mullenweg and open source, what does it really mean
Open source and nourishment
The idea of open source is ultimately based on the greece phone number principle that the community that must work in open source must be supported . Supported with time, supported with money, supported with commitment. The more we are, the better we are and the further we can go.
It is clear that the nourishment of something that does not immediately generate profit for someone can be difficult to digest. But some things are done for something that does not fit into the wallet.
Open source and parasites
Mullenweg's long post opens with a talk about the recent WordCamp US in Portland and then goes on to talk about something he recently discovered: Meta's AI model , Llama, is free and open source unless you reach 700 million active users for the products and services built on the model. But Llama is open source.
Or so says Meta. Mullenweg disagrees, however, and this is where his reflection on the true validity of an open source model comes from. A model that apparently can be used for marketing purposes by those he calls parasites below .
In particular, Mullenweg refers to the so-called WordPress parasites, that is, those companies that participate but very often do so only for their own profit. A bit like those who claim to be friends of the environment to convince others to buy their products and then are the first to pollute.
Hence the request that Mullenweg makes to everyone to “ vote with your wallet ”. Therefore, to choose the companies that, in addition to declaring that they participate in the development of WordPress, actually do so. It is not difficult, for example, to check in the Five For The Future section how much the companies that declare that they contribute to the development of WordPress actually do so.
Wanting to broaden the discussion just a little beyond WordPress as a platform for building websites, it would be important to vote with your wallet and choose based on your own values and not on fine words and commercials.