Or, conversely, if you had very little commitments outside of work, time to regularly hack on side and sufficient interest in the job to say "ok, this month, m

Or, conversely, if you had very little commitments outside of work, time to regularly hack on side and sufficient interest in the job to say "ok, this month, my side project is going to be for someone else". But the point remains that this puts an uncommon expectation on applicants, one that maybe Automattic can afford to select for, but that would potentially cause untold problems if all employers hired this way.