WordPress.com

I don’t think that’s correct. WordPress.com is registered to a Ric Johnson since March 3, 2000.

I don’t think that’s correct. WordPress.com is registered to a Ric Johnson since March 3, 2000.
*Edit: Never mind, I see where the owner is the one making the offer.

Sphyr, I believe the original poster is referring to what is actually written at https://www.wordpress.com/

looks like the guy wants free traffic.. and he’s not giving up the domain he’s just “lending” it.. he controls the dns-es.. i say forget it.. wordpress isn’t commercial anyway..

One of the weird things of the internet is that people form opinions without all of the facts – or even without even so much as emailing the person in question (me!)
Please see my reply at
https://wordpress.com/archives/2005/01/26/about-wordpresscom/#comments

Jerm,

Saying that wordpress isn’t commercial is kinda ignorant. You may not have to pay for the software, but it is GPL which opens it up for commercial and business bloggers, even enterprise level. Maybe you don’t remember (but I certainly do) the that Jeremy C. Wright wrong about WordPress on Business Blog Consulting, which can be read here. Let’s face it, commercial users are using WordPress, and why not… It’s only 1.5 (I say only because we’re all so used to the Microsoft versioning system) but it’s getting more and more powerful! How many corporate design sites or even designers do it? Print shops? Ford? GM? More and more of them are starting to use wordpress too.

Commercial? No, you don’t have to pay for it. Commercial/Enterprise use? Ya bet yer last dollar!

-Ryan Brooks

Ryan,
This is exactly my point. It is not our goal to change WordPress, but to provide a place for developers and customers to go for commercial support. Revenue generated will go to further development of WP. We do not need a specific domain to do this – we could do it on WP4Profit.Com or such. WordPress.Com just seemed the best.
May I also point out that some people posting on this thread have Google AdWords?
We also intend to offer FREE services, such as quick WP installs at no charge, free hosting, etc.
Any input would be appreciated!
– Ric

Ric,

I can see how some people are skeptical of what you may be offering… Free installs? Hosting? I hope you’re going to be having some kind of paid structure, cause to be honest sir, ‘ free’ is always a bad business model. Not many take weel to change.

Revenue generated goes to WP? GREAT! Fantastic! But why don’t you leave the way money is generated and earned to the cats here at wordpress. If you’re so encouraged about the need for enterprise level commercial support, why doesn’t www.remarpro.com have it already?

-Ryan

Ryan,
NOBODY knows ‘free’ is a bad business model than me. Trust me, I know.

We were looking into the model that wordpressblogs and blogthing have set up – Instant WordPress blogs supported by advertising. Another great idea is what Podz does – free installs on a client’s server in the hope they will contact the WP Pro for more work in the future.

I thought the whole idea of Open was that people could contribute in their own way. Anyone can set up a server, generate revenue, and donate as they see fit. I do know why www.remarpro.com or anyone else has set up commercial support for WP yet, but there has been plenty of requests for it. We are NOT WordPress experts, but we do have experience in business ventures. WordPress dot Com gets a large amount of traffic because people expect it – we should not throw that away.

That is the crux of my point: WordPress.Com already exists. I think we SHOULD use it, and it SHOULD have a different function from www.remarpro.com. Setting up a commercial site for WP is a GOOD thing. I am looking for help and advice from the community on setting it up. I can even let Matt use the domain as he sees fit as part of the OpenDomain program or even a democratic board voted by WP developers.

Actually, what Podz does illustrates the complete pointlessness of trying to set up commercial services around WordPress. I’ve tried charging for WP installs and customisations, but nobody’s going to pay a another nobody for their time when they can get a developer to do the same thing for free. And only last week, another developer went ballistic when one blogger merely suggested setting up a paid support service for WP.

You’re trying to commercialise a culture where the majority think free as in speech must also be free as in beer. It’s just not going to fly.

Dear Anonymous,
Thank you for your post. I wish you logged in so I could reply more directly.
I agree that there will always be detractors and trolls. I certainly would have paid for someone to setup WordPress for me. Someone with proven expertise on PHP and mySql that can customise our WP setup and save us alot of time we wasted getting everything ‘just right’. There certainly is a market for paid professionals in Open Source
Also, please note: I am NOT trying to change WordPress. I am NOT trying to commercialise it. I will not force anyone to my views – I want to provide an outlet for WP developers interested in putting bread on the table. If you or anyone else want to continue providing support and code for Free – that’s great! We also want to provide Free help.
However, there are some people that prefer to get paid for their hard work. We want to help them, too. And if we can do it in a way that can generate cash for www.remarpro.com – that is what we want!

Please understand that Anonymous does not speak for all of us. In fact, he only speaks for himself.

Ric,
Anonymous has, in fact, logged in. His member name is Anonymous as it shows.

“Another great idea is what Podz does – free installs on a client’s server in the hope they will contact the WP Pro for more work in the future”

Nope.
It was to achieve two things:
– keep the stress levels of people wanting WP to a minimum
– to tell people what I expected and what they got. After offering to install for posters here, I was getting emails about it. Much easier to create a page and say what was what.

Probably shouldn’t feed the troll guys, the guy is obviously just a squatter. I weird squatter, but a squatter nonetheless. I think it could be summed up thusly:

Guy who has never contributing anything to WordPress before buys the .com domain. Instead of doing the noble thing and donating it to the project he seems to think that makes him entitled to be the center of some sort of commercial venture around WordPress. (Read: profit off other people’s work because he squatted a domain, along with hundreds of others it looks like.)

Ric, or whoever you are, it should be obvious the community isn’t going to stand for you making money off them. Just let the devs know how much you paid for the domain and maybe they can run a fundraiser to recoup whatever money you’ve spent already.

If Ric is determined to use the .com commercially and not donate it to the project, then we the users should start a campaign to correct all links that mistakenly go to WordPress.com (using technorati, feedster, google to find them), publicize that no one should do business with him, blacklist the domain, and contact his hosting provider.