While WordPress is an open source project, there is so much that isn’t open and transparent about it. That includes one team that largely operates anonymously, seemingly to avoid people being able to identify individuals taking harmful actions, and it includes a security team (or teams) where even basic details are mystery. We also still don’t have a clear picture of who is managing and paying for the WordPress website. That is obvious concern with everything that has been happening recently involving Matt Mullenweg’s campaign against WP Engine. One thing we can say with good certainty is that Automattic isn’t sponsoring its employees to spend 3,500 hours a week maintaining that the WordPress website, as some people have been mentioning recently.

The confusion over this seems to be based on a declaration made in the legal case between Automattic/Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine. In the declaration, an Automattic employee stated:

As part of my role as Chief Systems Wrangler at Automattic, I regularly work with the WordPress software platform, and am also familiar with the website located at www.WordPress.org (the “Website”). Automattic contributes significant time and resources to the operation of the Website, in excess of 3500 hours weekly.

That works out to the equivalent of 87.5 people working on the website for 40 hours a week. That doesn’t really make sense, even if you are not familiar with the lack of issues with the website getting addressed. The simple explanation for that number is that it is actually a reference to Automattic’s claimed sponsored time for the entire WordPress project, which is currently listed as 3,577 hours:

Whether that number is at all accurate is an open question (as it is for that program in generally). But what isn’t a question is that definitely isn’t a number related to maintaining the website, as it includes Automattic employees involved in various aspects of the WordPress project.