First off, I want to offer my sincere apologies to the WordPress Foundation. In a previous article, I incorrectly labeled the foundation as harming WordCamps. My main gripe was with the fact that some WordCamp organizers were being denied the ability to have high sponsorship caps and thus, it sometimes adversely affected the event either in terms of it’s size or type of venue they could hold the event in. As time has gone by, I’ve learned that the biggest mistake I made was contributing the organizing and running of WordCamps to the WordPress Foundation which is incorrect. WordCamp Central is the group responsible for all things WordCamp related while the WordPress Foundation oversees the use of the WordPress and WordCamp trademarks. Unfortunately in the original discussion, WordCamp Central and the WordPress Foundation were used interchangeably which muddied the conversation.
Perhaps I should have known better, but even though I’ve been apart of the WordPress community for two years, the project has grown far beyond just being publishing software. There is the foundation, WordCamp Central, Automattic, WordPress.com, various Automattic owned services, Audrey.co, etc. It’s hard to place blame or hold anyone accountable when you have no idea who that person is or what project or group they belong to. It’s frustrating for me but I wonder if many people simply don’t care, just as long as WordPress remains awesome, easy to use publishing software? I’ve often felt that there should be some sort of WordPress White Pages so that the public can know who is responsible for what within the WordPress project. But since so many individuals mingle with various parts, that project would soon be a waste of time.
P.S. There is hope for things to change for the better.
I’m incredibly surprised to hear that Matt is only hearing about this and other WPC issues now, given that they were raised in 2010 after Jane gave her now infamous rant at the end of WordCampUK.
Given that an organisation with Mike Little (WordPress co-founder), Peter Westwood (WordPress Core Developer who works for Automattic) and Paul Gibbs (Buddypress core developer) on its 6 person committee has had SO many problems in the last 18 months with WPC the they actually LEFT the draconian and NorthAmerican centric rules of the WPC this year… I think it shows something else is wrong if this is the first Matt has heard of it.