Open source sponsorship buys a different thing in every project. At the PHP Foundation, the top tier comes with a board seat. At OpenJS, members elect directors by class. In WordPress, money moves through several channels, and no public page ties any of them to a vote. This post maps what each payment returns.
Key takeaways
- The big picture: open source sponsorship returns a board seat at the PHP Foundation’s top tier, a class vote at OpenJS and benefits only in Drupal and WordPress.
- Why it matters: in WordPress, money can go to five places, and no page read for this post ties any of them to a vote.
- Yes, but: the public record doesn’t show whether a host can pay to be listed. It holds a 2021 statement that nobody can, a sworn account of confidential partnerships, and a denied allegation with the company redacted.
- What to do: open one tier page and find the sentence that says what comes back.
💸 Why pay? The open source sponsorship question
You’ve been in this meeting. A budget line says “open source,” and someone senior asks what the company gets for it. Then the room looks at you. (The room always looks at you.)
Disclosure: I worked at GoDaddy until July 2026. The full list of my relationships sits at the end of this post.
For years, I sat in that meeting. At GoDaddy, I was asked which foundations and projects I’d fund. I named the obvious ones. However, the honest answer changed with every project. One payment came with a vote for a director. Another came with a logo. A third paid for strangers to attend a standards meeting.
Open source sponsorship looks like one budget line. In practice, it behaves like several. So this post answers the budget question the slow way. It follows 1.6, Why pay for free software? Who decides the open source stack under WordPress? That post asked who decides each layer. This one asks what a payment returns, project by project. Also, WordPress gets the same columns as everyone else.
🗺️ What open source sponsorship returns, project by project
Here’s open source sponsorship as a table, sorted A to Z. WordPress is one row. Each row names what you pay for and what comes back.
| Organization | You pay for | What comes back | Does it include a say? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drupal Association | Ripple Makers membership, from free to $50 or more a month | Recognition, newsletters and webinars at paid levels | The free level carries the voting rights1 |
| MariaDB Foundation | Sponsorship, EUR 5,000 to EUR 500,000 a year | An observer at board meetings, or entries in the board selection pool | No guaranteed seat2 |
| OpenJS Foundation | Membership at Platinum, Gold or Silver | Platinum members appoint directors; Gold and Silver members elect theirs | Yes, by class3 |
| PHP Foundation | Sponsorship at Silver, Gold or Platinum | An Advisory Board seat, and up to three board seats at Platinum | At Platinum only4 |
| TYPO3 Association | Membership | One vote at the General Assembly | Yes, the same for every member5 |
| W3C | Member dues, set by size and revenue | One vote per Member, whatever the fee | Yes, the same for every Member6 |
| WordPress | Donations, event sponsorship, hosted services | A name on a list, event benefits, a thank you | None stated on the pages I read |
I haven’t read sponsor pages for Backdrop, Ghost, Joomla, MySQL or the WHATWG yet. So they aren’t in the table. Unknown isn’t the same as absent.
Text description of the comic strip
What the seat, advice or thanks strip shows
- Subject: A fictional comic strip in three numbered panels. It’s set in a food pantry’s meeting room.
- Panel 1: First, a partnerships lead stands beside an empty chair at the board table. A paper tag on the chair reads “Seat.”
- Panel 2: Next, a plugin founder sits in a side row under a sign that reads “Advice.” She holds a mug, and a puzzle piece box rests on the next chair.
- Panel 3: Finally, a developer who uses a manual wheelchair faces a wall of blank name plaques. The sign above reads “Thanks.”
- Relationships: In other words, the three panels show three things a sponsor can get back. They match the three sections that follow.
- Not shown: any project, company or sponsor name. The plaques stay blank.
🪑 Sponsor tiers that come with a seat or a class vote
Some open source sponsorship comes with a formal say. Here are three examples.
- PHP Foundation. Its governance page sets a board of 5 to 10 people. It also grants up to three of those seats to qualified Platinum sponsors.7 Meanwhile, the home page lists four Platinum sponsors today.8
- OpenJS Foundation. Each Platinum member appoints a director. Gold and Silver members, in contrast, elect directors as a class.9
- MariaDB Foundation. Platinum buys one entry in the board selection pool, and Diamond buys two. However, the sponsor page says sponsorship doesn’t guarantee control over technical decisions.10
🎧 Advisory access and observer seats
Other open source sponsorship buys a voice, not a vote.
- PHP Foundation. Sponsors at Silver and above sit on an Advisory Board. Its members “do not hold decision-making authority.”11 Still, when the board declines a formal recommendation, it owes a written reason within 30 days.
- MariaDB Foundation. Gold sponsors get an observer at board meetings.12
- W3C. Each Member gets one vote, whatever fee it pays.13 In other words, a bigger invoice doesn’t buy a bigger vote.
🎟️ Sponsorship that returns benefits only
The third kind of open source sponsorship returns benefits only.
- Drupal Association. The free membership level carries the voting rights. Paid Ripple Makers levels, on the other hand, add recognition, newsletters and webinars.14
- TYPO3 Association. Every member has one vote at the General Assembly, under Article 15.15 Higher levels don’t add votes.
- WordPress. It has five channels and no vote. That row gets its own section below.
Here’s how that looked from my old desk. The PHP Foundation lists GoDaddy.com as a Gold sponsor today.16 Gold isn’t Platinum, so no board seat came with it. Meanwhile, OpenJS lists GoDaddy as a Silver member, which carries a class vote.17 W3C also names GoDaddy among the sponsors of its 2025 TPAC Inclusion Fund. That fund helped 26 people attend.18 It bought no say at all, and it was never supposed to. So that’s three kinds of open source sponsorship from one company. I read all three listings on November 10, 2026. However, they don’t say when a sponsorship began.
🧭 Beyond money: users, paid contributors and leaders
Open source sponsorship is one way to ask where a project sits. Here are three more, each in a line or two.
- Paid contributors. MariaDB’s governance repository lists ten Stewards and maintainers. Nine of them give MariaDB plc as an affiliation.20 Meanwhile, the PHP Foundation says its contractors wrote about 42 percent of 2025 commits to PHP core.21 A share of the work isn’t a share of the votes, though. Season 2 comes back to that.
- WordPress leaders. The Core Handbook says the project is “led by co-founder and lead developer Matt Mullenweg.”22 However, the same page gives five lead developers the final word on technical decisions.
- Drupal’s Project Lead. Its core governance page says the Project Lead, Dries Buytaert, sets direction and breaks ties. Meanwhile, core committers decide by consensus.23
- MySQL. Oracle nominates the first committers and project leads. It also keeps authority over licensing and trademarks.24
🧾 Where sponsorship money goes in WordPress
Disclosure: I work at Pantheon, a WordPress and Drupal host. Pantheon competes with every host named below.
WordPress has no single page for open source sponsorship. Instead, money can go to five places, and each one answers to a different body. So I’ll ask the same questions of each.
Text description of the illustration
What the sponsorship jars illustration shows
- Subject: A fictional sketch of a folding table in a food pantry’s front hall.
- On the table: Five glass jars stand in a row. Their tape labels read “Foundation,” “Events,” “Tools,” “Security” and “Listing.” Also, a blank paper tag hangs from each jar.
- The card: Behind the jars, a hand lettered card asks, “What comes back?”
- People: At the left, a maintainer from another project holds a tabbed proposal and rests a hand on the table. Meanwhile, at the right, a program lead holds a tablet that shows a bar chart. She is visibly pregnant.
- Relationships: In short, each jar is one place the money can go. The blank tags stand for the answers this section fills in.
- Not shown: amounts, and any project or company name. However, the jars hold colored tokens, and that detail carries no meaning.
🎁 Donating to the WordPress Foundation
- What you pay for: education programs, trademark protection and free access to the software.25
- What comes back: your name on the Donors page, if you pick an annual plan. Plans run from $10 to $5,000 or more a year.26 The donate page mentions no seat and no vote.
- Who decides the spend: three directors. The Foundation’s 2024 tax return lists no members, so nobody outside the board elects them.27
- How big it is: $93,131 in revenue for 2025. Of that, $47,131 was general donations.28
- Where it went in 2024: $100,000 of $121,957 in expenses went to the Internet Archive. That year, do_action events got $1,066.29
- The stated reason: the Foundation’s post says it has long supported the Archive’s work to preserve the web. The board’s vote was unanimous.30
- What the donate page tells you: it names education programs, the trademark and free access.31 However, it doesn’t mention the Internet Archive or gifts to other nonprofits.
🎪 Sponsoring events: the Global Partner Program
- What you pay for: WordCamps and meetups. The 2026 tiers cost $180,000, $110,000 and $60,000.32
- What comes back: sponsor tables at local WordCamps, a landing page, event tickets and recognition posts. However, no tier lists a vote, a seat or a role in decisions.
- Who holds the money: WordPress Community Support PBC, the Foundation’s subsidiary. In 2025 it took in $3,794,359 in sponsorship, about 89 percent of its operating revenue.33
- Who approves a sponsor: the project lead and the Executive Director, for every WordCamp sponsorship since late November 2024.34
The stated reason comes first. The Community Team’s post says the review enforces trademark and GPL compliance. It also says sponsors were asked to stop using terms like “WordPress Hosting.”
Disclosure: that rule about hosting terms touches the business my current and former employers are both in.
🧰 Sponsoring infrastructure
Five for the Future, in contrast, asks for people’s time, not money. Its FAQ calls 5 percent an “aspirational guideline.”36 So it isn’t one of the five money channels.
📮 Open source funding proposals inside WordPress
Contributors have proposed changes on the money side too.
- 2018. A proposal described a public pledge list for companies that pay contributors.37 A pledge list now runs on WordPress.org.38
- 2024. A proposal recommended sponsorships tied to one task, project or release.39
- 2024. WordPress Community Support reported $665,000 in 2023 global sponsorship and a loss of about $148,718.40
- 2026. A proposal asks for a $30,000 education sponsor fund with two published selection criteria. Every sponsor would get the same recognition.41
Neither the 2024 nor the 2026 proposal records a decision on its own page.
🔐 Open Collective and the security fund
Here’s my view. I’d like every Foundation dollar on that public page. I’d also like the donate page to say gifts can go to other nonprofits. The Internet Archive is a good cause. Even so, a donor can’t learn that from the donate page.
The fifth channel is the hosting page, and it needs a section of its own.
🏷️ Does paying for the trademark get a host on the hosting page?
This is the open source sponsorship question people at hosts ask me most. The public record doesn’t settle it.
Disclosure: my own words appear in court exhibits in WPEngine v. Automattic, the case this section quotes.
First, one caution. My research collected consequential decisions, so it finds one decider partly by construction.
📄 What the hosting page says about itself
- Who’s listed: Pressable, Bluehost and Hostinger, as read on November 10, 2026.45
- How hosts are chosen: the page calls its own listing “completely arbitrary.” Still, it names factors, among them contributions to WordPress.org and current system software.
- Where the money goes: the page says some hosts donate part of your fee to support WordPress.org.
- Who decides: a Meta ticket once asked to remove or rework the page. It was closed, and the closing note put the listing at the project lead’s discretion.46
The page doesn’t say who receives that donated money, or how much it is.
🧮 What contributors proposed: a matrix, Project Bedrock and a rubric
Contributors have drafted written criteria for this page since 2019.
- 2019, the Requirement Matrix. A working draft says the criteria should filter hosts and “should not result in a rank.”47
- 2020, a rubric. A chat recap says the project lead was “+1.” Next, people who don’t work for hosts would evaluate hosts, then recheck yearly.48
- By 2023, Project Bedrock. Javier Casares proposes a directory that any host can join by meeting minimum requirements. A review team would check each entry.49
- 2023, the Hosting Application Rubric. It scores hosts from 0 to 10 on contributions, company criteria and values. Trademark adherence is one criterion.50
- 2024, a directory proposal. Hosts would publish their own data for volunteers to review.51
Text description of the illustration
What the drafts drawer illustration shows
- Subject: A fictional field journal page about a food pantry’s back office.
- The drawer: An open wooden file drawer holds five folders. From front to back, their tabs read 2019, 2020, 2023, 2023 and 2024.
- The tray: Beside the drawer, an empty wire tray carries the label “Decided.” Also, a rubber stamp rests unused on its pad.
- The note: A handwritten note with an arrow to the tray reads “no decision found.”
- People: At the left, a volunteer contributor with gray locs and a hearing aid rests a hand on a folder. Meanwhile, a sponsored contributor holds a sheet of empty check boxes.
- Relationships: In other words, each folder is one dated draft from the list above. The empty tray stands for the missing record, not for a refusal.
- Not shown: the drafts’ names or their authors.
Disclosure: I drafted the 2023 rubric. A Make post credits me by name.52 I worked at GoDaddy then.
That post also gives the project lead’s aim: hosts that “most align with our values and contribute the most back.”
The matrix and Project Bedrock also draft a disclaimer: WordPress accepts no payment for a listing. That’s a proposed line, though, not a report on practice.
🗓️ What has been said about payment, 2005 to 2026
Here are the statements in date order. I’ve left out a 2016 comment and a 2014 interview that I couldn’t verify.
- 2005. The page told visitors that some hosts would donate part of the fee back.54
- 2021. The project lead wrote, “No one can pay to be on the page.”55 The stated reason for one decider came with it. The page drives so much business that a larger group would raise the risk of bribery or conflict. In the same report, the Executive Director at the time said she knew of nobody who had paid.
- 2025. In a sworn declaration, the project lead said companies seek endorsement on WordPress.org for their hosting. When a deal succeeds, a partnership follows, and its terms stay confidential.56 A sworn statement is an account, not a finding.
- 2026. WP Engine’s complaint alleges that an internal document says money sent from the hosting page went directly to the project lead.57 However, the company’s name and the amount are redacted. The defendants deny the complaint’s characterizations, and no court has ruled on this allegation.58
⚖️ What the record shows, and what it doesn’t
Here’s what points each way.
Toward yes:
- The declaration ties the redacted material to a company seeking endorsement on WordPress.org.
- The complaint describes a payment line about the hosting page.
Toward no, or not shown:
- No public document shows that a listed host paid for its listing.
- The 2021 statement says nobody can pay.
- Nothing in the sworn wording says whether “endorsed” means the hosting page.
- The allegation comes from the other side of a lawsuit, and the company is sealed.
In short, the record supports the question and stops there. I don’t know the answer. Neither does anyone else who reads only public pages.
📋 Who appears on which public list
You can check one thing yourself: which names repeat across public lists. This is a matching table, not a cause.
| Organization | Hosting page59 | Foundation Donors page60 | 2026 Global Partner61 | Named as compliant in the trademark policy, November 2024 to February 202562 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Automattic | Not by that name | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bluehost | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| GoDaddy | No | No | No | Yes |
| Hostinger | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| InMotion Hosting | No | Yes | No | No |
| Pressable | Yes | Yes | Not by that name | No |
Two rows cut against a simple reading. First, GoDaddy was named as compliant and appears on none of the other three lists. Second, InMotion Hosting donates and isn’t a listed host. Also, the Donors page shows current annual plans and 97 anonymous donors. So it can’t tell you who gave in earlier years.
🔀 WooCommerce has one owner. WordPress splits the pieces
Open source sponsorship gets tangled with trademarks here, because two projects with two structures sit close together. So here they are side by side.
🛒 Who holds what in WooCommerce
- Name: Woo’s guidelines say “Automattic Inc. owns and oversees the Woo trademark.”63
- Code: WooCommerce is open source, and anyone can fork it. However, the same guidelines say open source licenses cover copyright only, not the marks.
- Security reports: they go to Automattic’s bug bounty program, according to the repository README.64
- Who decides: the README names no governance document.65
In other words, WooCommerce is one company’s open source product. The same owner holds the name and receives the security reports.
📝 Who holds what in WordPress
- Code: contributors hold the copyright. The license file reads “Copyright 2011-2026 by the contributors.”66
- Name: the WordPress Foundation holds the marks. Automattic gave them to the Foundation in a 2010 agreement.67
- Commercial license: that agreement licensed the marks back to Automattic for hosting on WordPress.com. The license is exclusive, perpetual and royalty free.
- Fallback: if a court ever voids that license, the agreement treats the donation as if it never happened.
So WordPress splits what WooCommerce keeps together. Different holders have the code, the name, the commercial license and the website.
Text description of the diagram
What the key board diagram shows
- Subject: A diagram of two key boards, side by side. It’s a fictional picture of who holds each piece of two projects.
- Left board: First, the heading reads “One owner.” A hook labeled “one company” holds one ring with two keys, “Name” and “Security reports.” Next, a “Code” key hangs under “open source,” with the note “anyone can fork.” Then a dashed, empty key hangs under “who decides?” and its tag reads “Unknown.”
- Right board: Meanwhile, the heading reads “Four holders.” Four hooks hold one key each. “Contributors” hold “Code,” and “a foundation” holds “Name.” Also, “one company” holds “Commercial use,” and “one person” holds “Website.”
- Relationships: The plate above each hook names the holder. The tag below each key names the piece. In addition, a stamp under the website key reads “Account,” because that line rests on a sworn statement.
- Not shown: any project or company name, and the fallback clause in the 2010 agreement.
📑 One offer, two sets of marks: what the court has ruled so far
Then WP Engine sued and called the demand extortion. Here’s where the rulings stand, in pairs.
| Order | Went toward Automattic | Went toward WP Engine |
|---|---|---|
| Dkt. 169, September 12, 202570 | Attempted extortion claim dismissed: the statute gives no private right to sue. Computer fraud extortion claim dismissed, with leave to amend | Interference and unfair competition claims survive |
| Dkt. 410, September 24, 202671 | Computer fraud extortion claim dismissed for good | Antitrust counts 11 to 14 survive. Trademark counterclaims dismissed as Automattic and its chief executive brought them in their own right |
A pleading stage ruling tests whether a complaint states a claim. It isn’t a finding of fact. Also, the second order treats Automattic and its chief executive as neither owners nor registrants of the marks. Meanwhile, the Foundation’s and WooCommerce’s counterclaims continue. Trial is set for October 19, 2027.72
One limit matters here. The bundled offer is documented for one host. For other hosts, I found no public record of a similar demand. Again, unknown isn’t the same as absent.
❓ Questions to ask before any open source sponsorship
Ask these before any open source sponsorship, in any project:
- Return. What does this tier return: a seat, a class vote, a listing or a thank you?
- Budget. Who approves the budget this money enters, and who elects them?
- Refusal. Can the project refuse your money, and who decides that?
- Name. Who holds the name you’d be paying to use?
- Criteria. If there’s a list, are its criteria written down?
Your next step takes ten minutes. Open one tier page and find the sentence that says what comes back. For example, start with any of these:
- Governance of the PHP Foundation
- MariaDB Foundation sponsor page
- Drupal Association membership
- WordPress Foundation donate page
- 2026 Global Partner Program announcement
If the sentence isn’t there, that’s an answer too.
📋 Quick answers about open source sponsorship
What does a Platinum sponsorship return at the PHP Foundation?
A seat on the foundation’s board. Lower tiers, such as Gold, don’t come with one.
What does a donation to the WordPress Foundation return?
Your name on the Donors page, if you pick an annual plan. The donate page mentions no seat and no vote.
Can a host pay to be on the WordPress.org hosting page?
The public record doesn’t settle it. In 2021 the project lead wrote that no one can pay. A sworn 2025 declaration describes confidential partnerships, and a 2026 complaint makes an allegation the defendants deny.
Did contributors propose public criteria for the hosting page?
Yes. This post lists five public entries from 2019 to 2024, including one I drafted. No Make post I read records a decision on any of them.
🧭 Where this post sits in the series
This post follows 1.6, Why pay for free software? Who decides the open source stack under WordPress? It uses the labels on the Merge Conflicts methods page. Next up is 1.8, your first contribution, even if you never touch PHP. Follow along on the Merge Conflicts series page.
My relationships that bear on this post
- Pantheon, my employer, a WordPress and Drupal host. It competes with the hosts named in this post.
- GoDaddy, where I managed the Five for the Future contributors until July 2026. I was also asked which foundations and projects I’d fund. I named the obvious ones, among them the PHP Foundation, OpenJS and W3C’s TPAC Inclusion Fund.
- The WordPress Training Team, where I was a faculty member and a team rep. I’m not active on the team now.
- The FAIR Package Manager, where I used to sit on the Technical Steering Committee.
- The WPOCC, where I’m one of the founding board members.
- Questions I asked on stage at WordCamp US 2024, the WordCamp Europe 2025 fireside and WordCamp Canada 2025.
- My own words appear in court exhibits in WPEngine v. Automattic (Dkt. 18-28, 107-4, 18-5 and 69-16). The series reports that litigation in pairs.
Footnotes (72)
- Drupal Association. “Drupal Association membership.” drupal.org. https://www.drupal.org/association/membership. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- MariaDB Foundation. “Sponsor.” mariadb.org. https://mariadb.org/sponsor/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- OpenJS Foundation. “Meet Our 2026 OpenJS Foundation Board of Directors.” openjsf.org. https://openjsf.org/blog/meet-our-2026-openjs-foundation-board-of-directors. Accessed 2026-11-09. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. “Governance of the PHP Foundation,” sections 3.3.2 and 5.2. thephp.foundation. Undated. https://thephp.foundation/governance/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- TYPO3 Association. “By-Laws & Proceedings (English translation),” Article 15. docs.typo3.org. https://docs.typo3.org/m/typo3/guide-policy/main/en-us/Association/BylawsAndProceedings.html. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- W3C. “Amended and Restated Bylaws of World Wide Web Consortium, Inc.,” Article III, section 7. w3.org. 2024-09-25. https://www.w3.org/2024/09/25-w3c-bylaws.pdf [PDF]. Accessed 2026-10-26. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. “Governance of the PHP Foundation,” sections 3.3.2 and 5.2. thephp.foundation. Undated. https://thephp.foundation/governance/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. Home page, sponsor lists. thephp.foundation. https://thephp.foundation/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- OpenJS Foundation. “Meet Our 2026 OpenJS Foundation Board of Directors.” openjsf.org. https://openjsf.org/blog/meet-our-2026-openjs-foundation-board-of-directors. Accessed 2026-11-09. ↩︎
- MariaDB Foundation. “Sponsor.” mariadb.org. https://mariadb.org/sponsor/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. “Governance of the PHP Foundation,” sections 3.3.2 and 5.2. thephp.foundation. Undated. https://thephp.foundation/governance/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- MariaDB Foundation. “Sponsor.” mariadb.org. https://mariadb.org/sponsor/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- W3C. “Amended and Restated Bylaws of World Wide Web Consortium, Inc.,” Article III, section 7. w3.org. 2024-09-25. https://www.w3.org/2024/09/25-w3c-bylaws.pdf [PDF]. Accessed 2026-10-26. ↩︎
- Drupal Association. “Drupal Association membership.” drupal.org. https://www.drupal.org/association/membership. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- TYPO3 Association. “By-Laws & Proceedings (English translation),” Article 15. docs.typo3.org. https://docs.typo3.org/m/typo3/guide-policy/main/en-us/Association/BylawsAndProceedings.html. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. Home page, sponsor lists. thephp.foundation. https://thephp.foundation/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- OpenJS Foundation. “Members.” openjsf.org. https://openjsf.org/members. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- W3C. “Diversity.” w3.org. https://www.w3.org/about/diversity/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- W3C. “W3C Process Document,” section 5.6. w3.org. 2025-08-18. https://www.w3.org/policies/process/20250818/. Accessed 2026-10-26. ↩︎
- MariaDB. “Maintainers,” governance repository. GitHub. https://github.com/MariaDB/governance/blob/main/lists/maintainers.md. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- The PHP Foundation. “The PHP Foundation Impact and Transparency Report 2025.” thephp.foundation. 2026-05-27. https://thephp.foundation/blog/2026/05/27/impact-and-transparency-report-2025/. Accessed 2026-10-26. ↩︎
- Make WordPress Core. “WordPress Core Team,” Core Handbook. make.wordpress.org. Updated 2026-09-07. https://make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/about/organization/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- Drupal. “Drupal core governance.” project.pages.drupalcode.org. Undated. https://project.pages.drupalcode.org/governance/core/drupal-core/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- Oracle. “MySQL Community Governance Model.” dev.mysql.com. https://dev.mysql.com/community/governance-model/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “Donate.” wordpressfoundation.org. https://wordpressfoundation.org/donate/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “Donors.” wordpressfoundation.org. Modified 2026-10-26. https://wordpressfoundation.org/donors/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. Form 990 for tax year 2024, Part VI. ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205498932/202511269349302756/full. Accessed 2026-10-26. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “2025 Financials.” wordpressfoundation.org. https://wordpressfoundation.org/2025-financials/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “2024 Financials.” wordpressfoundation.org. https://wordpressfoundation.org/about/financials/2024_financials/. Accessed 2026-11-11. ↩︎
- Harmony Romo. “WordPress Foundation Donates $100,000 to Internet Archive.” WordPress Foundation. 2024-10-17, modified 2026-03-31. https://wordpressfoundation.org/news/2024/wordpress-foundation-donation/. Accessed 2026-11-11. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “Donate.” wordpressfoundation.org. https://wordpressfoundation.org/donate/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Community Team. “2026 Global Partner Program Announcement.” make.wordpress.org. 2025-11-12. https://make.wordpress.org/community/2025/11/12/2026-global-partner-program-announcement/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Foundation. “2025 Financials.” wordpressfoundation.org. https://wordpressfoundation.org/2025-financials/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress Community Team. “Announcement: Sponsor review process changes.” make.wordpress.org. 2025-01-31, modified 2025-07-25. https://make.wordpress.org/community/2025/01/31/announcement-sponsor-review-process-changes/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
- WordPress.org. “Sponsorships,” Five for the Future. wordpress.org. https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/sponsorships/. Accessed 2026-11-10. ↩︎
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