FreeWP seems like a completely meritless attempt at a fork / initiative. Potentially even just an attempt by "Vinny" to move himself into the spotlight. And the WordPress community, for a big part, looks still very novice and in-experienced and a decent junk of community members might fall for this and put at least some (and more than they should) eggs into that basket.
Matt just seems to troll and knows that "FreeWP" is no competition at all. And continues on his path of eccentric and very weird behavior.
This is why I think it's a troll—it's so completely devoid of substance that I think it must be deliberately void, and getting Matt to respond was the only point. The OP specifically says they don't intend to fork, and they have a goofy FAQ with an intentionally-absent mission statement.
From the author [0]:
> I love how I never said I was going to fork the project and only wanted to support those who did. Matt is incredible at only hearing the things he wants to hear.
See the FAQ for more evidence that this is mostly just Vinny trolling so far [1]:
> Well, what does ‘wp’ mean?
> We found some notes referencing “word processing” and “web publishing,” and there’s even a mention of Wendell Pierce, who played Detective William ‘Bunk’ Moreland in the popular HBO series The Wire. It seems to be related to one of those topics.
> It’s also rumored the singsongy vibes really sealed the deal.
[0] https://x.com/vinnysgreen/status/1844488053060141233
[1] https://freewp.com/faq/