for a whole minute. it's got cats, dogs, and sheep for and ukulele minute.

[00:13:07] Michelle Frechette: who,

[00:13:07] Courtney Robertson: who

[00:13:07] Nathan Wrigley: doesn't love? And a ukulele, good ukulele. My

[00:13:09] Courtney Robertson: dopamine and serotonin levels have just increased. Thank you. Okay.

[00:13:14] Nathan Wrigley: And, Cameron is back.

I'm glad to see, and we'll just get through these few, comments if that's all right. So we've got, morning all from Andrew Palmer. Thank you very much. Fab Saul joining us. Good afternoon from blustery, Ely Peach. Andary. It's warm and sunny in Valencia, not a cloud in the sky. Beautiful, bright or tomal light, and it goes on and on.

but thank you. I could spend the whole show doing. Should we just do that? Should we just talk about Yeah. What people write and the weather and things like that? That

[00:13:41] Courtney Robertson: and pop

[00:13:42] Nathan Wrigley: press New

[00:13:44] Courtney Robertson: of WordPress. That's controversial.

[00:13:46] Nathan Wrigley: No, Yeah,

[00:13:47] Courtney Robertson: pop press not org. The new of WordPress. It's great.

[00:13:50] Nathan Wrigley: no.

We've gotta get stuck into it. And so I'm gonna do something I've never done before. I'm going to, I'm gonna ask our panelists to be writing in a Google doc as we go. and the Google Doc looks a bit like this, right? if you didn't get the link, Michelle, I'll share it with you in a moment. Or any impact.

I've been multitasking. yeah. Multitasking. That's what I'm expecting during this week. So I threw it together. A Google doc. And it's pretty basic, but you can imagine that this whole show basically is gonna be dominated by this one story. And if you haven't heard what this one story is about, you're about to find out.

but I've got it in three sections. And the first section is just, can we write down what happened? Now, that's probably what a lot of this podcast is gonna be. I'm gonna just display the stories that I think have encapsulated what's going on, but then maybe I'm gonna miss something. And if I miss something, just drop it in there.

And so I'll split it into two sides, the wordpress.org automatic. and you might put a comma in there and put Matt Mullenweg as well. and then on the other side, the WP Engine side of things. 'cause if you didn't know that's the story, it is one side versus another. and then what did we, what did we not like?

Is there anything about that story that that, that happened during this week where somebody said something or you got an intuition about something and thought, I like that. I didn't like that. this looks to have been pushing the WordPress direction, WordPress project in this direction.

I don't like that. I do like that. Let's see what happens. And then any ideas about what you think could. Should happen now. So that's your homework panelists. whilst I'm talking, you've gotta be dropping in there so that when I get back, look, somebody's written something already. That's great. by the time I get back to it, it's full up and anybody who hasn't contributed gets, I don't know, they get time in the sin bin or I don't even know what they get, but something bad happens.

Terrible things. I get ravens to fly over your house and Scorp during the night or something like that. so anyway, let's get stuck into it. I'm gonna have that ready to go and we might, drop back into it at various different bits and pieces, but here we are. This is our show. It is the WP Builds podcast.

This is our website. I'd just like to make some, initial comments. The first one is we're sponsored by four brilliant companies. We're sponsored by GoDaddy Pro, by Bluehost, by Omni Send, and by Member Full. You can see them on our website. Thank you very much for their continuing contributions. They keep the lights on over at WP Builds and I really.

Really appreciate it. the other thing to quickly mention is that we've got a Black Friday and Cyber Monday page. You know that thing that comes around once a year when everybody just basically empties their wallet? that's coming fairly soon. And in the WordPress space, I like to gather all of the deals together so that they're on one handy page and it'll be searchable and filterable.

There's only one there at the moment, which is Ws form, but you'd invoke this and then, do some searching and filtering, that kind of thing. So it's at wp builds.com/black. And if you wanna bookmark it, woo-hoo. then you can use that. There'll be some affiliate links there. But if somebody submits their deal and it's not got an affiliate link, it's just gonna be a regular old link.

But, caveat mTOR that's going on. And if you want to secure a sponsorship slot like Mark West Guard from WS Forms has done here, we've got a few. And click the get started bottom to, get started. So once more, wp builds.com/black. Let's start on a happy note. WordPress is happening in Sydney.

There's a word count coming up in Sydney fairly soon. It's the second to the 3rd of November, and this handsome chap is gonna be speaking. So I thought we'd do this first. Cameron, what's going on? Is it the first word camp in a long time? In the, in Australia?

[00:17:31] Cameron Jones: Yes. The first time since before Covid. Oh, so the last one was in Port Macquarie in 2019.

there, there was one in Sydney about the same time. I'm, that one might have happened. After. But anyway, yeah, there was meant to be three word camps in 2020 and obviously none of them happened. so yeah, this is the first one. Two have happened in Australia since 2019, so it's been five years. and I've also seen that, there is stuff in the works for another one in a different city next year.

Good to see that momentum is happening in Australia. And yeah, so I have been picked as a speaker for this year. I will be presenting a talk called the Post Thumbnail Paradox. So if you want to know what that is, then you should probably come along nice.

[00:18:22] Nathan Wrigley: I gotta say, I did a, podcast episode with, and I, forgive me, right at this moment, I can't summ up the name of the person that I spoke to, but it was with, somebody in the Australia Word Press space, and they were talking about the posity of, word camps in Australia and the fact that at that moment in time, it really didn't look like things were gonna kick themselves off.

But I'm really pleased to say, was it Ray Morrie by any chance? No, it wasn't actually, it was, it was somebody in Perth and, Oh, Joe Minnie. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Joe Minnie. I,

[00:18:52] Courtney Robertson: yeah, I told you, make

[00:18:53] Nathan Wrigley: sure to talk to Joe. It exacerbated the problem, the location of Perth, because if you were in Europe distance from far from everywhere.

Yeah, it's like here to Moscow or something. It's not so

[00:19:03] Cameron Jones: hop on a train. Yeah. And so there's never been a word camp in Australia outside the east coast. So I am in South Australia, so I'm like, from, east to west, I'm like smack bang in the middle. But right on the South Perth is the very western edge.

every single word camp has been on the east coast. So imagine if you were in say, San Francisco, and every single word camp in your country, like in the States had been in or around New York. That's the sort of distance we're talking. that works for me from every other word that's, I could get there too, Michelle, because Australia, is more or less the same size as the mainland US Genderly speaking.

Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, if when, and we don't have 50 states with 50 capital territories. We have six states and two territories. I think I've got that right. It's been a long set of time since I've been in ski. Now our population is al like 95% of it is based around the coastline because there is no water in land.

so very few people live more than two hours from the ocean. yeah, like geographically, we are very different to the US and yet, we are pretty much the same size. so yeah, we have some very unique challenges when it comes to having WordPress events. yeah, Joe was trying to get a word camp up for Perth in 2020.

Obviously the thing happened and that didn't happen. but yeah, like for me, I like, I booked my, I. everything to go to Sydney the other week, it's cost me several thousand dollars. It's a trip of over a thousand kilometers, yeah. Yeah. it's, yeah, it, there are unique challenges that come with being in Australia, not just the fact that, we haven't had stuff for five years.

[00:21:16] Nathan Wrigley: appreciate, congratulations everybody in the, in the Australia community sticking with it. And, this looks great. word Camp Sydney 2024. If you go to sydney.wordcamp.org/ 2024, and then you can browse to your heart's content. but it does look like it's a call for volunteers and, I guess the speaker rounds are all over if you've been, offered the speaker spot at this point.

But, yeah, it's happening, on the second to the 3rd of November. So you've got just, over a month. Michelle,

[00:21:47] Michelle Frechette: can I ride those coattails and say that the next, word camp in the States is this coming Saturday here in Rochester, New York. So I will be, it's a small word camp. We expect about 50 to 75 people.

but that's coming up this Saturday.

[00:22:03] Nathan Wrigley: the. I've just been, I've just been totally like sideways knocked because I saw Matt is trying to fill out the Google sheet kind of thing, via the comment. So if anybody wants to copy paste what Matt's putting into the comments, I dunno, you can see those into the Google sheet.

He's obviously trying to keep us up to date on there. that's helpful, thank you. but yeah, tell us the URL Michelle for that.

[00:22:25] Michelle Frechette: it's rochester.wordcamp.org/ 2024.

[00:22:28] Nathan Wrigley: Perfect. rochester.wordcamp.org/ 2024 Okay, shall we do it? Are you ready? do we need a small bracing? Do we need just a small, little, glimpse, kittens of puppies?

Okay. Okay. We'll just do 20 seconds puppies. Everybody take a breath. Calm down. Here they come. Just use this moment to be as zen as possible because when we come back, it's not gonna be like that.

Okay. I'm ready. I've gotta say disappointingly. When I made that video, I put all the really cute ones at the end. and, when I played the video, I didn't realize I had to start and stop at the beginning every time. So it's a bit disappointing. I can't scan to halfway through, so we're gonna get the same ones I'm afraid, but they're cute enough there.

Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Let's begin the whole enterprise. oh, I'll do that bit later, right? I guess this is where we begin. so this was Matt Mullen, who's in the comments, wrote a blog post on the 17th of September and it was entitled Word Camp, US Ecosystem Thinking.

And as Matt is in the comments, he can correct anything that I say incorrectly, but this was written, I think probably at the end of contributor today if memory serves, judging by what was at the beginning. And it began the whole process, which ultimately led to the. The end of the word camp. Word camp US ended with Matt getting on stage and delivering an address.

But it was couched, largely from I think what was in this piece, including that image, which we're gonna see just there. This image was put up on stage. And really, this is, Matt's kind of listen to me. I'm talking like Matt's not in the room and he is in the room. I feel quite weird. and it's this kind of virtuous cycle of how an open source project could be thought of.

and Matt has decided to call it ecosystem thinking. That's how he encapsulated it in his own head. And you can see it's, it just goes round and round. It's like an infinite loop. You learn, you evolve, you teach. And then finally, and this is the bit, this word, the nourish word. And if you nourish, we start the process again.

You do more learning, more evolving, more teaching and nourish. And basically what you can think of, is the nourishing bit. Is the giving back and the giving back in the WordPress space is in some way contributing. And we all know what that means. We know that for people like me, it basically means time.

because that's what I've got. That's the commodity that I have. I have time. I don't have deep pockets. Can we all have small violins at this point, please? but So I can contribute time. So I do bits of that where I can. But for other companies who have, deeper pockets, the intention, not intention.

The, how to describe it, what's the right word? what's the word I'm looking for? The aspiration. Let's go with that. The aspiration would be that a proportion of the company's time, revenue, whatever it may be, may get consumed back into the project in this nourishing cycle. And I think broadly we as a community, that's what's happening.

I think that's what's happening. I think if you polled 99% of people or companies, there would be some intuition that would be, yes, that's what we want to do. But Matt feels that certain things are falling short. And in this particular piece, he highlights some companies that he thinks are doing well.

So he shouts out New fold, awesome. Motive 10, op GoDaddy hosting and Google. Thinks that they're doing their, their nourishing piece. They've got the, they've got their, intuitions, according to Matt. but the piece begins to talk about, how one company in particular, and this is where it got weird for most people, the company got named.

And that company in question is WP Engine. Now, WP Engine, I'm sure if you've watched this show, is a household name. We've all heard it. but Matt's proposition was that because they are part of a wider company, and I. Do you know what, do you know what the company has gone out in my head? Silver Lake.

Thank you so much.

[00:26:53] Cameron Jones: Yep.

[00:26:53] Nathan Wrigley: Silver Lake. And I don't, honestly at this point, I'm gonna profess massive ignorance. I don't understand how venture capital works. I don't understand how this company gets bought and what their incentives are and what they've got to do to repay the, that kind of a debt. But the, that, the piece pointed out that Silver Lake is now the controlling person, the controlling entity for, WP Engine.

And it was felt that, they weren't giving back enough. And here's the statistic. Automatic. so automatic, the company that we all know that James works for and many others, contributes 3,786 hours per week. Not counting Matt himself, WP Engine. The, this piece says goes in at 47 hours per week.

And so from here this piece was written, it raised a few eyebrows, but then the story developed. 'cause I think if that had been just the thing. Maybe the story could have, put itself to bed at that point. But then what happened is, at Word Camp us at the end of the, the conference, Matt came up on stage and basically laid out the same points, went a little bit further.

we had some slides on the, slide deck showing, the WP Engine logo. And we had the, what's the person's name that was, can anybody remember? Lee Whiting,

[00:28:12] James Giroux: I

[00:28:12] Nathan Wrigley: believe, what was his name?

[00:28:14] James Giroux: Lee Whittling, I believe his last name.

[00:28:16] Nathan Wrigley: It was a person whose, slide came up. Lee Whittling, who I believe is the sort of one of the founders, or certainly a senior person at Silver Lake.

And, and so this came out and for me, sitting in the audience, this was a new thing. This was a, new moment where, something that I hadn't heard being talked about was being openly talked now on stage. And really that's where the story starts. So should companies. Be, how compelled is the wrong word?

Should we, if we're profiting massively, should we be, should we be, I know, have some sort of moral guidance that we need to contribute back? And if not, should we be allowed to, I don't know, participate in the same way as every everybody else? Should we be allowed, for example, to attend word counts?

Should we be allowed to have access to the WordPress repository? Should we get all of the benefits that WordPress brings, without any of the, constraints, and not constraints, but things like contributing back and then it all got a bit legal, and, WP Engine off, Got their lawyers to write a what is called a cease and desist, which I don't understand, but I know it basically means, can you stop that now, please?

and then, automatic did the same and that I believe is where we're at. So I'm gonna return to the Google Doc, and see if anything has been written there. And if I've missed anything at this point, would you just start to fill me in if you are able to fill me in, bear in mind at this point, panelists, that we're just trying to say what happened, not what we think about what happened.

[00:29:56] Taco Verdonshot: I think there's a very important comment by Peter Ingersol.

[00:29:59] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you. I

[00:30:01] Taco Verdonshot: want, to put on screen as well.

[00:30:03] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah,

[00:30:04] Taco Verdonshot: I'll try and find it. Where he says that, oversimplifying what we mean by contributing might be. The root cause of issues.

[00:30:14] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Should we get into that for a minute? Should we just, let's just have a, like a bit of a segue and talk about that because if I think I've got my handle on what that means.

I think it means giving up time or money or some resource that you possess, in order to help the wordpress.org project in whatever way that might be. So that might be, I don't know, turning up to an event, an organizing event. It might be giving money, it might be giving time. But, to help Peter out, can we give us our intuition?

So anybody interrupt?

[00:30:47] Courtney Robertson: Hey.

[00:30:48] Nathan Wrigley: So think, oh, sorry. You go, let's go Courtney then. Cameron,

[00:30:52] Courtney Robertson: thank you. Contributing is an area I can absolutely speak a lot to. Nice. so in other open source projects, foundations are set up in such a way that the foundation is the employer of. Staff that are full-time designated to the project.

that is not true in WordPress. I'm not calling for that kind of a revolution necessarily. but what I am suggesting is that we look at in other open source projects like Open js, GoDaddy funds, open js, and a few other areas too, like P-H-P-C-S, which is a lot of the backbone of WPCS, which is our code quality and WordPress.

we give to these things in the case of open js, the JavaScript Foundation, in funding that, that is, we do have staff members that participate in areas like NPM in part-time capacities. So if they see that there's something to drive or attending meetings, et cetera, they do that. But also organizations often will provide funds.

As well to a foundation. And that covers some of the other infrastructure that needs to happen. so I think that there's learning to be done in some of those ways. And I know that Matt, you've shared that the foundation has, will never fund contributors and I, after launching WPCC, understand some of the IRS rules around some of that.

and look for ways to still fund. So in the US there are rules with our government, our revenue system that say that we can't provide funds to code for open source. I'm looking to how other open source projects have addressed that and some of the needs that they have, as well as looking from my department, specifically my manager, Adam, many of you who know Marcus and Maya as well.

That part of my team specifically handles our Word camp presence and how we show up at camps. And so in other open source communities, how event sponsorship works is not the same necessarily as has how it is in WordPress. And again, there are learnings to be had from that. So for instance, I attended Open Source Summit, which is part of the Linux Foundation and their prospectus for sponsors.

Learning how sponsors at other open source events have it, states quite clearly if they get selection on speakers and some other issues like that. So I think that there's learning to be done there and also some transparency around maybe why we do or do not want that, for the, for WordPress, the project.

I think doing a comparison and learning the pros and cons from these other systems. Not saying we have to adopt them, but just having the conversation around how do other open source projects handle this? What are the wins and losses that they've experienced? What learnings can we get so that if we choose to adopt some of these things, we can bypass some of the struggles they faced, could go well for our community.

[00:33:50] Nathan Wrigley: Thank you, Courtney. I appreciate your comment there. And Cameron, do you wanna step in? Yeah,

[00:33:56] Cameron Jones: I just wanted to touch on what Peter said. I, I don't think that the confusion or issue around contributing is what people are doing in terms of contributing, yeah, it's either time or money.

Like we don't really have anything else to offer. one way or another. It's that it's more what counts as a contribution. So like in the past I've been a coo, co-organizer of meetup events. At the same time, of two different meetup groups. I've been an organizer of a Word camp. I've contributed code to core, at least tickets.

And the code that I contributed ended up evolving to look nothing like what I put in. But anyway, I've contributed code to a CF, I've contributed code to jet pack. I've contributed code to a few other various plugins in the ecosystem. and from what I'm aware, according to the definition of five for the future, absolutely zero of that would count.

except maybe, the ones I did for COR and Gutenberg project. and then there's also this attitude towards what does and doesn't count. There, there does seem to be, this stance that, and while everything counts as a contribution, if it's not five for the future, then we don't care.

is, it's very much a, yeah, that's, the way I perceive it from what I've seen out there, and, the whole crux of this argument that WP Engine isn't doing enough, they'll only do 48 hours a week to fight for the future. it's, I, can acknowledge how difficult it is to quantify because there are some things that absolutely should count and there are some things that absolutely shouldn't count.

but, it's a very gray area and I am absolutely not going to try and propose a solution here. I'm not, come on the idea. The idea that a solution right now, the idea that certain people's contributions are valued and certain people's contributions are not, and then those contributions that aren't valued are then weaponized.

Because they're not valued, even though they are contributing maybe in an equal or greater amount. yeah. Yeah, just wanted to, I wanna make that, put that, I wanna step

[00:36:33] James Giroux: in here too. 'cause I think, when we talk about contributing, you're right, not everything counts as five for the future. Some of the things that I have contributed to or been part of, the thing for me, I think that does make sense is if it's marketing for your product or your company or your brand, I think that's fair.

that's not considered PHI for the future still contributing. We still need the money for work camps and it's, there's still value in doing that. but I, agree that I don't think that should count for five for the future because it's not really fully for the community. there's a kickback, right?

So in that regard, I think that makes sense. I also think, I just saw a comment scrolling as well that, meetup organizing definitely counts as five for the future. because if you look at that's giving back, like you're not, you maybe if you're, even if you're sponsored to do something like that, that's still for the community, that's, a good thing that way.

So I think for me, the contributing confusion comes around what counts as contributing, like we do all these altruistic things, but is that moving the project itself? Forward or is it just platitudes on the surface a little bit. And that's, I think, the part that's a bit challenging for us to navigate through.

[00:38:05] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Just quick straw poll. Either, either handoff or no hands. And no hands by the way, doesn't mean you're disagreeing. It just says you didn't cast a vote. Do you think that we are confused as a community about what counts as a contributing thing?

[00:38:22] Michelle Frechette: Definitely.

[00:38:23] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. So we wrote above, we've got four, four out of the six, but two, the two that didn't vote might well not be given an opinion.

We're just, no,

[00:38:32] Taco Verdonshot: I, do have an opinion and I disagree. I, think that we've, especially with the, revision of the five for the future pages and the ongoing revision of the handbook earlier this year, the definition has been clarified significantly and. I hate it because now it looks like I'm just reading out what Matt's saying.

So next time, wait until I gave my comment, Matt, before you start typing. but I would say that anywhere where we contribute to, the open source project, which is to one of the make WordPress teams, that's where you can contribute towards five for the future. Yeah. if it's contributing to, you named the example of Jet Pack, Cameron.

that's a for-profit company, that is definitely a valuable contribution to our community because it's making a product better that a lot of us use. But it's not the altruistic giving back to the project, because there's a commercial interest for someone else, not for you, but for someone else.

I can, oh, for sure. I wouldn't expect that one to. Yeah. yeah, obviously. I can encourage anyone to contribute to Yost seo, but that's not gonna count towards five for the future. Whereas if you, and I think the easiest use case is, a single, solopreneur, building workforce websites, spending one day a month translating WordPress into their native language.

That's super straightforward. It's easy. That's exactly 5% of your resources, because one day a month equals 5%. Okay, Slightly overspending in February, but

[00:40:35] Nathan Wrigley: you're in, you're doing better than you should in that case. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

[00:40:40] Michelle Frechette: I raise my hand because I'm not confused about my contributions and which of my contributions count and which don't.

For example, I have podcasts. My podcasts contribute to the community, but they don't contribute to five for the future. Totally get that. Yeah. WP Speakers does not contribute to five for the future. WP Career pages, the things that I do on the side, I think they're great for the community. They don't come for five for the future because they don't fit in one of the teams, the make teams.

I get that. I don't think the community at large understands that, especially solopreneurs and entrepreneurs who may or may not give back because they don't, number one, understand what the five for the future is for everybody and not just for big corporations. But also don't know how to put that in, in their wordpress.org file.

I think that we need more education for the masses about what that looks like and how to even make that count on your wordpress.org file. And I think bigger companies need to have better, processes by which they help their employees who are contributing to those different things be able to make that count through their wordpress.org profile.

I serve on two teams primarily. Sometimes marketing, but mostly I serve on community teams. 'cause I do a heck of a lot of organizing, and mentoring. And then I also serve on the photos team, and that's about four hours a week, which is more than 5% of my time that my company is allowing me to do during my 40 hour work week.

and that's awesome, right? So that's great. There's so many other things that I do that aren't part of that, I get that. But I think that we need a campaign to help everybody understand exactly how that works. It isn't enough to just have it on a website because they don't know to look there. wp.org is huges a behemoth of a website and navigating it as a first time person in the WordPress community.

Can feel very overwhelming. And so I think there's, and I know we have mentorship programs, that's a small number of people. I'm not sure how to reach everybody, but I think that there is an understanding problem in the community at large.

[00:42:49] Nathan Wrigley: Firstly, Michelle gets a biscuit because she managed to squeeze the word behemoth into this podcast.

That's outstanding. I do what I can. We were all hoping for that secretly. Nathan, so brilliant. Can I, yeah, please carry. Yeah. Can I add just a thought

[00:43:04] Courtney Robertson: here? So as the weekend is rolling on, clearly I'm working on the Keytruda dashboards that I've been all about and talking to people about really?

Andrea and I started talking about it in like 2020. so this area of what is contributing and not contributing, absolutely Michelle. I like the ideas that you're sharing about make teams versus community at large. And I think that, I would like to see more, especially from those most dependent hosts, plugins, themes, and agencies of a certain scale to do more towards the official teams.

I'm not giving opinions about how. Any of those have done so or not, but when our livelihood depends upon it, especially things like showing up for the release parties and testing your own stuff against the release, that could lead to some really interesting educate stuff. So see the test team site, make debt wordpress.org/test.

But if, folks are going to start comparing. This company or that and how they show up, please do not rely upon core props as your judgment marker because that does not reveal things like, the folks that have shown up to organize Word Camp US just happened. The people that show up at meetup groups, that is all very vital.

I've been circulating a picture of a coworker of mine that at Word Camp Canada cleared out 100 plugins reviewed in a day that doesn't show up on the core props list. So if you're going to look at how my employer shows up, as contributing, the bubble charts are very insufficient in that regard and that's why we need to have a more holistic picture of what's going on.

And I think overreliance on that is, core is absolutely vital. Obviously, we really wouldn't be here without the core team. However, it's insufficient in terms of any kind of comparison and really. I don't wanna get into nitpicking on comparisons. It's not about which company does this, that, or the other thing.

When it looks at an organization that might be sponsoring people. I think that, what I'm most interested in is benefiting the cost of the teams. Do we have the resourcing in the individual teams that are needed to sustain things? If your company, your organization, your customers, your clients, what have you, are dependent on having, I'll pick on Serbia because I have a lot of coworkers in Serbia.

if that's the audience that you've got, wouldn't it behoove you to have the docs ready at release in that locale? so thinking about it from that perspective of where can you get the biggest bang for your buck in terms of serving your audience can help go a long way at increasing the opportunity to contribute.

[00:45:43] Nathan Wrigley: Can I ask, would anybody welcome the opportunity to get something in return? And I don't mean financial, I just mean some sort of accreditation for their contributing. And again, I don't mean like necessarily, one size fits all, but would it be, good to have like a, like for like thing, would it be good to have a place where you can go and log the things that you contributed against the set of criteria that were published on a website and then, I don't know, the badge system or something like that to say, in the last year I can prove that I contributed, I.

I know, 50 hours to word camps and get something back for that. So a whole range of different ways to demonstrate that you contributed, but also a team on the other end, and dare I say it, that probably would need to be paid for or something like that of people who could literally do the due diligence.

when I apply for my passport, they're not just giving passports out. Somebody has to go and say, what did you do? Prove it. And once I've proved it, okay, there you go. There's your passport in return for all of the bits and pieces that you sent us, is that just a silly idea? It yeah, it seems silly.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm sorry.

[00:46:53] Taco Verdonshot: It's, I'll be brutally honest and blunt with you. why? Because it's super hard. one of my favorite examples personally is, in the Dutch WordPress, slack. Some of the people who are, global translation editors are coaching others to, help do better translations.

That is completely off the radar of any, qualifying instance. Otherwise, you would need access to any and all of all the Slack instances, all of Slack dms, all of everything. and that's simply impossible. So I think that the system that we currently have in five for the future, which is trust-based self-reporting, as Andrew Palmer tried to point out a gazillion times in the chat, is the best system an honor system, be honest about what you're contributing towards.

Five for the future is the best system otherwise. It becomes impossible.

[00:48:06] Nathan Wrigley: Yeah, I, understand there'd be this crazy spaghetti, wouldn't there? And it really wouldn't get rid of the problem of what counts and what doesn't count. I did raise a few comments, so apologies Connie, I'm just gonna get to the end of this a little bit.

the, our comments are not usually, our comments are usually one way. They're directed at the at os on the screen. And today we've got this unique situation where there's, comments are flying left, and center. There's lots of acting people, so there's lots of comments going to each other, which is lovely.

but it does mean that I'm not necessarily gonna be able to pick out every comment and show it on the screen. And I hope you understand that. And so if you've said something and I've just bypassed it entirely, it's not through, there's no kind of editorializing going on there. I'm literally just not seeing them all because I can't keep up frankly.

'cause I'm trying to monitor what's going on elsewhere. I apologize, Courtney. Carry on.

[00:48:53] Courtney Robertson: so Taco, I, that was one of the concerns with the tooling that we have to report some of the metrics we're looking solely at activity. And I highlighted about how we have so many different Slack instances for the different locales and what would need to be done for that.

As well as things like, there's a lot in the data that I'll, get with Nathan and we'll do a deep dive with Hari and I and Nathan on this. but there's areas that we can in, work towards, like right now, our dashboards don't have a means of bringing track in and we're still dependent on that.

I spoke with Otto about that at us. Otto and I are gonna catch up later this week around some of that and see what we could do. Getting the Slack systems in, getting the, it does take RSS but that doesn't solve for things like somebody's revised, post a page of things somewhere and then in all of the locales.

So we're multiplying all of the places. And again, the self-reporting, a lot of the work that some of folks of us do in the project are more knowledge work. Oriented. And so I looked at what Drupal is doing, and it is a self-reporting mechanism. Anything that could be automated, good gracious, let's do that because we're all busy.

anything that cannot be automated, then let's make means for being able to pull that information in a reasonable way as well. Drupal has a self-reporting mechanism. I'm forgetting the name of it at the moment, but it's basically a form you fill out and says like my employer, I'm contributing on behalf of either like my employer, my customer, my whatever.

And, I think that there's room for all of that to be included, as well as some of the things that Google Looker Studio can provide about. Traffic to the site and things came up in a marketing meeting during us as well. so it's on the radar. These are big problems to solve. Yes.

[00:50:36] Nathan Wrigley: Can I just say, if you've ever peeled back the curtain on Courtney's capacity to automate things, it's rather impressive.

it really is quite impressive what Courtney has managed to automate on, the stuff that she puts out each week, especially on post status. And, as she knows, I crib a lot of what Courtney creates and what Michelle creates for my, my bits and pieces. So yeah. Thank you for everything that you do.

Okay. As I said, too many comments coming through. We'll get to the Google Doc in a minute. but a couple of things that just occur to me. The first one is this kind of feels like it had to happen at some point, right? If it wasn't in our community, it'd be in another one. We've got capital coming in.

We're a popular project. WordPress is 43% of the web. And we've had, in the last 10 years or so, we've had this kind of more or less exponential growth and we've had lots of companies coming in and putting their capital in, and some of it, I guess could be described as venture capital. and so were we not gonna knock heads at some point, was this not some kind of inevitable where the people who perhaps might describe themselves as, I don't know, authentic open source, let's just use that, they've got that kind of more, I'm for the community.

I don't represent finance. They've got their opinion of how projects like WordPress should look and it's very. I dunno what the word is, but it feels different from the inside of that. It feels different from the inside of the, the sort of the moneymaking approach, if you like. And it did feel to me four or five years ago when every week we had a story about a company buying another company, a big company buying a plugin or hoovering up all the plugins.

Were we not all thinking that at some point the heads are gonna collide and it just so happens that it, this week it happened. So there's that. The other thing is, I just wonder people in the comments, if you think this is about, I don't know, about just purely about money or if you think it does have to do with the WordPress ethic, the ethos of an open source community.

The whole thing is still an experiment, right? we think WordPress has been around for all these years, but if you rewind the clock 50 years. None of this existed. open source anything was just an anathema. Nobody had ever heard of it. It didn't exist. So I guess we're just making it up as we go along.

And given the magnitude of WordPress, feels like we're at the vanguard and the trip wires are gonna hit us a little bit earlier. there's my diatribe. I don dunno if that's added anything. I saw, James nodding his head a little bit during that and I dunno if you wanna chip in.

[00:53:19] James Giroux: I think that's good. has this always been coming Absolutely right. I think, the open way that, that WordPress tries to navigate these challenges, this was a very likely scenario. I don't think I, think there's two things that we've gotta watch here. One is the issues around contributing are very much, I.

Moral issues, they're not legal issues, right? This is about the project we're creating, the ecosystem we're creating, and who we as a community want to celebrate and, incorporate into the way we move forward. so that is one issue. the legal stuff, the trademark stuff that's totally separate and that's, between companies.

So my thinking is, on, on that alone, this is a conversation that was definitely going to come up. and it has been coming up, it's been something that's been there for a while. Fi for the Future exists as a concept because years ago we could see the writing on the wall, that if we didn't put something in place, companies would take advantage then.

Yeah, I think we're here. I think it's a good conversation to have. but it is one of multiple conversations that are happening at the same time.

[00:54:48] Nathan Wrigley: We're in such a curious space though, aren't we? Because, in every other walk of life, there's definitely some exceptions, take for, well in the UK at least, healthcare, is not a for-profit thing particularly, but education, things like that. and. Most things in society, there's a definite relationship between, you do something and you get a return on it. you do a thing, and you do enough of that thing and you expect to be, remunerated financially for that thing. And that's just the normal course of events.

When I talk to people about WordPress, who've got no relationship with WordPress, they, and I say what it is, and they say, how much does that cost? They say, no, it costs nothing. They're like, hang on, wait, what? and then I explain, and they're, that's really weird. What's going on there?

they find it genuinely intriguing and, we do have it in or don't we, to assume that, okay, you did X, you need x. Times whatever dollar sign back in return. And yet this isn't that. And so I can see in the comments there's a lot of people, equating it, the contributions to money. I can also see the opposite in the comments.

I genuinely don't know what, we do about it, but I do know that society, the regular society that we all live in, has a definite skew towards being remunerated financially, because that's just the simplest way to tra to do transactions. We all get it, but in this case it's entirely different. And how we grapple with that and how we lock it down and how we say that's fair.

That's not fair is really difficult. But in this particular week, we've got an issue where, you know, the co-founder of WordPress has, has decided that, that this needs to be aired, that the bottleneck has been reached, the trip wire has been crossed. other metaphors that mean the same thing as that.

yeah. And so here we are. Is there anything interesting on the spreadsheet yet? Does anybody, has anybody added anything over that?

[00:56:46] Courtney Robertson: while we go looking at that? Yesterday afternoon, Matt shared in. The make WordPress hosting Slack. Some ideas of having a more, after getting through the hosting page, Matt, what did you call that?

I don't have the link right now watching for you. but after, so after wordpress.org/hosting, having a listing of those that also meet the criteria I think is roughly what he was going for. Of five for the future contributing. I don't have the hosting Slack. I was DMing Matt, the link, and thank you for getting some sleep last night, Matt.

so I don't have the link right now in front of me for the hosting channel. but the hosting channel, there's a discussion that's had and instead of, instead of the idea Matt had, I said, Hey, let's go back to the idea that you agreed with me about, which was, being transparent. And I came up with a rubric or a style when things are hard to assess as a teacher.

My background was indicating that yes, thank you Lucas, WordPress that org slash hosting slash official. And so the idea for that, it's not a live link yet that I know of, although someone could double check on that, is, if you're not just a recommended host, but you also are doing the things of contributing.

And the idea that I had is I think it's okay to share this. So Matt, you have said that you have had private conversations, you have reached out in the case with Heather and others, directly to various companies. The community doesn't get to see that backstory and the community doesn't get to know what those standards are that are set.

And so the hosting page and others. Become moving targets because the standards are shared in those private conversations about what one needs to do to be restored. And by having something that is, when it's hard to grade students on something that is very subjective, a rubric is what teachers lean on to become more objective.

So this is fancy educator talk, but basically it's let's say here's the standards on a scale, what we need to do to get there and be listed. and so that conversation is also happening and I feel that's pretty relevant to this idea of should organizations be, get some kind of a badge or something to indicate that they are.

Good standing. I think that's part of it. and I'd like to see that transparency in that area's in the,

[00:59:09] Nathan Wrigley: I'll just quickly say, Cameron, private messaged me a little while ago. Say his internet connections a bit patchy, I don't think it's, no, it's, that never happens

[00:59:16] Michelle Frechette: to Cameron just

[00:59:17] Nathan Wrigley: freaking out and leaving us periodically to go and, publish a wall or anything like that.

And it's a backup laptop I'm using because my normal one

[00:59:26] Cameron Jones: is fried. Oh, I'm so sorry. Yeah, unfor, unfortunately. But it's unfortunately, I tell you what,

[00:59:30] Nathan Wrigley: unfortunately, it's not the best setup whilst you're here. It's holding on very well and Tacho in a little private message. This is cool. I did not know this.

I said go back 50 years or so and open source wasn't the thing. I am wrong apparently, because open source goes back more than 50 years, when Volvo open source, the invention of the three point seatbelt. Now there's your propeller hat, you moment there, the, woo-hoo. That's nerdy as you get. okay.

Thank you for that. Let's go and see what we've got on the spreadsheet. again, apologies. I know that in a show that's an hour and a half long. We can't really open up all of the bits, the nuances of this whole discussion. Hopefully we've raised a few bits and pieces, but the intention was to really frame it around this little document here.

okay, here we go. it is not going to be perfect, but this is what we've managed to get together. March the 22nd. So what happened March the 22nd? Paul Morana, sorry if I've butchered the name. Who is the CEO at Wu and Tony Schneider. The interim automatic CEO presented a deck to Heather Bruner on trademark licensing.

30th of May. WP Engine receives the first term sheet, 12th of June, and. Third, 3rd of July, WP Engine calls out terms 16th of July. Victor one, from WP Engine says that he'll discuss terms by the end of July. So that all hap, that's all a preface, to this whole debate. That was all the stuff which happened prior, to Matt writing his post on the ma TT website.

So that adds a little bit of context behind the scene. Everything else that you have heard about has been happening in public, so you can see the fallout of that. Let's go to the more, let's go to the more sort of nuanced stuff here. What did we like, what did we not like? so on the liked the, the call for contribution.

That's a win, right? Isn't, that a pretty good win? It totally. Put out there the conversation about contribution. so everybody now knows that's a thing. And if you are using WordPress, I honestly, it's in the regular media this week, that's never happened. the real pic, the newspaper that you go and get on the corner of the street, it's in that's never happened.

and so we've got this, project being talked about, and so people now know that you need to contribute. What else did we like? Matt being very available. Okay. whoever wrote that, if you want to say something, what was the context there? Matt went on podcasts. He's been publicly tweeting, whereas have we basically got crickets from, silver Lake?

I don't know.

[01:01:56] Courtney Robertson: I understand, quite clearly when employers would like a certain amount of silence or not. I think Matt being available is good. I think when this cycle slows down. I would like to see Matt's availability across.org also continue. perhaps not to this extent because you do need sleep, you need to take care of you.

but I think being available, is good. I do think that it's helping the community to understand more of the issues.

[01:02:36] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Okay. Great. And then, we have this other liked, which is Matt explaining the details. By the way, I'm looking over there 'cause that's where I've got the screen. I'm not being liked elsewhere.

Matt explains the details on the whole structure of everything WordPress and why it is the way from a legal and tax per perspective. Where did that surface, whoever wrote that, was that one of the one of the po the video podcasts that he did, over the last few years? Yes. So I wrote

[01:03:00] Cameron Jones: that. Okay.

And yeah, that came on the Theo t3 gg, interview that he did, which was, if you listen to or watch nothing else, watch that one. I think. okay. Yeah. I know I have there's so much blurred lines about what is WordPress, what is owned by what, in the end it all just comes down to Matt owns pretty much 99% of it, as to who owns and manages what part of it, it's very confusing.

and yeah, I know there are lots of people who have been waiting for that to be put out in such detail. And not just the detail, but also the reasons why from a legal and tax perspective, why a lot of that had to happen that way. oh,

[01:03:45] Nathan Wrigley: okay. And I haven't seen that video. How did it make you, if you're willing, how did it calm you down a bit?

Did it, I know you weren't on any kind of precipice anyway, but did it, give you a bit more of a wider picture? Did it make you understand Matt's position more? You may have already been on that side of the debate, I don't know, but did it give you a broader sort of understanding? Yeah, definitely.

Okay.

[01:04:08] Cameron Jones: I mean I knew most of it, that I'd figured it out or had heard other people summarize but didn't have the why, especially from the tax thing. 'cause Yeah, part of me is just like when the whole Bridge fairy lights thing happened a few months ago, there was, a lot of blow up and Matt pretty much said, it's my project.

I can do whatever I want. paraphrases mine. and part of me has always wondered like, why does Matt own like the project and not the foundation? Why does the foundation only do the trademarks and the events? And so this clarified that exactly why that is 100% not an option, because it wouldn't fly for tax reasons.

That was really helpful.

[01:05:01] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, okay. Yeah, I confess at the very least, I now wish that I had seen that, but you can't consume everything right in the run up to something like this. You do. I've read what I've read and, I didn't what I didn't, but, you're falling short, Nathan. Yeah, I know. That's right.

I also had to sleep sadly. and then we've got another one here. Eventually we'll get more clarity on how the trademark works. okay. So that's playing it forwards a little bit. So we are seeing as one of the good things is that new things will happen. Things that haven't yet been addressed or have felt fallen by the wayside or are unclear, might get some kind of inspection, might come under the microscope a little bit, and therefore become a little bit more clear.

For example, trademark, it does sound from what we talked about. We spent a long time on contributions. Maybe there's a. A piece on, trying to figure out what those contribution looks like. By the way, the new universal symbol for contributions is that if you do jazz hands, that's now what it means. apparently.

[01:05:54] Cameron Jones: Who

[01:05:55] Nathan Wrigley: knew? Yeah. it's just, I've just coined it. okay. So what we didn't like, okay, here we go. WordPress presentations could have been more thorough in the history as well as the consequences. So maybe this, speaks to the bit, which Cameron just mentioned, where, Matt was able to, on a podcast.

Which I think was quite a lengthy thing, was able to explain some of the bits and pieces he maybe didn't have a chance to do that. And the presentation could have been different, and had those other things peppered throughout it. Okay. website visitors and agencies building are there as casualties, website visitors and agencies building there as casualties.

So this is an argument that I've heard a lot, especially in regard to WP Engine clients. There was a whole piece about the repo getting switched off, which then got switched back on. there was a reprieve. I think that reprieve is still, yep. I think it then until tomorrow. Tomorrow, 1st of October.

I dunno what's gonna happen then. I'm imagining that WP Engine are figuring that out as we speak. but then there was also the things like what happens to people, for example, who are using a CF, can that be updated and what have you? 'cause that spreads. Right outside of the, the WP Engine ecosystem.

So casualties basically that could be a problem. We don't like that. and oh, somebody wrote, Matt is facing health issues. Get well soon, okay. Thank you.

[01:07:18] Courtney Robertson: He shared during, he shared his health concerns during his address, with camp us. Okay. Kidney stones

[01:07:24] Michelle Frechette: are not fun. I know this from experience.

[01:07:27] Nathan Wrigley: Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. So yeah, I think it goes without saying we don't want anybody to be unwell. So best wishes to Matt, and Matt. Okay. What We don't like another one. Matt criticizing WP Engine for not speaking out despite sending them a cease and desist. Matt criticizing WP Engine for not speaking out.

So are, we basically saying that on the one hand. You are telling them to stop talking about it, but on the other, you are getting on social media speaking so you, you'd like them to do that. So it's, are you saying that's a mixed message, whoever said that? and finally, in here at least anyway, damage to the WordPress brand, is that a given?

Do you think? Do you think in three weeks time, four weeks time, we'll be caring about this story? Do you think it'll blow away and nobody's gonna be, upset anymore? Do you think the wider public will now have knowledge about WordPress and distrust it more? So my print newspaper that I can get at the corner shop has an impact.

they write a story, it changes people's lives, they write a hotel review and it's favorable. Suddenly that business goes, woo-hoo. And if some news article about WordPress being, I don't know, being in a spat or, it's negatively impacted, maybe, I don't know. I think

[01:08:40] Michelle Frechette: it's less about.

That in particular, and more that there are so many people feeling like they could be collateral damage. So I see posting on Facebook groups and things like, what does this mean for me as a solopreneur, as an entrepreneur, as a site owner? if I host, if I don't host there, but I host someplace else, am I gonna be at risk tomorrow?

And those kinds of things, I think those need to be settled so that people can at least breathe and go, I'm not in that battle, but I'm okay. Kind of thing. So I don't know.

[01:09:09] Nathan Wrigley: Okay.

[01:09:10] Michelle Frechette: I saw Courtney nodding. I think she has seen some things as I have probably.

[01:09:14] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Yeah. we'll leave those buried if it's not, available for public consumption.

We're trying to be polite and nice here as we always do. but yeah, but then there's the old adage that any news is, any press is good press, right? Oh, good press gonna go and register that domain, dot com. and I'll get the.org while I'm at good press. the point being that, if you are being spoken about in the media, it's probably good.

Who knows, what the intuition will be there. And I do wonder if, out there in the general public, anybody even knows that this is going on. they do, it's

[01:09:53] Michelle Frechette: been all over TikTok even. Okay.

[01:09:55] Nathan Wrigley: I should say

[01:09:55] Michelle Frechette: all over. But lawyers and people are talking about it in places that are not normally talked about.

[01:10:01] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. I think

[01:10:02] Courtney Robertson: it's going to, we'll see some, interesting shakeup with the supply chain. Basically. Supply chain is everything from we, we ship a release to how people are getting the updates and all the layers between. it'll be interesting to see where the courts land with it.

[01:10:20] Nathan Wrigley: Okay, thank you.

And, okay, now let's just turn our attention, finally to what could, should happen. Now, bear in mind, this is just our opinion. Is it time

[01:10:29] Taco Verdonshot: for some kittens in between? So that, okay, let's do it. Let's,

[01:10:33] Nathan Wrigley: again, quite right, there hasn't been enough kittens, clearly dogs or sheep, for a while now.

So again, just sit back, concentrate on your breathing, perhaps adopt the lotus position, and, just enjoy the next 20 seconds. I'm trying to sound like some sort of jazz, somebody that introduces jazz musicians, so sit back. You have to get a lot closer. You get much closer. So sit back, relax, and try to enjoy cats, dogs.

And sheep.

I should have put a dragon in there or something. Should I just thrown one real humdinger smog.

[01:11:29] Cameron Jones: Yeah. Can I just check something with you, Nathan? Yeah. Did you say Lotus position or fetal position? Because I'm not sure I got the right one. I

[01:11:38] Nathan Wrigley: said Lotus, I think. I hope I did. Okay. That's not going in the transcript.

That's coming out. good grief. okay. Let's get to this bit. What we think, what we, maybe this, some of this is come from the comments. Maybe some of this is just what we as a panel think, what could or should happen right now. WP Engine rebrand. engine, WP Flywheel, et cetera. I think there was a little bit of confusion at the beginning, and I know that the trademark description on wordpress.org around WP got changed.

There was a little bit more clarification added into there. I, this podcast is called WP Builds. If I'm correct in my reading of it, I've got nothing to worry about because I'm not I'm not being a bad custodian of that, but I hope that's the case. okay. So we'll see if that happens.

If Matt's, if Matt wants the, I'm just reading this, you can see if Matt wants the nuclear option to be an option documented process in intricate detail of how this will play out for suppose bad actors, revenue numbers, contribution numbers, and what counts as contributions, punishments, timelines, et cetera.

interesting transparency and contribution. Yeah, we've got that kind of twice, haven't we? Here I. Got another one just there. Transparency and contribution, have public discourse about five of the future discussions. Okay. Clarity in sponsor booths. but by the way, word Camp us, WP Engine were a sponsor.

And so there was, the possibility for tension there, they were a, one of the, I can't remember what the top tier is called, was it like platinum or something? but they were, one of the top tier sponsors at the event. And so there was some thought as to whether that would be difficult clarity in sponsor booths and more incentives for sponsors at other open source software conferences.

The sponsors get speaking slots for staff or to nominate others. and this comment is you're all dancing around the critical point. WordPress, the project needs cash, but distribution of that must be for the community. I. Above all else, the project needs cash, but distribution must be for the community above all else.

Can somebody unpack that one for me? does anybody pause that easily? I

[01:13:51] Taco Verdonshot: copied that over from a comment that Andrew Palmer made in the comments.

[01:13:56] Nathan Wrigley: Oh, thank you. Andrew Palmer and I talk fairly frequently, so I'll take that up with him, but, yeah, it's a cash based thing. Thank you, Andrew. I appreciate it.

So what I would say is, that, I think

[01:14:08] Taco Verdonshot: comments are, Going in a different direction. Oh, thank you. Where the inclusion of sheep in your little intermed is discussed as being very British. Where Cameron's just eating lamb

[01:14:27] Nathan Wrigley: the heck. Everybody loves a sheep, don't they? Aren't they like one of the, a little lamb, little speaks more

[01:14:32] Cameron Jones: kiwi than it, than

[01:14:33] Nathan Wrigley: British.

We call whams, don't we? okay. Cats and dogs. that's cool. But sheep, no. No. Did you ever hear there was once a band back in the 1980s, called the KLF, they were really popular and they did this album, I think it was called Chill or Chill Out, and they hired a recording studio and, demolished more or less half of it, and then rebuilt it for sheep.

So that when they were playing their instruments, they could be watching the sheep. 'cause they were trying to play them as gently and as calmly as possible. And they figured that sheep would contribute something to the album. go check it out. It's true. And and so I've always thought of sheep as being quite, quite a calming little animal.

Have we done that story? Are we all happy to move away from, that trip wire? Yeah. Just nod.

[01:15:22] Taco Verdonshot: I think that besides the sheep in the commons, which obviously is an interesting, step, but, there's something else where, Matt just said, we don't need cash. we need, let me, yeah, I found it.

We need cash. We need hours. Exactly.

[01:15:46] Cameron Jones: Yeah, but those people need cash to pay their bills. That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah. At that point, Cameron

[01:15:52] Courtney Robertson: is about, so with the foundation not being able to directly staff folks, Matt, I would love to go over, we were, I had a good conversation with another cohort, another company and Hari at lunch at us about the common struggles between someone like myself saying we need to do X, Y, Z, someone like yourself saying we need to do X, Y, Z.

And wherein that breakdown occurs and I would like to get together on some FAQs to put on the five for the future page, that are specific to that. Mid management level to help unlock that as well as, Amber was bringing up, Amber Hines was bringing up about the impact that all of this has on small businesses.

And, I shared on another podcast recently that the idea of, if you're a small business and how do you also afford to contribute in the midst of all of this, I've seen some small businesses that have said I show up and I contribute as part of their selling advantage. Amber, you certainly contribute to the accessibility team and I'm sure that you let your clients know that.

So that's amazing. For those that feel like I cannot, the simple low lift things like kicking in at least premium license plugin equivalent to someone that is contributing through their GitHub sponsors page or something like that, if you yourself cannot get in there with the hours that the project needs, and I think Matt's right on this.

The numbers in our contributor dashboards show that Matt's right on this one. If you yourself can't get in there. Then there are other means of funding contributors and that's something that I'm really passionate about working on. So let's talk,

[01:17:30] Nathan Wrigley: I think it must be a very difficult circle to square the, we can see clearly in the comments, don't we?

There's this kind of cash volunteer, cash. They're very difficult to work out perfectly. And obviously a project like this requires an element of both and I dunno how to manage that and corral it. I know it's hard for me to get my children to get in the car. that's really difficult.

And trying to shepherd a project with thousands of people contributing to it. Gosh. so hopefully. That has at least raised some of the points. Hopefully you've had a chance to listen to an alternative position. I realize that we haven't nailed the coffin on this. We haven't figured out the answer.

We've just said what we've said.

[01:18:14] Michelle Frechette: It's not our responsibility.

[01:18:15] Nathan Wrigley: No, it isn't to figure out the

[01:18:16] Michelle Frechette: answer. But I'll say the one thing, I will commit to doing a webinar through post status on how to make sure that you attribute your con your contributions through your wordpress.org profile. Yes.

[01:18:27] Cameron Jones: So

[01:18:27] Michelle Frechette: I will do that for the community.

I can only do so much. I'm one person, but I will commit to doing that, after Word Camp Rochester and after, WP Accessibility Day because I am very busy this weekend. Next.

[01:18:40] Nathan Wrigley: Yes. Yes indeed. Now we do have some other stories lined up. Do we think we've got time for any of these?

[01:18:47] Michelle Frechette: We have to talk about WP Accessibility Day 'cause it's next week.

[01:18:50] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Okay. So should we should, let's do that one first. WP Accessibility Day, if you go to WP Accessibility Day,

[01:18:58] Cameron Jones: correct?

[01:18:59] Nathan Wrigley: No, 2024 WP Accessibility. first we'll get

[01:19:03] Michelle Frechette: you there eventually too. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:19:05] Nathan Wrigley: you'll get there eventually. it's happening when, give us the dates, Michelle.

[01:19:08] Michelle Frechette: October 9th and 10th. So it begins next week. it begins at, I wanna say I've never, I'm so bad at. Time zones, but I think it's 11:15 AM central time zone in the us, which was a Chicago time zone, if you're a city person. but it will run for 24 hours. It is through Zoom. You do have to register to be able to access it, but it is a free event and we would love for everybody to, attend this.

So go register to attend. We do not spam you. You're welcome to unsubscribe if you need to after the event, but we wanna make sure that you get all of the things that you need. We have an amazing keynote speaker, Laney Feingold, who is an accessibility attorney. Amazing that she's gonna be doing the keynote for us.

And then just 24 hours of really amazing, I say amazing a lot. Phenomenal speakers. 27% I believe, don't quote me, are act, actually identify as having a disability themselves. So we are practicing what we preach. We have a just 24 hours of amazing events. Please go register.

[01:20:15] Nathan Wrigley: gotta say that.

Here's an example of what a community can do well, right? It's just a. Blooming excellent piece of work. This, the website's great, the community's great. The topic is just, whoa, it's the right thing to be doing at the right time. And thank you so much to anybody who's had their fingers in this pie. It's absolutely brilliant.

WP Access 2024 WP Accessibility Day. And I'm looking at the schedule page and you can go and find out more about that. And just to be clear, Michelle, it's totally free all online and it runs for a whole 24 hours. So if. To, be anywhere on the globe. Let's, I imagine that's most of us, apart from seven people on the International Space Station.

They're all good. you'll be able to check this out, and he said it's rather self-serving me. Hold on. little.com. let's see if I can find it. Go to podcast. Here we go. There it's, I did a, I did a podcast episode, on the Tavern with Isler Weight Bet Hannan and Ryan Bracy all about what you can expect.

So if you, like, if you enjoy getting things, in an audio way, check that out. It's wp tavern.com/podcast and it's episode number one three. Eight. so there we go. Right there. Is that Now, which of the other bits we're gonna cherry pick in the minutes that are remaining? da No, they're all to do with the story that we did so far.

so is that, is that, gosh,

[01:21:44] Taco Verdonshot: I think that the gender equality piece is super important. I was just

[01:21:49] Nathan Wrigley: gonna say that one. Okay. Thank you so much. Yeah. I was just trying to, in my own mind, trying to intuit which one mattered most. And here we, here's all the other things. Agree that we could have talked about, gosh, next week look at it.

Data views. We've got Yost, we've got, W-P-L-D-N Masterclass with Tim Nash. We've got some new. Plugins to do with payments. We've got a new Gutenberg UI kit with Figma. We've got Pascal Bler talking about how you can do media through rendering it through the browser. Gosh, what else have we got? Data views.

And here we are. This is where we're gonna go. Now, Michelle, I am just gonna hand this over to you 'cause I know this is your area of expertise. Is that all right?

[01:22:30] Michelle Frechette: yes, of course. Shahan McKeen and, Francesca Murano ha have this wonderful project called WP Dot Includes me, and it's all about helping women climb the corporate ladder.

So why do we not have more leadership, women in leadership across, WordPress and across tech, for example. And so they put on, with Ray Morrie earlier this year, a wonderful survey. I changed my word from amazing to wonderful, a wonderful survey. So to help us all have a better understanding of where exactly do we fall right now, how many of our managers in WordPress are men, women, gender diverse, or they didn't wanna say at all.

And so this piece is the wrap that all up and share the information that came in through that, through that survey.

[01:23:19] Nathan Wrigley: Does it basically boil down to what we are looking at on the screen? And apologies if you're consuming this via audio, which I know a lot of you do. The day after. I'll just read the stats very quickly.

We've got a pie chart. The pie chart has five different areas. man is categorized as 55.4%. woman 23.8%. Not applicable. 17.8. gender diverse. 2%. And prefer not to say, actually doesn't have a percentage next to it, but I'm guessing it's gonna account for about less than 1%. Something below one.

Yeah. and so I guess the takeaway is, the man's slice is more than half of the pie, right?

[01:23:56] Michelle Frechette: It is. And that not applicable is probably people who responded who are, entrepreneurs and solopreneurs, so they don't have a manager. If you look at people who have management, it becomes an actually higher percentage that are, men in the positions of authority.

[01:24:14] Nathan Wrigley: Do you know Michelle? so obviously I'm gonna link to this in the show notes tomorrow, but it's WP includes plural.me, and then you can find it there. But the piece is entitled A Call for Change, gender Equality in WordPress Businesses. you can see the title there. you can go and find this for yourself.

Is there a sort, like a call to action of this, or is this just, here's the data now? We'll, yeah. Digest it.

[01:24:38] Michelle Frechette: There was a lot more questions on there, about whether your company, helps women move forward, how they, there's, there were so many questions in the survey. There's so much more information, but the whole point behind WP Includes Not me, is a mentorship program where women in positions of leadership, mentor women who want to be in positions of leadership over a set, course of time and help them understand the kinds of things that you need to be and put into place to help move yourself forward in an organization.

[01:25:10] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Thank you very much indeed. And was there anything else that we wanted to mention before we knock it on the head? I'm just flicking around at all the different bits and pieces. Did anybody else tack? I apologize you raised this for me to then hand it directly over to Michelle. I apologize.

[01:25:27] Taco Verdonshot: No, but that's because Michelle's on the podcast today and she's a much better advocate on this topic than I am because I'm in that 55%, being a meal manager.

but I do think that it's important to point out that we're not at gender equality yet. So that's why I, highlight this one. And you said, do we have another one? And I think actually the, addition by Michelle, the pick of the week apologies is probably the best way to end today's, podcast.

Can I just jump in really quick before that? Oh,

[01:26:06] Cameron Jones: yes. I

[01:26:06] Michelle Frechette: wanna jump in really quick before that and say, because we haven't mentioned the rest of Word Camp us this year, I wanna give a shout out to all of the organizers, speakers, volunteers. That was a phenomenal event and one hour of that event has dominated our conversation for the last week.

But I really wanna give, a shout out to the amazing teams that put that whole thing together. So kudos to that. I don't know if

[01:26:29] Courtney Robertson: I'm overstepping my bounds. I know we have a couple of organizers in the chat, but as an organizer that happens to be on the show because I organized contributor day. Thank you community for all that you also did and brought to the event.

Thank you for making it a fantastic time together. And, just a quick. Super humble brag. 600 of our attendees, came to contributor day and it was also a really fantastic turnout. I think percentage wise, on par with Europe. Our attendance is a little bit lower than Europe, but so from an organizer of the camp thank you community as well,

[01:27:04] Nathan Wrigley: it was, I had, dare I say it, I think it was my favorite word, camp.

[01:27:11] Michelle Frechette: there you go. There I

[01:27:12] Nathan Wrigley: said it. I wasn't organized this year. Maybe that's why it was your favorite. And I've always had a really nice time. But there was something, about it. I, loved the venue. Yeah, it was great. there was a whole juxtaposition of things and I just thought it was brilliant.

It was really well organized. Everything was just right in the right place. You could walk around And collide with people. Not literally. 'cause there was just so much space. It was great coffee. sorry. Sorry, Cameron. We're really belaboring this, aren't we? But you get to, it's two minutes midnight here.

[01:27:46] James Giroux: The extra day, was good too. Showcase day was really awesome. Just to see the different ways that WordPress is applied in the wider world. and also like from my perspective, these large organizations that we all look up to that do, Big world brands, right? What was really cool was to see the passion and enthusiasm for WordPress from them that came out as a result.

They came in apprehensive in some regards about how they would be received by the WordPress community, and they left wanting to get more involved to do more for WordPress, to talk about their stories more in WordPress, and I thought that was just an incredible outcome. So

[01:28:33] Michelle Frechette: definitely yeah. But the real prize of this week is definitely what I put in for the last thing.

So can we close on that as Corey? We

[01:28:40] Nathan Wrigley: can, but first before we close, I think it's time to just, we'll just take stock and, we'll just go back to the cats. Remember the chicken little, the sky is still up in the uk. It's full of cloud. You can't even see it

[01:28:55] Michelle Frechette: here too.

[01:28:56] Nathan Wrigley: Okay. Peter Alt give us the skinny what's happening in Connecticut, but, but I think it's important at this stage to, just pay homage to all the cats.

All the dogs. Dogs. And dare I say it, all the sheep. Here they come. Another 30 seconds of sheep, dogs and cats.

Didn't do 30 seconds. It was, it's just, it's too much.

[01:29:26] Michelle Frechette: Besides that hippo. That hippo is absolutely. Yeah. You're giving it away. You've given it away.

[01:29:31] Nathan Wrigley: okay, so Michelle found this coca, it's an, there's no way you're gonna get through this without just freaking out

[01:29:40] Michelle Frechette: smiling. Yeah.

[01:29:41] Nathan Wrigley: What the heck? Here it comes.

I don't even know how I'm gonna play it to be honest. I'm just gonna play the YouTube video. So this is a YouTube video entitled In, oh, endangered pygmy Hippo at Thai Zoo goes viral. Completely

[01:29:54] Michelle Frechette: viral.

[01:29:55] Nathan Wrigley: There's gotta be something wrong with you on a profound level if you don't find this video enormously captivating.

Here we go. Just watch this. I don't think you've got the sound. I apologize. There's no way I can move this. It's so cute. It's

[01:30:09] Michelle Frechette: so tiny.

[01:30:12] Taco Verdonshot: Even without, it's so

[01:30:20] Nathan Wrigley: tiny,

Michelle.

[01:30:25] Michelle Frechette: I never wanted to hug a hippo before, but now I do.

[01:30:28] Nathan Wrigley: You have, gladed our hearts. I really appreciate it. as is always the case, as is always the case, I thank you so much for joining us. Firstly, let me get that video off. Otherwise I'm going to croon about it. Thank you to, Courtney, to Michelle, to Ko, to James and Cameron.

thank you to you. anybody who made a comment, we did manage to get to the end and as far as I could see, no mod got thrown. Did any mud fly? I think we managed to escape the mud flinging. So thank you. I know that what, it's a heated topic. It could have gone in all sorts of different directions, and I appreciate you for, keeping it, keeping it sensible and all of those kind of things.

And, shall we call it a day today on the, should we go through the entire video as we round it off on today's episode? I don't know if I can do, yeah, I think I can. before we do it's hands, shall we have? I know. Exactly. What's that? Sorry,

[01:31:27] Cameron Jones: Cameron. Don't we have another 80 something

[01:31:29] Nathan Wrigley: hours to go?

Oh yeah, sorry. That was a, yeah, that was a tweet. I put out a tweet saying this week show would be 90 hours long. It'd start today and finish on Thursday. But, I couldn't manage that. that was as much as I could, muster. Thank you so much. Here we go. Let's do it. I know you all know the drill.

Come on, get those hands. I can only see one of Cameron's hands, but it'll do nevermind. There we go. Thank you so much. In that case, we're gonna knock it on the head. Appreciate all your comments. We'll be back, next week, with another show. And you never know, maybe this topic will still be going, perhaps not, but, guests, if you wanna stick around, this is gonna take like a whole minute and a half, but if you want to just have a nater after the call has ended, feel free.

That would be nice. I'll see you all later. Bye-Bye.