Wait a second, W3C – an organisation that employs people and generates revenue that can pay them a salary of sorts, that has money enough to pay an external agency to build a new platform for their website – is essentially coming under fire here for choosing a proprietary solution.

Open Source is great and contributions by a wide range of developers is an incredible asset, but you’re missing how many of those developers do it for nothing, no financial reward, not even some recognition.

Automattic haven’t really stepped up on that front, despite making millions out of WordPress.

The W3C are free to use whatever tool is fit for purpose. If their financial commitment to a particular platform improves its longevity and betterment, then so be it.

WordPress is not geared up for that kind of investment and would need to change how it rewards contributors massively in order to shift this discussion.

Yes the tool can change and the license may go some way to enabling that, but to see the proprietary tools that have been around for much less time being so well polished by much smaller teams really destroys the argument in my opinion.

WordPress desperately needs some new blood in terms of its technical oversight so that it can continue to be a serious contender as many companies are starting to see that ‘free’ is actually turning out to be quite expensive.