Wordpress And Automattic: A Sinister Pair
Following the recent announcement of a Support Network from the commercial arm of Wordpress, Automattic, I’ve decide to co-brand the two companies:
On the face of things, for the Wordpress developers to sell tiered support for their free open source product sounds like a great idea. For a mere $5,000 a year you get priority access to the Wordpress developers for support with performance issues, plugins, and spam. There are private forums for your questions, a six hour SLA for questions, all kinds of other cushy support services.
However, there are a few problems.
Support for non-Automattic members
With paid support now occupying developers’ time, what will happen to the existing support forums? It’s unreasonable to assume that when Wordpress developers are busy answer paid questions that they will continue to share time with the free public forums. And, few bloggers have the money to spend on a $5,000 subscription to paid support. The average individual will expect Wordpress to work perfectly for them out of the box; when that doesn’t happen they shouldn’t be forking out money, the developers should be fixing bugs.
A Focus on Wordpress development
With their time tied up helping new paying customers on the Automattic platform install and configure Wordpress, how much new development will go on? It’s obviously true that Wordpress is by no means a “finished” project. Only continued evolution will propel it above new platforms like Typo.
The Bugs Clause
What bothers me most about the paid support is their bug fix clause:
If the problem you are reporting is caused by a bug in the WordPress software, we will assign a priority level to it which determines how soon the bug will be fixed. Level A = the bug causes the software to completely break: we will start fixing it within 24 hours and will get you a custom fix to the problem ASAP. Level B = the bug degrades the performance of the software but a work-around exists: we will fix the bug in the next scheduled release of the software. Level C = the bug has a minor impact on the software: we may fix the bug in the next release.
In other words, subscribers to the Wordpress Support Network are acting as expensive beta testers. Unlike a commercial software company which attemps to ship a bug-free product, Wordpress releases typically contain numerous bugs which are only later fixed. And, by joining the Support Network, you are facilitating a ship-now patch-later software development model which prioritizes the company’s pockets over end users.
Other Opinions
- This move is truly a win-win-win
- Maybe I’m fretting for naught
- WordPress is the platform of choice for enterprise blogging
- The response has been great so far
- Enterprise Grade Support for WordPress
- How do you make money by giving away free software?
That said, I still love you, Matt & Wordpress!
This entry was posted on Monday, June 26th, 2006 at 9:07 pm and is tagged with open source product, free public forums, priority level, problem asap, commercial arm, free open source, finished project, performance issues, private forums, sla, wordpress, bloggers, support forums, bugs, platforms, developers, evolution, money. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback.
on June 26th, 2006 at 9:35 pm
They’ll continue just like they always have. The only person who contributes significantly to both is Podz, and he has had no trouble maintaining his participation in the forums while working nearly full-time for Automattic. We also provide email support to all 230,000+ users of WordPress.com, which has not impacted development.
No it’s not. See Podz again.
Of course they don’t, and you’ll see from every blog about the Support Network that the target audience isn’t bloggers, it’s BigCos. I think the WordPress support forums are some of the best in the world.
Who said bugs would stop being fixed?
Once again, this has not and will not change core WordPress development. This is also not Automattic’s core business model.
I wouldn’t read too much into that, it’s standard support contract legalese. I believe the intent is to keep people think they are buying influence into core WP, which they aren’t, while still covering issues they may encounter. MU might have a few Level A bugs still, but I would be highly surprised if one was found in stable WP.
Actually WordPress.com is our beta testing farm.
I’m sorry all the code in WordPress isn’t 100% bug-free. I would be surprised if you found a “commercial software company” which produces better blogging software though. (Or anybody that produces bug-free software, from Google to Microsoft to Fog Creek.)
No you’re not.
on June 26th, 2006 at 10:19 pm
[…] Web 2.0 lookout posts such as Mashable and TechCrunch have already had their rather positive say. Not everyone has been as positive; see, for example, this account of WP and Automattic as a sinister pair. […]
on June 26th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
If paying customers discover bugs in WP, as they do in all software, then they will provide pressure for the bugs to be fixed. If the bugs are fixed, and the fixes rolled into WP, that helps all users. That’s the sunny side of this street.
on June 26th, 2006 at 11:13 pm
Your first and second points are contradictory.
on June 27th, 2006 at 4:11 am
[…] Toni announced yesterday the launch of the Automattic Support Network. This has of course attracted the attention of many blogs who have discussed the business implications but Peter wonders if WordPress.org support will suffer. Here’s another post on the same issue but Matt replies with an excellent rebuttal. […]
on June 27th, 2006 at 6:52 am
[…] Donncha has a response (he even refers to my early post, but calls me “Peter” for some reason. I’m chris! Or Handy.). Another writer has a much more negative take on things, but Matt has the first comment there. Worth a read. […]
on June 27th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
Unlike a commercial software company which attemps to ship a bug-free product, Wordpress releases typically contain numerous bugs which are only later fixed.
Uhm.. You obviously don’t work on large scale software products. Everyone ships knowing bugs will and do exist in the software. Software companies release after picking a certain level of quality at a certain level of stability.
digg.com/software/Why_software_companies_sell_code_with_bugs
Which group are you in?