Over the past few months, you may have picked up on a few things —Joost de Valk was removed from the speaker lineup at WordCamp Asia. Progress Planner wasn’t allowed to sponsor. And in this tweet, Matt Mullenweg referred to Joost as “persona non grata” within the WordPress community.
We haven’t publicly discussed this until now. We hoped things would settle and that Matt might reconsider. But a one-on-one conversation between Matt and me made it painfully clear: that’s not going to happen.
Joost de Valk is no longer welcome at WordCamps. Progress Planner, or any company in which Joost holds a majority stake, is not allowed to sponsor. In fact, Joost is not allowed to contribute to the WordPress ecosystem in any formal way.
To be honest, it still feels surreal. If you’d told us a year ago that this would happen, we wouldn’t have believed you. And maybe, after everything that’s happened lately, it doesn’t seem like such a big deal from the outside.
But it is. It’s a very big deal.
So what happened again?
Remember that Joost was openly critical about the future of WordPress and its leadership? He wrote about it in this blog post. To be honest, he didn’t really say anything new. These concerns have been raised many times before — and many people agree with him. His tone, though, was louder. Clearer. More actionable.
At first, Matt responded somewhat sympathetically. But soon after, he accused Joost and Karim of trying to lead a fork — something that simply wasn’t true, as Joost explained in his post. Joost pleaded for change within the community, and ideally with Matt as one of its leaders.
There was no direct contact between the two after the blog post. Before WordCamp Asia, Joost reached out to Matt — suggesting they connect there, maybe even grab dinner. Instead of a conversation, Matt responded with anger. Days later, Joost was informed by Mary Hubbard that he was no longer welcome at WordCamps and that his companies would not be allowed to sponsor anymore.
The reason given? Because it would be better for the cohesion of the community if Joost wasn’t there. Or something vague along those lines.
The consequences
This might seem trivial. It’s not. For Joost, this is deeply painful. He’s contributed to WordPress — both financially and through code — since 2006. That’s over 18 years of passionate, open source involvement.
But this also affects all of us at Progress Planner. In December, I bought into Progress Planner and now own 20%. Later that month, we gave small shares of Progress Planner to all our employees. Eight colleagues each hold 1%. Joost and Marieke own the remaining 72% (as equal partners, so both 36%). This isn’t just “Joost’s company” — it’s our company. And yet, we’re banned from sponsoring WordCamps.
Sponsoring WordCamps is certainly not the only way to grow a business, but it was a meaningful part of our strategy. Being “company non grata” is hard.
WordCamp Asia was the first WordCamp I could represent Progress Planner. Yet, I did not dare wearing branded apparel at the conference at first, as I was afraid doing so would get me banned from the event as well. Fortunately, that didn’t happen, and I was still allowed to lead the panel on AI.
And while we’re still not allowed to sponsor any WordCamps, including WordCamp Europe, I am selected as a speaker at WCEU. Being with a “company non grata” is confusing.
It’s been tough
This situation has been confusing and isolating. People hear snippets of it, but often don’t really understand what it means. Just a few weeks ago, we were asked to sponsor WordCamp Netherlands. We said: “We’d love to, but we’re not allowed.” The organizers were surprised but thought that it would work itself out.
Meanwhile, two of our colleagues were actually co-organizing WordCamp The Netherlands, an event their company, and colleague, aren’t welcome at. When it became clear that wasn’t going to change, we made the hard decision to step away.
And since joining Progress Planner, I’ve spent much more time helping out the Make WordPress community team, something I absolutely love doing. But it’s weird and uncomfortable to help people organize events where your own company isn’t welcome.
Even Automatticians still reach out to Joost to discuss WordPress core developments. But he’s banned, so he can’t help.
Most people respond with such kindness: “Just come anyway; we won’t tell Matt.” We appreciate that deeply. But that’s not how this works, and it shouldn’t be how we deal with things.
What we’re asking
We’re not asking anyone to take a stand. We don’t want more people banned, and it’s clear that Matt deals with people who say something he dislikes quite aggressively.
What we are asking is this: please keep caring. What has happened to us, and to many others, is not OK — and we shouldn’t allow ourselves to normalize it. It’s a sad reality that speaking up about this puts you at risk of being banned too. It feels like a dictatorship.
I’m well aware that just posting this may get me banned. But even if that happens, I’ll still be at Pressconf and in my safe haven in WordPress; Post Status.
In my opinion, Joost’s call to break the status quo is still valid. Please, read his post again. It wasn’t an attack — it was a plea for better leadership in a project he deeply cares about. And he —and everyone at Progress Planner— is being punished for it. That’s not how open source is supposed to work. Especially not in a project that says it wants to “democratize publishing”.
Leave a Reply