The Community Team has always had guidelines around sponsorships, especially for GPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples. and WordPress trademark compliance. These guidelines are outlined in the WordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Organiser Handbook and the agreement among WordCamp organizers, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers.
For years, the Community Team has trusted WordCamp and other event organizers to vet sponsors and ensure compliance with the guidelines. Program Managers have approved the sponsorship invoices to be sent, and trust that organizers will not issue invoices for a sponsor that does not align with guidelines. On rare occasions, Program Managers have had to intervene — typically when the sponsor has been known to have current issues aligning with guidelines.
Since late November 2024, a more thorough vetting process of sponsors has been in place. The project leadership mandated the new process, which Community Program Managers were tasked to manage.
The new process strictly enforces WordPress trademark and GPL compliance. This has meant, for example, requiring all sponsors to stop using terms like “WordPress Hosting” and avoid unauthorized use of the WordPress logo. Companies that want to sponsor but are not in compliance with the trademark or GPL guidelines have been asked to update their websites, materials, plugins, and other codes to comply.
In addition, all sponsorships need to be approved by Matt Mullenweg (@matt) and Mary Hubbard (@4thhubbard) from project leadership.
Currently, the Program Managers hold all invoices until the sponsor complies with guidelines and project leadership approves their sponsorship. This process has been sped up so that if a sponsor is recently approved, new invoices are sent without re-approval.
It is unclear how long this process will be in place. As we expect this to be in place long term, we will continue to look at ways to improve the process.
The new process has caused significant delays in receiving payments from sponsors, which is a requirement for events announcing their support. We, the Program Managers, understand organizers’ frustrations with the process and are working to improve it. We know how vital sponsors are and how important their support is for WordPress events.
Program Managers have sought to establish a process to speed up the processing time. A new batch of sponsors requiring approval is sent to project leadership at least once a week. We hope that this, and being transparent about the recent changes, alleviates some of the pressure event organizers have been under. Disclosing these changes should have been done earlier.
Thank you everyone for your understanding.
Props to @kcristiano, @unintended8, @nukaga, @_dorsvenabili, @peiraisotta and @4thhubbard for the pre-publication review.
