238 - '0' is for Open Source

‘A-Z of WordPress’ with Nathan Wrigley and David Waumsley

Hello, It’s another A-Z of WordPress. The series where we attempt to cover all the major aspects of building and maintaining sites with WP. Today is for O for Open Source.

Preamble

This one could be more like our debate series. Let set this up:

Matt Mullenweg via the “State of the Word” often reminds us that Open Source is the main benefit of WordPress (General Public License – GPL – in this case). Indeed! We all own the WordPress software and any theme or plugin derivatives of it this does not automatically include design elements.

Defending Open Source is often a reason for certain actions – most notably the Gutenberg Project to defend against the mega budgets (greed!!!) of capitalists such as Wix, Squarespace and Shopify.

Although, not an easy position for Matt as the someone who owns WordPress.com, much of the WooCommerce premium extension market, and other proprietary software via Automattic (which in turn answers to venture capitalists).

Even though the software is not owned, we have seen an increase in the acquisition of premium themes and plugins. Nathan’s tweet / FB post on this set off some debate, but perhaps only a few brought GPL into the equation.

Where WordPress and Open Source is now is a worry to me (David), but I’m sure we can sort it all out in a definitive chat here!!!

Q1. What are companies actually acquiring within Open Source?

• Customers
• Developer skills
• Reputation
• Something missing in their tool set

Q2. Is Open Source as good as it sounds?

• Is it really ever free?
• Is being free the thing that makes WordPress a success?
• Is it the sense of control, ownership and maybe a sense of challenge too?
• Who’s responsible when it goes wrong?
• Does it really protect our commercial interest?
• Paul mentions the valuation of companies like Wix (less 2% market share) compared to WordPress (nearly 42%).

Q3. Is Open Source a bit messy / silly?

• Messy with multiple vendors (conflicts, multiple payments, advertising in the dashboard)
• Concerns of one commercial body controlling an open source project (look at how the changes to WooCommerce creates a dependency on extensions mostly owned by the company)
• WordPress has different rules for themes and plugins when it comes to using the repository for promoting premium

Final thoughts

David:
Using open source only in my business has always been key. I don’t want to effectively be a reseller of someone else’s product in the process of selling my services and skills. But perhaps I have that all wrong.

Nathan:
I love the idea of Open Source and I always have. Sure it comes with some odd mental hurdles that you’ve got to accommodate in a (mostly) capitalist world, but there is something about being a part of this movement that feels very empowering.