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Has he said he was going to pull out of development? I hadn't read that anywhere in all of this.

lolinder 2y ago
https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-sponsored-contributions-to-wordpress/ https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons... > Automatticians who contributed to core will instead focus on for-profit projects within Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce. Members of the “community” have said that working on these sorts of things should count as a contribution to WordPress. > As part of this reset, Automattic will match its volunteering pledge with those made by WP Engine and other players in the ecosystem, or about 45 hours a week that qualify under the Five For the Future program as benefitting the entire community and not just a single company. These hours will likely go towards security and critical updates. 5 of those 45 hours are apparently the Executive Director of WordPress.org, so this is actually one full time developer working on WP. That is effectively pulling out, and the remaining time supposedly allocated should be very easy for a fork to replace. Gotta love the scare quotes around "community".
hn8726 2y ago
From the article: > Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine. source: https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-sponsored-contributions-to-wordpress/ https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons...
- frereubu 2y ago
  Ah I see, I thought you were talking about him personally.
  - greenthrow 2y ago
    Are you under the impression he himself has been a meaningful contributor in the last decade?
    - frereubu 2y ago
      I thought I read a comment somewhere in all of this where he said that he was actually doing coding, yes, but (a) I could well be mistaken and (b) he could well have been talking rubbish.
      - greenthrow 2y ago
        I think you misinterpreted him funding development. Read the linked article. Should clear you up. He was funding (via Automattic) an estimated 4k+ hours of work per week and is cutting that back to 45. Not himself coding but people that work for him.
  - esskay 2y ago
    He doesn't actually do any development himself at all. IIRC his last commit was something like 15 years ago.
- Suppafly 2y ago
  >down from nearly 4,000 a week Do they really pay that many people to work on development? That's 100 fulltime jobs.
  - softwaredoug 2y ago
    It does seem like throwing investor money at 4000hrs/week open source development was a ZIRP
  - GavinAnderegg 2y ago
    Automattic has over 1,700 employees. [0] They had more than 1,900 before the buyouts and departures. [1] With that many people, I’m sort of surprised that they only had around 100 full time staff working on WordPress core. [0]: https://automattic.com/press/ https://automattic.com/press/ [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240801231830/https://automattic.com/press/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240801231830/https://automatti...
    - Suppafly 2y ago
      Full time employees? 1700 employees from 90 countries sounds to me like they are counting anyone that's ever contributed anything as an employee.

https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-sponsored-contributions-to-wordpress/ https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons... > Automatticians who contributed to core will instead focus on for-profit projects within Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce. Members of the “community” have said that working on these sorts of things should count as a contribution to WordPress. > As part of this reset, Automattic will match its volunteering pledge with those made by WP Engine and other players in the ecosystem, or about 45 hours a week that qualify under the Five For the Future program as benefitting the entire community and not just a single company. These hours will likely go towards security and critical updates. 5 of those 45 hours are apparently the Executive Director of WordPress.org, so this is actually one full time developer working on WP. That is effectively pulling out, and the remaining time supposedly allocated should be very easy for a fork to replace. Gotta love the scare quotes around "community".

hn8726 2y ago

From the article: > Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine. source: https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-sponsored-contributions-to-wordpress/ https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons...

frereubu 2y ago
Ah I see, I thought you were talking about him personally.
- greenthrow 2y ago
  Are you under the impression he himself has been a meaningful contributor in the last decade?
  - frereubu 2y ago
    I thought I read a comment somewhere in all of this where he said that he was actually doing coding, yes, but (a) I could well be mistaken and (b) he could well have been talking rubbish.
    - greenthrow 2y ago
      I think you misinterpreted him funding development. Read the linked article. Should clear you up. He was funding (via Automattic) an estimated 4k+ hours of work per week and is cutting that back to 45. Not himself coding but people that work for him.
- esskay 2y ago
  He doesn't actually do any development himself at all. IIRC his last commit was something like 15 years ago.
Suppafly 2y ago
>down from nearly 4,000 a week Do they really pay that many people to work on development? That's 100 fulltime jobs.
- softwaredoug 2y ago
  It does seem like throwing investor money at 4000hrs/week open source development was a ZIRP
- GavinAnderegg 2y ago
  Automattic has over 1,700 employees. [0] They had more than 1,900 before the buyouts and departures. [1] With that many people, I’m sort of surprised that they only had around 100 full time staff working on WordPress core. [0]: https://automattic.com/press/ https://automattic.com/press/ [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240801231830/https://automattic.com/press/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240801231830/https://automatti...
  - Suppafly 2y ago
    Full time employees? 1700 employees from 90 countries sounds to me like they are counting anyone that's ever contributed anything as an employee.