WordPress Foundation Launches Website

[Ryan]

Finally, generally speaking, public non-profit groups don't have to file anything at all unless they pull in more than $5000 a year.

Ah, that explains it then :)

[Ryan]

Matt will be in charge forever and they won't control anything. At least that what I understood from his response.

Yep, seems that way.

Direction ais being driven by me, and will be probably until I get old and/or senile.

I wonder if that will tick quite a few people off though? It doesn't bother me in the slightest as it's always worked that way anyway, but I'd have thought others would not be so happy with a dictatorship arrangement.

[andreasnrb]

Well think of the combination wordpress, core plugins and the foundation. The foundation is already showing of bbPress something that is considered a core plugin. Although it does not state yet it supports it in so many words.
Core plugins is one thing but then combining them possibly with the backing of a charity foundation?
We really need more openness from the leadership about these things.
Their claim that core plugins was discussed openly were obviously false as can be seen by my little research concerning core plugin history.

[andrea_r]

Um, you know there was a lot of people here in this forum wondering why the wordpress foundation didn't appear to be set up yet?

well know you know they are really working on it. :)

Yes, give it some time.

[chipbennett]

Um, you know there was a lot of people here in this forum wondering why the wordpress foundation didn't appear to be set up yet?

well know you know they are really working on it. :)

Yes, give it some time.

I agree.

I'm withholding any questions or judgment until more information comes out. No reason not to be patient until then. :)

[Len]

Nothing wrong with asking questions but like Chip I too will wait. It's way too early in the game.

[Brad]

Ian does great work but personally I was hoping the Twenty Ten theme was kept extremely simple showing best use of WP template tags and sample uses of various page templates, etc.

I was hoping for lean and mean with heavy commenting and good documentation. Who's with me?

[Ryan]

I was hoping for lean and mean with heavy commenting and good documentation. Who's with me?

I am. I think Kirby would be a very poor choice as a default theme. It's way too complex IMO.

I assume that's not what Matt and co. have in mind though.

[davecoveney]

Hang on right, so this foundation is actually just something that Matt runs and is, in his words "lazer focussed" on some, erm, stuff.

It's not a governance based foundation, but a contributions based one.

Now, the cynic in me feels that this is a tax avoidance proposition for Automattic, rather than one that is advantageous to us all. Automattic contribute a lot to WordPress. If those contributions become fully tax deductible then bravo, they've just made the shareholders richer.

But I don't feel, so far, that this is something for us all to contribute to with equal measure. It does have the feel of dictatorship. We can donate to it here from the UK but whether or not it's deductible is a different question and one I'd have to clear with the accountant. But what would that donation buy us? A vote, recognised in the foudation's constitution? If not then this is simply something being run to Matt and Automattic's benefit, rather than something that is for all of us. For sure, we all benefit as WordPress improves, but its guidance and strategy could be directed towards what benefits WordPress.com rather than the self-install and developer community - because after all, it's WordPress.com that is the cash cow in the WP world right now.

Matt is an affable and very nice guy to have a beer with. But that doesn't put him and his motives beyond question - he needs to be very very clear about what he says and does with this foundation. I think he's also got to learn to be less open about ideas and plans prior to them being full formed, unless he can learn to form these things with very open and well publicised community discussions.

[matt]

Wasn't the point of a foundation to sort out a system whereby we could all play a part in the organisation of it?

Nope, that was never talked about as a goal since the Foundation was first discussed 3 years ago. I'm not interested in creating a new bureaucracy to slow down WP or replacing the leadership and development structures already in place (and working very well) on WordPress.org. It's not that committees always suck, just that they usually do, and I've never seen a committee create world-class user-facing software.

The Foundation has a plan for 2010, which is stated on the site, and that's to work on creating education material and opportunities for WP and related software, supporting other charities in related areas like literacy, Jane's passion girl in tech, and of course providing a backstop to continue all of our projects if something tragic were to happen to me.

If you want to influence WordPress, then get involved places other than WP Tavern like Trac. You don't need to "buy us? A vote, recognised in the foudation's constitution?" In fact I'd be highly skeptical of a system where you could buy votes.

the cynic in me feels that this is a tax avoidance proposition for Automattic

In the US we call that illegal, and you go to jail or pay huge fines. Come on.