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Which is another signal that Matt isn’t serious about the Wordpress Foundation. The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the fo

Which is another signal that Matt isn’t serious about the Wordpress Foundation. The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the foundation to run Wordpress.org since it’s an unrelated business activity. It’s a well trodden path used by tons of nonprofits like the Smithsonian, Mozilla, OpenAI, etc. when they need to operate something that the IRS won’t grant tax exemption.

phonon 2y ago
Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss...not clear how that could work exactly...
- throwup238 2y ago
  The Foundation gives its subsidiary money, just like any other parent company can. Whether or not Wordpress.org makes money is irrelevant to its for/non profit status. It’s a legal technicality due to IRS tax exemption rules for unrelated business activities. They have to put those operations into a separate subsidiary, even if it never makes any profit. If the nonprofit can’t afford to run Wordpress.org then the whole nonprofit was a farce anyway.
  - phonon 2y ago
    Where does the Foundation get such money? In 2022 it had revenues of $23k.[1] [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205498932 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...
    - throwup238 2y ago
      So it was a farce to begin with. Matt clearly had no intention of letting it be an independent foundation.
- ValentineC 2y ago
  > Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss Someone's getting paid something for the hosting referrals here: https://wordpress.org/hosting/ https://wordpress.org/hosting/ I quote from the page: > If you do decide to go with one of the hosts below and click through from this page, some will donate a portion of your fee back
  - nchmy 2y ago
    This has more info on the topic https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2024/10/28/matt-mullenweg-claimed-he-makes-money-off-of-wordpress-org/ https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2024/10/28/matt-mullen...
ValentineC 2y ago
> The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the foundation to run Wordpress.org since it’s an unrelated business activity. They formed WordPress Community Services PBC, which now runs the "official community" WordCamps, so sponsors didn't have to restrict their messaging: https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2016/introducing-wordpress-community-support-a-public-benefit-subsidiary/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2016/introducing-wordpr...
account42 2y ago
> Mozilla, OpenAI Are these supposed to be examples of how this kind of setup turns out well for the community? Because they are the opposite.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Are you saying their governance is worse than Wordpress.org amid this giant fiasco? Mozilla Corporation is the one receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars from Google that funds almost all the the development of the Firefox browser. Without it, Mozilla would be a tiny fraction of what it is now and FF would be dead in the water. This is entirely orthogonal from the community. It's an IRS requirement.
  - account42 2y ago
    > Mozilla Corporation is the one receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars from Google that funds almost all the the development of the Firefox browser. Without it, Mozilla would be a tiny fraction of what it is now How do you know? I mean sure if the Mozilla Foundatio wouldn't have bothered with any alternative fundraising opportunities, but that's not exactly a realistic alternative realtity, is it? > and FF would be dead in the water. FF is dead in the water. It's market share is small enough that devs don't care about it anymore and it doesn't really provide any real advantages to users unless you really care about telemetry data going to Mozilla instead of Google. Mozilla has don't pretty much all it can to kill any kind of differentiation while refusing to innovate at all.

phonon 2y ago

Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss...not clear how that could work exactly...

throwup238 2y ago
The Foundation gives its subsidiary money, just like any other parent company can. Whether or not Wordpress.org makes money is irrelevant to its for/non profit status. It’s a legal technicality due to IRS tax exemption rules for unrelated business activities. They have to put those operations into a separate subsidiary, even if it never makes any profit. If the nonprofit can’t afford to run Wordpress.org then the whole nonprofit was a farce anyway.
- phonon 2y ago
  Where does the Foundation get such money? In 2022 it had revenues of $23k.[1] [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205498932 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...
  - throwup238 2y ago
    So it was a farce to begin with. Matt clearly had no intention of letting it be an independent foundation.
ValentineC 2y ago
> Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss Someone's getting paid something for the hosting referrals here: https://wordpress.org/hosting/ https://wordpress.org/hosting/ I quote from the page: > If you do decide to go with one of the hosts below and click through from this page, some will donate a portion of your fee back
- nchmy 2y ago
  This has more info on the topic https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2024/10/28/matt-mullenweg-claimed-he-makes-money-off-of-wordpress-org/ https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2024/10/28/matt-mullen...

ValentineC 2y ago

> The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the foundation to run Wordpress.org since it’s an unrelated business activity. They formed WordPress Community Services PBC, which now runs the "official community" WordCamps, so sponsors didn't have to restrict their messaging: https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2016/introducing-wordpress-community-support-a-public-benefit-subsidiary/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2016/introducing-wordpr...

account42 2y ago

> Mozilla, OpenAI Are these supposed to be examples of how this kind of setup turns out well for the community? Because they are the opposite.

throwup238 2y ago
Are you saying their governance is worse than Wordpress.org amid this giant fiasco? Mozilla Corporation is the one receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars from Google that funds almost all the the development of the Firefox browser. Without it, Mozilla would be a tiny fraction of what it is now and FF would be dead in the water. This is entirely orthogonal from the community. It's an IRS requirement.
- account42 2y ago
  > Mozilla Corporation is the one receiving the hundreds of millions of dollars from Google that funds almost all the the development of the Firefox browser. Without it, Mozilla would be a tiny fraction of what it is now How do you know? I mean sure if the Mozilla Foundatio wouldn't have bothered with any alternative fundraising opportunities, but that's not exactly a realistic alternative realtity, is it? > and FF would be dead in the water. FF is dead in the water. It's market share is small enough that devs don't care about it anymore and it doesn't really provide any real advantages to users unless you really care about telemetry data going to Mozilla instead of Google. Mozilla has don't pretty much all it can to kill any kind of differentiation while refusing to innovate at all.