Quote:
Originally Posted by tony404
if word press is free how do they make money?
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As Jace mentioned, donations. Plus they have "VIP" services, there is also an enterprise service for large-scale users and a midway service too:
http://automattic.com/services/support-network/
I'm not clear on the formal relationship between the different entities involved, but Matt Mullenweg (WordPress creator) is listed on the Automattic site (although not on KnowNow).
A couple of years ago there was some fairly mild criticism of Matt for some questionable SEO tactics he was apparently using on a site of his own, so he has had and may still have other irons in the fire.
If all else fails and the WP folk do ever look for a payday, WordPress wouldn't be the first freeware to be sold with a huge pricetag (eg ICQ $20-some million). Apart from WordPress itself (used by Yahoo, Harvard University, New York Times, Le Monde etc), wordpress.com reported 400,000 blogs a while back. I imagine the total is more now.