I’ve talked to so many people on non-WordPress events and people are surprised that WordPress is free. WordPress is mainstream, so everyone is being told to “Use WordPress”, but there is a huge confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org.

At this point, I feel that Automattic is intentionally abusing this. It’s not that much about the duplication of the repo and giving exposure to plugins – it’s more about the dishonest and misleading tactics which David McCan also pointed out here. They have changed to context around the plugins from “it’s free, open-source, download” to “you can get this with WordPress business plan”.

I really don’t think WordPress.com cloned the WordPress.org repo just to give more exposure to all of the plugins. They did this to show the value of their Business subscription, where they charge users for installing free plugins. They essentially cloned repo pages to market all of the plugins as the features/benefit of their Business plan (without any mention or link back to WP.org that these plugins can actually be downloaded/used without any paid subscription).

I’m sure they are aware of the public confusion between WordPress.com and WordPress.org, and they see business opportunity in this, rather than a problem (which undermines WordPress.org and the rest of the WordPress community).