Once Sentence Summary

As suggested by Dr Dave: Said something, changed mind, plans change, life happens.

The almost WordPress Inc.

By Matt Mullenweg and contributors

At the WordPress 100k party in March 2005, I talked about the formation of a "WordPress Inc." with Jonas Luster as the first employee. That never really got off the ground, I continued my job at CNET and Jonas (who I couldn't afford to pay a salary) ended up going to work for Technorati. It wasn't even planned to be announced at the party (since it wasn't clear logistically how it would happen) but everyone was really excited about it and I had an extra G&T (or two), we all got carried away. It was never announced publicly other than that but it seems a lot of people saw the video so it's worth clarifying what happened.

I'm a coder and not a PR person, so I'm sorry if communication on this issue wasn't as clear as it could be. Honestly it was a little embarassing that it didn't quite work out as originally planned, which is why a big deal was never made of the speech at the 100k party or the follow up events. That said, it has been discussed at several WordPress meetups and I hope the people inside the community had a better of idea of what was going on. Any commercial stuff will be separate and not "own" wordpress.org.

Work is underway to setup a non-profit foundation for the parts of WordPress that I "own" (like wordpress.org, the domain name, etc), but this takes time and a lot of paperwork. There's nothing to announce there yet.

This was written because this blog entry pointed out that some people were confused about what was going on. I do my best to let people know what is going on with WordPress, but this seems to still have confusion around the issue. I hope this and the questions below will help clear this up. Feel free to edit things below, but to keep it clear who's talking sign your comments.

Someone edited the above for clarity already, but changed it to say some things I didn't quite want to say. I edited it to bring it back closer to what I'm trying to say, but this is a living document still. matt 06:10, 26 Sep 2005 (GMT)

Questions?

If you put four tildes after the question it will sign it with your name, I'll do the same for questions I answer.

So is WordPress doing anything commercial? 

If and when we do announce a commercial enterprise, it'll be something different and new. Be aware that we will make a big deal out of it, throw a giant web 2.0 dot com party, and promptly spend any money we have on Aeron chairs. But first we need t-shirts. I will announce it with a big title on my blog. Until then, stay tuned. matt 05:44, 26 Sep 2005 (GMT)

Where will the money for wordpress.com (subscriptions and other $$$), once they're available, will be going? 

There is no money coming in on WordPress.com right now. We don't charge users or show advertisements. If it started raining bennies tomorrow it would go to the people who have been working their butts off on the project: Donncha, Ryan, Andy, and Matt. matt 05:41, 26 Sep 2005 (GMT)

Who is paying for all the WordPress.com hardware? 

So far the costs have been covered by me (Matt), Dell, and everything is being managed and set up by Textdrive. matt 05:41, 26 Sep 2005 (GMT)

If WordPress.org and WordPressMU aren't money makers, where is the money coming from? 

Money is currently coming from donations.

Are there any employees? 

Currently, Donncha is paid a small fee to work full-time on WordPressMU, developing software, testing, and support for WordPressMU and helping with the development of WordPress 1.6. Matt is currently not paid by WordPress. All the rest are member volunteers who work on the WordPress Support Forum, WordPress Development, WordPress Codex, and WordPress Testers efforts to keep WordPress going. Matt hopes to "spread the wealth - little that there is" as soon as there is any to spread.

What products and services does WordPress offer? 

WordPress is available as a blogging tool in a full version format for bloggers and WordPressMU (Multi-user) for hosts. Both products are free.

What are people saying about WordPress? 

You can find information about WordPress in the Technical Articles page on the WordPress Codex. These include sites dedicated to providing news and information on WordPress, reviews, editorials, and references.

On Greg Storey's entry, you say "there is no company called WordPress Inc." But in this IRC chat from last month, you say that Wordpress is incorporated as a C-Corporation. Is Wordpress incorporated? User:Waxpancake 

Nope, right now everything just belongs to me (Matt) and it's not clear what exactly what happens to it if something happens to me, which is the impetus behind the foundation. There has been talk and work on something else commercial, but it's not WordPress Inc. and (for reasons that should be obvious now!) we don't want to "announce" anything prematurely. matt 23:55, 26 Sep 2005 (GMT)

So are there any new developments to add, Matt? It's been about two years since this information has been updated.  ;) Dave J. (Scoop0901) 15

44, 11 Sep 2007 (UTC)

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