Matt gave away the software he invented and founded a commercial venture to monetize his efforts despite this. Automattic originally registered the trademarks. Years later they donated them to the foundation, to make the marks available for noncommercial use and limited commercial use. In the process Automattic retained the exclusive commercial license to the marks.
Where is the invention? He forked b2/cafelog and continued work on it when the original project faded out. He had no choice but to give it away unless he wanted the only WordPress install in the world. Another fork like b2evolution or any of the billion blogging tools at the time would have taken the spot WordPress did instead.
keane|1 year ago
Kye|1 year ago