Oliver Sild, CEO of Patchstack, shared on X an email he received from WordCamp Central explaining why Patchstack’s application to sponsor WordCamp Europe 2025 was rejected.
The email, written by Felipe Santos, detailed a shift in the sponsorship process. It stated that “the Community team is transitioning from a first-come, first-served model to a new approach. While the sponsorship process will remain familiar, we are placing greater emphasis on contributions and the relationships companies maintain with the WordPress project. We recognize that this shift may feel frustrating, but sponsoring WordCamps is a privilege, and we aim to increase expectations in this area moving forward.”
Santos suggested that Patchstack pledge to Five for the Future as it “would be an excellent way to demonstrate commitment and build trust within the community.” He added that they will re-evaluate Patchstack’s eligibility “once significant contributions have been established.”
Sild countered that “the tier we applied to still has 6 spots open. I know companies who were accepted for sponsorship after we were rejected who also don’t have five for the future.”
Patchstack is a leading name in WordPress security with a mission to make open-source safer and raised $5 million in its Series A funding round last year. They published 76% of all known WordPress-related security vulnerabilities and became the largest CVE (Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures) Naming Authority by volume in 2023. Their Zero-Day Bug Bounty Program awarded the highest bounty in WordPress history – $14,400- to John Blackbourn, who exposed a critical vulnerability in the LiteSpeed Cache plugin last month.
Sild also shared that Patchstack contributed to Five for the Future till the person who pledged the hours via Patchstack left the company. Sild also highlighted Patchstack’s other contributions – reporting vulnerabilities in plugins and ensuring the security of the ecosystem, and running a managed VDP platform built in collaboration with the European Union.
He continued, “Over 50% of all new security vulnerability disclosures in the WordPress ecosystem were found & reported by our community of security researchers. All of the validating, triaging and coordination was done by our team for the WordPress ecosystem for free. That’s 4566 individual vulnerabilities in 2024 alone.”
Interestingly, there is nothing about contributing to the Five for the Future mentioned in the WordCamp Sponsorship Handbook, WordCamp Sponsorship Agreement or WordCamp Europe’s Call for Sponsors page. Sponsorship packages are still open for the 2025 event at the time of publishing this article.
Sild’s post sparked widespread criticism about the rejection and the community soon came out to support Sild. Simon Harper, owner of SRH Design shared, “It is ridiculous to think that Oliver, the Patchstack team and volunteers have “not contributed enough” to WordPress.
Taco Verdo of Emilia Capital was disappointed, “Sometimes I really don’t understand what we’re doing in the WordPress community team… :(“
Francesca Marano, Head of Partnership at Patchstack, dubbed it “Another sad day open source”. She shared, “As someone who was active for a long time in the community team and was around when the Five for the Future program was created, I am surprised and saddened by a few things: 1. Not having the change publicly discussed in the community make blog. 2. Not having the criteria added to the sponsorship page (Still shows only GPL) 3. Relying on FFtF data, which has been unreliable since the beginning. I was still active in the team when we started discussing how to improve the program,”
Todd E Jones, founder of Copyflight, tweeted, “Right now I fail to see how A8 has real concerns for security or accessibility. Dismissive of experts in both areas.” Web developer Robert DeVore also shared his thoughts, “Without programs like Patchstack, the WordPress ecosystem would be a wasteland (worse than it is now). Anybody who doesn’t see that is a blind idiot.”
Co-founder of Nevma, Takis Bouyouris, had this to say: “The #WordPress Community needs to stop being ridiculed like this. Once we had hard and fair rules in @WCEurope. Observe the GPL, observe the CoC. Now contributing to the community becomes some convoluted madness where you cannot contribute unless you contribute enough based on a vague and untrustworthy metrics.”
WPTuts tweeted, “Sadly, this seems indicative of WordPress (as a project/company) at the moment: hell-bent on alienating the community and contributors who have made WordPress what it is today and are a significant reason for its success and popularity. Unless you tick those boxes, you’re out!”
Matt Mullenweg termed the email “crappy” and promised to look into it. He commented, “I agree that’s a crappy email to get, and it’s also not 100% accurate. Thanks for raising this issue, I’ll look into it. Thank you for all you and your colleagues do trying to make WordPress and its plugins and themes better.”
WordCamp Europe has faced criticism in the past for diversity issues in speaker lineups and organizing teams, but this marks the first major controversy regarding sponsorships. The WordCamp Europe Organizing Team shared that they have no information on this as WordCamp Central handles the sponsorship application processing.
(I’m waiting to hear from the Patchstack team and WordCamp Central and will update their responses).
| Full Text of the Email Received by Oliver Sild & Team:
“Hi Francesca and Oliver, Thank you for your patience as we continue to refine our approach to WordPress event sponsorships. I understand your interest in learning more about the process and what steps might strengthen future sponsorship opportunities. To provide some context, the Community team is transitioning from a first-come, first-served model to a new approach. While the sponsorship process will remain familiar, we are placing greater emphasis on contributions and the relationships companies maintain with the WordPress project. We recognize that this shift may feel frustrating, but sponsoring WordCamps is a privilege, and we aim to increase expectations in this area moving forward. For instance, I noticed that Patchstack has not yet made a pledge to Five for the Future, a program that enables companies to contribute to the WordPress project through dedicated volunteer hours. Taking this step would be an excellent way to demonstrate commitment and build trust within the community. WordPress thrives because of its contributors and your participation would make a meaningful impact. Once significant contributions have been established, we are happy to re-evaluate your eligibility for financial sponsorship of WordPress events. Thank you for your continued interest in supporting the WordPress community. If you have any further questions or need assistance with the next steps, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I hope that helps and Happy New Year! |
