[HN Gopher] If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be r...
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If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed
Author : graeme
Score : 246 points
Date : 2024-09-27 23:49 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (joshcollinsworth.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (joshcollinsworth.com)
| mvkel wrote:
| Given the age and ubiquity of Wordpress, I am shocked at the
| relative immaturity of Matt's communication skills.
|
| He thinks the world has all the historical understanding and
| nuance of the situation. Why would they?
|
| This looks like a world record speedrun attempt (any%) at
| destroying a legacy.
|
| It's worth noting that WPEngine looked like this all the way back
| in 2011:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20110112043959/http://wpengine.c...
|
| They have never pretended to be anything else.
|
| Why now, Matt?
| atonse wrote:
| Exactly. This comes off as a totally unhinged and immature
| rant, unbecoming of the CEO of a company that likely has a 8 or
| 9 figure revenue.
|
| I didn't know (or really care) about this battle, but I've
| always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful
| grandfathers of the blogging era, having insights from the
| observations from his perch.
|
| This blog post erased that.
| moralestapia wrote:
| >I've always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful
| grandfathers of the blogging era.
|
| I've always felt he was an asshole but could never ground
| that to a concrete observation. Now I'm certain of it.
| mvkel wrote:
| He's not an asshole, he's just "post-economic"
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| What does this mean ? That he doesn't have to care about
| earning a living any more, and so he's acting like... an
| asshole ?
| mvkel wrote:
| In a Slack channel, "post-economic" was the term he used
| to describe his financial situation as a justification
| for his actions. So, yes?
|
| https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432?s=46
| moralestapia wrote:
| Dang, what an ass.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Something about these CEOs becoming or at least showing in
| public how unhinged they are. We've had quite a few in the
| last couple years. Almost like they think it's cool.
| hackerbeat wrote:
| > I didn't know (or really care) about this battle
|
| Then why comment on it?
| atonse wrote:
| I mentioned it's because I have held Matt Mullenweg in
| higher regard as someone who's been insightful about the
| evolution of the web.
| pilgrim0 wrote:
| According to his recent interview on Primeagen, he argues that
| WPEngine operations incur high costs to his company, due to the
| millions of installations consuming resources from
| Wordpress.org. And despite being a very large player, they
| contribute nothing back to the ecosystem. He argues that they
| even illegally modified code attributions (stripe plugin) which
| diverts millions from Automattic. The fact that it took,
| apparently, so long for him to take some action can be
| interpreted in his favor, because he tolerated a lot along the
| years. Add the fact that they had somewhat good relations
| before WPEngine being taken over by private equity. So this is
| not about trademark, trademark is the best weapon he has to
| fight back against a very bad neighbor. And being the sole
| trademark holder, Automattic can enforce it arbitrarily, as it
| sees fit. Taking side with WPEngine I think is not only
| rationally baseless, but also immoral, since they put nothing
| and only take, which is in the very opposite of what Matt
| represents, whether or not you like Wordpress.
| karmajunkie wrote:
| i think the point of TFA was that those allegations are a
| gross distortion of the record, and MM's ultimate actions are
| grossly inappropriate and harm the community he is pretending
| to stand up for.
| chuckadams wrote:
| > He argues that they even illegally modified code
| attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from
| Automattic.
|
| Which turned out to be blatantly false, _quelle surprise_
|
| I'm currently asking @photomatt elsewhere what his plans are
| to help others lift the load from wp.org by way of supporting
| alternate plugin/theme repositories. I'll keep you posted.
| ydlr wrote:
| Maybe banning wpengine customers from the official repo is
| exactly the push the community needs to create
| alternatives.
| sjs382 wrote:
| > he argues that WPEngine operations incur high costs to his
| company
|
| To the foundation? Ok, then work with them to create a mirror
| and share the load. Even publicly shamed them into doing so.
|
| Do what's good for the community and product rather than
| engaging in this embarrassing spat.
| Atotalnoob wrote:
| Actually no, trademark is a "use it or lose it" state,
| waiting so long will not be in their favor
| mvkel wrote:
| Exactly. Statute of limitations is a factor here
| nickff wrote:
| Wordpress is using their trademark though... do you mean to
| say that you must enforce a trademark to keep it? That's
| different, and a subject of some controversy; I'm not sure
| that it's been decided conclusively.
|
| Please correct me if I'm wrong here (in any way).
| mvkel wrote:
| It's been decided conclusively, but it is also relatively
| rare in a practical sense. Trademark law requires the
| owner to protect their trademark to avoid dilution or
| genericide, which occurs when a trademark becomes so
| common it loses its distinctiveness (like what happened
| with "Aspirin" or "Escalator").
|
| Not a lawyer, but talked about it at length with a
| trademark attorney when having to defend over the years.
| It was conveyed that if we aren't willing to legally
| defend a mark, we could potentially lose it.
| nickff wrote:
| Do you think WordPress is diluted? It definitely doesn't
| seem to generically refer to blogging or website building
| software. It seems to me that even WP Engine isn't
| diluting it, they're hijacking it.
| mvkel wrote:
| Agreed, but that goes back to defensibility. WP Engine
| has been doing their thing since 2011 without a peep from
| Matt. He should have been issuing cease and desists, etc.
| back then.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Maybe it's that WP Engine operates differently now. They
| got a massive investment from Silver Lake, a terrible
| private equity firm with a track record of doing evil
| things. They probably have changed how they support
| Wordpress (the open source project), how they pollute the
| ecosystem, how they make it harder to leave, etc. In
| other words, they're free riding on Matt's creation and
| extracting all they can from it.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Oh yes, Matt's all about how evil Private Equity is and
| how they leech from communities and add zero value...
|
| It's an interesting take, given that the three board
| members of the WordPress Foundation are Matt and a ...
| managing partner of a PE firm (the third is a retired
| coder, I believe).
| mvkel wrote:
| As is their right, given the terms.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| You need to look up nominative usage.
|
| "We offer WordPress hosting" is a perfectly legal thing
| for people to say if they actually offer WordPress
| hosting, and no amount of trademarks can prevent that.
| This is specifically called out to try to avoid trademark
| fuckery.
|
| Sure, everyone refers to the "Big Game" versus the "Super
| Bowl", but that's largely because the NFL can afford more
| lawyers than they can, and it's not worth the fight.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| IANAL, but If they are making trademark licensing deals
| with other companies, and periodically pestering the
| infringer without taking it fully legal I think that counts
| as "using it". A judge is likely to be lenient since legal
| costs are pretty bad and a PITA
| underseacables wrote:
| But who owns the trademark? The for-profit company, or
| the nonprofit foundation?
| patmcc wrote:
| The foundation owns it - https://tsdr.uspto.gov/#caseNumb
| er=78826734&caseSearchType=U...
|
| A claim I've heard is that the for-profit company has the
| exclusive commercial license (along with the right to
| grant sub-licenses).
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _A claim I 've heard is that the for-profit company has
| the exclusive commercial license (along with the right to
| grant sub-licenses)._
|
| That sounds about right, and is what's written on the
| WordPress Foundation's trademark page [1]:
|
| > If you would like to use the WordPress trademark
| commercially, please contact Automattic, they have the
| exclusive license. Their only sub-licensee is Newfold.
|
| I read something different [2] while reading up on this
| whole debacle:
|
| > The WordPress Foundation was launched in January 2010.
| Automattic transferred the trademarks later that year in
| September. As part of the transfer, Automattic was
| granted use of WordPress for WordPress.com, but not for
| any future domains. Matt was granted a license for
| WordPress.org and WordPress.net.
|
| I wonder if something changed along the way.
|
| [1] https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/
|
| [2] https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-
| foundation/
| jcranmer wrote:
| Part of the clusterfuck going on here is...
|
| a) the nonprofit owns a trademark
|
| b) gave an exclusive license with right to sublicense to
| a for-profit
|
| c) which appears to be run by the same person
|
| d) who is demanding of a competitor to sublicense the
| trademark
|
| e) paying the money to the for-profit, not the nonprofit
|
| f) when it's not clear that the competitor is infringing
| on the trademark in the first place.
|
| The litigation here is not likely to go Wordpress or
| Automattic's way, I think.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| According to elsewhere the for profit had the trademark
| first, and then handed it over to the nonprofit while
| remaining a licensee. (Automattic founded 2005, WordPress
| foundation founded 2010) That's a _very_ above board
| move. And it makes sense for the for profit to take on
| the legal aspects, because the extraordinary spend won 't
| ruffle donors feathers.
| glenstein wrote:
| I'm not sure I understand the reasoning here. Either they
| are licensee or they're not. The history leading up to
| that doesn't convey any special rights or exceptions.
|
| And referring to _that_ transfer as "very above board"
| makes it sound like you're talking about the same thing
| as the commenter above when in fact you're talking about
| different things. Because however gracious you find that
| decision to be, that's a different subject than whether
| it's above board to, _subsequently_ commingle those
| responsibilities. And whether or not you feel it 's
| practical, in some sense, it doesn't seem to have
| anything to do with anything. Either Automatic has The
| authority to collect licensing payments on behalf of
| WordPress or they don't and that should be reflected in a
| charter or something, somewhere.
|
| I don't think referencing the history of Automatic
| previously owning the trademark has anything to do with
| anything in this context.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| There's pretty broad license for for-profits to share IP
| with non-profits, e.g. Novartis + GNF, or generally
| speaking, any university and any spinoff (I refuse to
| call them startups) created by professors thereof. If you
| think what automattic is doing seems legally sketchy, you
| may want to recalibrate your expectation of what sketchy
| is and just how much the industrial complex of the US
| would simply not work (for better or worse -- i for one
| think it would be better, fwiw) if it adhered to your
| standards.
| LordAtlas wrote:
| The issue here is that Mullenweg is on record everywhere
| (including on HN) saying that the "WP" is not the
| trademark problem; it's "Wordpress" and "WooCommerce".
|
| But a cursory glance at Google results for "Wordpress
| hosting", "woocommerce hosting", or "managed wordpress
| hosting" will lead you to hundreds of results from a
| plethora of web hosting companies that have been doing
| this, many for more than a decade.
|
| The Wordpress Foundation (that owns the "Wordpress"
| trademark) has not taken any legal action against any of
| these companies for precisely the same use it's accusing
| WPEngine of. A judge could well rule that they have not
| defended their trademark and this claim holds no water.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Again, IANAL, but it's generally not the case that you
| are required to go after all infringers of your trademark
| (I imagine because that would be overly burdensome
| requirement, as someone nefarious could spin up even a
| blatantly offensive use in some remote town in Alaska for
| example and go "ha-haw you failed to defend"). You just
| have to not never defend it.
| caseysoftware wrote:
| > _He argues that they even illegally modified code
| attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from
| Automattic._
|
| From reviewing the code, this is not "attribution" in the
| sense of "here's who wrote this code" but specifically and
| literally an partner code.. aka an affiliate code or what
| we'd normally call "a setting"
|
| As GPL'd software, they _cannot_ prevent people from
| modifying this code and - if they do - Automattic 's only
| counter is to complain about it.
|
| Further, since it's a revenue-generating code, it should be
| disclosed in the README, etc of the plugin and changeable via
| the Admin. It doesn't appear either is true.
|
| Ref: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce-gateway-
| stripe/pu...
| _acco wrote:
| That 2011 snapshot actually makes the opposite point: the
| WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP Engine"
| title on the screenshot!
|
| It does look like they fixed just a few months later, though:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20111001085943/http://wpengine.c...
|
| (How fun to see the selling point "Digg-Proof Scalability")
| interestica wrote:
| > Digg-proof
|
| What's the modern soon-to-be-obsolete equivalent?
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Shitty-AI-crawler-proof
| philistine wrote:
| Your blog will be compatible with the blockchain!
| rafark wrote:
| > the WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP
| Engine" title
|
| Pretty sure that Wordpress logo is just the stock logo that
| came with every Wordpress installation. The name wp engine
| was the website name of that Wordpress installation.
| underseacables wrote:
| It really does feel like Matt is saying "how dare you question
| me"
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| Giving Matt the benefit of the doubt, the answer to "Why now?"
| is that enough is enough. Why does Matt deserve the benefit of
| the doubt? Because his companies have been contributing to
| WordPress while WP Engine has not.
|
| Matt claims he has been privately discussing with WP Engine for
| ~18 months about their level of contribution. Automatic
| contributes the equivalent of 75 full time employees to
| WordPress and WP Engine contributes 1, despite the companies
| being comparable in size.
|
| Matt's actions may have been bad for optics, but I do not fault
| him for using the resources at his disposal to correct what he
| sees as injustice.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > Matt's actions may have been bad for optics, but I do not
| fault him for using the resources at his disposal to correct
| what he sees as injustice.
|
| Of course, there are consequences to using said resources
| inappropriately.
| glenstein wrote:
| Note the attempt to reframe bad _actions_ as bad optics, to
| make it about perceptions instead of concrete actions.
|
| But perceptions are downstream from actions in a smoke/fire
| kind of way, and it shouldn't be used as a way to get out
| of answering for actions.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| No. Put me on the record as saying his actions are just.
| I'm not reframing or deflecting anything, I agree with
| Matt's actions.
|
| The public perception seems to be against him, and
| managing public perception is important.
| glenstein wrote:
| Well as I said before, perception is downstream from the
| actions themselves. And attempting to reroute the
| conversation away from actions towards the phenomenon of
| how they're being perceived is, despite your protestation
| to the contrary, a way of reframing the conversation that
| focuses on something other than the merits of what he
| chose to do.
| wslh wrote:
| I really wonder what that mean contributing to WordPress...
| from the cybersecurity point of view in 2024, there is/were
| no contributions: it is common to be hacked when you use
| Wordpress (e.g. [1]).
|
| [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/comments/1cv15mt/wo
| uld...
| dns_snek wrote:
| That discussion is largely about themes and plugins. Severe
| vulnerabilities in WP Core are quite rare.
| wslh wrote:
| I believe WP Core and plugins should not be viewed
| separately in terms of security. Plugins are omnipresent.
| Integrating security measures across both could create a
| more robust system overall.
| yencabulator wrote:
| Themes and plugins _are_ the severe vulnerability of WP
| Core.
| claudiulodro wrote:
| WordPress is secure enough that whitehouse.gov runs on it
| and zero-day vendors pay $100,000+ if you have an exploit
| for the core WordPress software. It's not "magically
| secure" though -- you wouldn't say that AWS is insecure
| because some people set it up wrong or use bad
| integrations.
| wslh wrote:
| I'm curious, do you have any information on how much
| whitehouse.gov spends on cybersecurity testing and
| customization? I imagine it's considerably more than the
| $100,000 you mentioned for a WordPress exploit. I work in
| this space and have experience with offensive security
| tests, including on Amazon itself.
| tempaccount420 wrote:
| Time for a Rust rewrite?
| wslh wrote:
| I don't think the first problem is about Rust or not but
| about having a security mindset to develop software. Even
| if it is PHP.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Why, then, is he asking for WP Engine to pay licensing fees
| to _Automattic_ , which is not the open source project, nor
| the Foundation, but his for-profit competitor. Ostensibly,
| Automattic has no ability to license WordPress (an open
| source project that it does not own).
|
| _That_ sounds like an injustice to me. That sounds like
| someone who has been using Automattic and WP.com (and
| Pressable), WP.org, and the Foundation interchangeably,
| depending on what best fits his needs.
| glenstein wrote:
| Elsewhere in this thread I'm seeing people say that
| Automattic is the exclusive commercial licensee with the
| ability to sub license.
|
| So it's possible that that's the answer there.
| lolinder wrote:
| The code is GPL, that's not even possible.
| evanelias wrote:
| The dispute is about trademarks and use of the brand
| name, so the relevant issue is a _trademark_ license, not
| a software license.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Up until a couple of days ago, when Matt retroactively
| changed (which is going to be hard to make stick) the
| trademark license _explicitly_ permitted the use of "WP"
| by anyone and everyone.
|
| The trademark license also cannot prohibit nominative
| usage - that's protected. If you actually, factually
| offer WordPress hosting, you can say so, in those exact
| words. You may need to call out somewhere (and WPEngine
| does) "WordPress is a trademark of the WPF", but no
| license can prohibit you saying so. What they _can 't_
| (but don't) say, is anything that implies that _they_ are
| WordPress - which is exactly why Matt is trying to make
| some big deal in his head that "my mom thought they were
| us" (while ignoring the elephant in the room of "Well,
| wordpress.COM isn't WordPress, either, it's just a
| licensee", because of course, nobody could be confused by
| _that_ ).
| evanelias wrote:
| I was only responding to the statement about the GPL,
| which simply does not apply to this situation, since it
| is a trademark dispute and not a copyright dispute.
|
| I wasn't expressing an opinion one way or the other,
| regarding the validity of the trademark infringement.
| lsaferite wrote:
| GPL applies insofar as it doesn't prevent commercial use
| of the code.
| chmod775 wrote:
| Unrelated, but that site is so much better than their current
| one.
|
| Now I finally know what they do and offer!
| adfm wrote:
| Consider that there are other hosting providers out there
| giving back to the community and he's not going after them.
| Reciprocity seems to be an issue along with proprietary jank
| that screws interoperability. Say what you want, but I'd
| question investing in anything that's built on a foundation
| that relies on reciprocity that doesn't put in their share.
| Healthy relationships involve creating more value than you
| capture. That's something that should resonate with the
| thickest of fountainheads. And if it doesn't, you can always
| turn off the tap, which seems to be the case.
| throwaway984393 wrote:
| Please, for the love of god, let it die. WordPress's horrible
| security, annoying maintenance, and cookie cutter sites have
| filled the internet with malware and garbage content. It's so
| annoying to maintain that we have to find these managed hosting
| places that provide very little value. And despite them, you
| still need to add a bunch of extra stuff to make a reliable site.
| Time to create something modern.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >Time to create something modern.
|
| The track record of "modern" would suggest Wordpress is the
| second coming of Jesus, so no thanks. Wordpress is fine
| compared to "modern" software.
| 1over137 wrote:
| Let me guess, you are a web programmer?
|
| Because for those of us that are not, WordPress is a pretty
| easy and pretty capable way to self host something. Without it,
| lots more stuff would be centralized with Big Tech.
| wmf wrote:
| If WordPress didn't exist there would be other blogging
| software.
| bdcravens wrote:
| WP has emerged as a de facto standard, but there were
| alternatives before, and there will be alternatives to come.
| leonidasv wrote:
| If you can self-host something, you can run a SSG*-based blog
| platform (Hugo, Jekyll, etc). And static webpages are even
| simpler to self-host. If you are willing to bend a little bit
| for big tech, you can just host them dropping generated files
| in any S3-like object storage.
|
| *Static Site Generator
| timeon wrote:
| > S3-like object storage
|
| They are not web programmers maybe not even in devops. So
| It is easier to just buy basic shared hosting wit button
| 'install wordpress' in hosting-admin.
|
| Statically generated site would be better (especially for
| readers of the site) but they still need some CMS.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| ...and replace it with _what_ , exactly?
|
| I mean, I _liked_ Drupal, still do, but the business for custom
| Drupal sites dried up and moved onto WordPress with (insert
| builder of choice here). Teaching _anything_ on Drupal was like
| pulling teeth, even in the D7 and D8+ eras. And I 'm not aware
| of any demand for Backdrop / Concrete5 / whatever sites.
| WordPress even ate up whatever demand there was for Magento
| (good riddance IMO).
|
| Everyone moved to WordPress because it's easy to teach clients
| on, the dev costs are reasonable, and there's a really good
| plugin ecosystem to counter the platform's faults. You can
| absolutely build unique sites on WordPress and lock them down
| too.
|
| If WordPress dies, everyone moves to SquareSpace (which is
| proprietary) or socials (in other words, doesn't have a web
| presence).
| chuckadams wrote:
| I have some hopes for Drupal's Starshot Initiative. Tho it
| now bears the crushingly drab sobriquet of "Drupal CMS" :-P
| sleepybrett wrote:
| lol 10 years ago I worked with a shop that used expression
| engine for everything. It was certainly more flexible, more
| pleasant to write plugins for, and less of a security
| nightmare at the time.
|
| The community was significantly smaller, but many of the
| plugins that existed were very well maintained, there was a
| small but healthy set of developers with paid plugins.
|
| I don't want anything to do with that industry anymore,
| whenever I want to put up a little site I just use a static
| site generator (hugo). I think there is an interesting
| potential market for a wp admin like UI that could be used to
| create hugo posts/etc and manage the theming configuration.
| Then you click publish, it fires off a hugo container that
| generates the static site and updates the host... maybe such
| a thing exists.
| cynicalsecurity wrote:
| WordPress will survive all of us.
| c0brac0bra wrote:
| And that's a shame
| minimaxir wrote:
| .org or .com?
| mrinfinitiesx wrote:
| I watched the video/stream he did, and have very little good to
| say about it. while he may be right about it, cool; trademark
| infringement, yeah, they didn't give back, there's a feud; I'm
| sure it goes deep.
|
| He disabled millions of wordpress sites from being able to
| update/access things. Plugins.. functionality.. Sure, they don't
| deserve to get free API access and all that; none of that
| matters.
|
| What about non-profits for animal shelters, programs like st
| judes, things where livelihoods depend on it and they don't even
| know what an API or domain name is let alone what all this stuff
| is about and their whole stream of operations comes crumbling
| down because they paid somebody to set it all up for them and all
| they know to do is long in to wp-admin and press 'update' and
| make blog posts and check their 'payments' etc and modify/add
| things like their woo commerce plugins?
|
| We're smart, we know what all this means, a lot of people I come
| across in the real world can utilize wordpress because it's easy
| for them, but if I explain in depth how things work they look at
| me like I'm speaking a foreign language.
|
| He doesn't care.
|
| I don't need that question answered. I already know.
|
| I don't have an opinion on it, but when 75% of the internet is
| running wordpress, have some tact.
| aphroz wrote:
| If they don't know, now they know
| edm0nd wrote:
| The Notorious B.I.G. and all his homies hate WordPress
| timeon wrote:
| As far as I know any WP instance is able to upload
| plugins/themes.
| AlienRobot wrote:
| Well, first, your website won't explode just because you can't
| update the plugins. If it's running just fine now, it can
| probably keep running just fine for months.
|
| Second, WP Engine can create their own repository of plugins to
| update their customers' plugins instead of relying on
| Wordpress.org.
|
| Third, WP Engine customers can just leave to another host if WP
| Engine can't actually provide the service they are selling.
| minimaxir wrote:
| Many techies hate it when CEOs are boring and only say comms that
| are vetted by their companies PR and legal teams...
|
| But this whole debacle is what happens when a CEO doesn't do
| that. There can be unexpected, company-ending results.
| groby_b wrote:
| There's... a bit of a spectrum from completely blandified
| corporate comms to what Matt's doing there.
|
| It is perfectly possible to have a distinct voice without
| setting the house on fire. There _is_ a middle ground.
| Aerroon wrote:
| I don't really think so. CEOs are still people. Eventually
| they're going to mess up and since they are constantly
| scrutinized it will be blown up.
| deathanatos wrote:
| There are plenty of people who have their own voice that is
| between "soulless corporation" and "watch it all burn"...
| Crosseye_Jack wrote:
| There are mitigating techniques to work around that.
|
| Another set of eyes, not to rewrite it into safe corporate
| speech, but just as a safety guard to say "hold up there
| bud... Stop and count to 10"
|
| Talking about "counting to 10", you don't hit the publish
| button right away, save it as a draft and leave it a few
| hours/over night and come back to it when your not as fired
| up. Hitting publish when your fired up is rarely a good
| thing.
|
| If you want to vent, swear and shout. Write that angry
| post, but then select all and delete it, take a breath, and
| start again. 9 times out of 10 you are going to be a lot
| less fired up the second time around.
|
| Granted the last two require some self control, but that's
| what the first one is for.
|
| As you said, CEOs are human too, and as humans we all need
| a helping hand every once and awhile, nothing wrong about
| that.
| cm2012 wrote:
| Very informative article. Matt is definitely in the wrong here.
|
| I also loved how this was formatted, it was quite long but easy
| to read with a nice font.
| troad wrote:
| I realise it's high drama o'clock, and therefore time for
| everyone to jump in and try to get in on that sweet drama
| traffic, but this is the epitome of an article that really could
| just have been a Tweet.
|
| There's not really any new information here, nor does the article
| offer some unique third-party take that hadn't been explored
| before. It's a lot of armchair psychology, third-hand anecdotes,
| and unfounded sweeping generalisations. TMZ: Tech Bros.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| This reads like part of the smear campaign predicted by Matt in
| his interview with Michael Paulson.
|
| Also note that the author doesn't disclaim any financial stake in
| the company he used to work for, WP Engine, after his company was
| acquired. He merely claims that he isn't a "fan of either party",
| so we should value his opinion and trust that it is impartial.
|
| As for myself, I've never used WordPress or any CMS, I'm a lowly
| embedded software engineer. If Matt, the progenitor and steward
| of one of the most successful open source products in the world,
| asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech, I'm inclined
| to believe him.
| mvkel wrote:
| > asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech
|
| By that definition, TinyMCE should be able to disable all
| textareas in Wordpress, since the product has used it freely
| for years without contributing anything.
|
| And Lodash should be able to disable TinyMCE.
|
| And QUnit should be able to disable Lodash.
|
| It's open source. Should every Linux user be -required- to
| contribute? I'd bet the OS quality would degrade if that were
| so.
|
| I am left with the question: why, after 13 years of WP Engine
| doing the exact same thing, is Matt now willing to burn down
| the house?
| mitjafelicijan wrote:
| I partially agree with you that this could be a slippery
| slope, but there is a difference here. TinyMCE is not burning
| through API and CDN resources of the dependencies it is
| using.
|
| Matt mentioned it's costing them millions per year to provide
| them with automatic updates and other services they provide.
|
| And he also mentioned that they can host these services on
| their own, since the code is GPL2. They don't do this because
| they don't want to pay these costs themselves.
| mvkel wrote:
| Perfectly acceptable to make that claim, which would be a
| ToS violation. Why couch it as something else?
|
| if WP Engine contributed to source, would they suddenly be
| allowed to rack up API and CDN bills?
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Where's the pricing page? Where's the terms that say "once
| your customers use our service enough you have to pay"?
| Where's the option in WordPress to switch to another
| backend?
| tpmoney wrote:
| The converse of this is where's the contract or terms
| that says WP has to keep providing API access for free?
| It's open source software after all, almost all of which
| comes with some form of "no warranty or guarantees" of
| any kind. Certainly I've never seen one offering
| contractual access to any and all future updates or
| patches.
| ValentineC wrote:
| > _Matt mentioned it 's costing them millions per year to
| provide them with automatic updates and other services they
| provide._
|
| A single hosted plugin repository is a huge multiplier
| towards ecosystem growth, but WordPress always had the
| option of distributing the load by asking others to set up
| mirrors, and offering a selection of mirrors. Y'know,
| redundancy. They've never done so.
|
| There's also no option in the WordPress core to easily
| point towards a different repository URL.
|
| Maybe this whole debacle would lead to slightly more
| decentralisation of WordPress, which might be a good thing
| for the long-term health of the project and community.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| 1. Provide proof of your claim that they don't contribute, or
| a request for them to do so. I suspect Matt and his companies
| have contributed to many of their dependencies.
|
| 2. All those products have no marginal cost for users,
| WordPress.org does.
|
| 3. Just because bad behavior has been tolerated for a time
| doesn't mean it must be tolerated forever.
| mtndew4brkfst wrote:
| _Also note that the author doesn't disclaim any financial stake
| in the company he used to work for_
|
| It would hardly be shocking if he had some stock or whatever,
| given how prevalent that is for tech workers' comp.
|
| However, if it were me, and I _did_ have a financial stake in
| WPE, I would not /could not write either of these sentences
| from TFA under my personal view of honesty:
|
| _I really don't have any reason to be a WP Engine
| cheerleader._
|
| _I can assure you it's not me defending my old company just
| because I used to work for them. I've got literally no reason
| to do that._
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| If it were you and you did have a financial stake, would you
| make a post like this?
|
| I doubt it, and it would be wrong to do so.
|
| If he didn't have a financial stake, he would have listed it
| in his myriad reasons to trust him.
| minimaxir wrote:
| It's worth noting that Matt Mullenweg invested in WP
| Engine's Series A.
| glenstein wrote:
| I think the quotes you choose arguably are not even the
| strongest, because the author also said:
|
| >I've watched from the sidelines as the company has
| implemented a bunch of scummy policies and shady sales
| tactics to squeeze money from their customers and make it
| harder to leave.
|
| And
|
| >On most days, if you wanted to have a conversation about how
| much WP Engine sucks, frankly, I'd be a happy participant.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The author goes to pretty great lengths to be transparent about
| his background and employment history.
|
| More to the point, he lays out a _ton_ of specifics about how
| Matt acted like a Grade A Asshat. If you have any issue with
| those specifics, you can and should state your objections.
|
| But your comment here is just nebulous BS. Saying "This reads
| like part of the smear campaign predicted by Matt in his
| interview with Michael Paulson" sounds _exactly_ to me like
| when Elizabeth Holmes gave her now infamous retort "first they
| think you're crazy, then they fight you, and then all of a
| sudden you change the world". Both are equally vacuous
| statements that don't address the specific criticisms put
| forth.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I will concede that my remark about a "smear campaign" is
| worthless or detrimental to the discussion.
|
| 1. The author claims dozens of other companies behave
| similarly and claims that Matt has not taken any action
| against them. However, the author makes no claim of what
| level of contribution to WordPress, cost to Wordpress.org, or
| any contractual agreements those companies may have with
| WordPress entities. Multiple companies do pay for trademark
| licenses. Scale is also an important factor here. Estimates
| are in the hundreds of millions of revenue for WP Engine.
| They are one of the largest companies in the ecosystem, of
| course they should be contributing more than smaller players.
|
| 2. The author claims that Matt attempted "extortion" and
| refused to give WP Engine more time to address his demands.
| It does seem true that Matt refused to give them more time.
| However, Matt claims this conversation has been going on for
| more than a year. A deadline seems appropriate if your
| counterparty keeps delaying.
|
| 3. The author claims that trademark confusion between
| WordPress and WP Engine is an unfounded concern, citing
| confusion Shopify and Spotify. This is ludicrous on its face,
| those companies serve completely different market needs,
| compared to the WP Engine literally offering the product
| produced by the trademark holder. The author claims that
| WordPress.com and WordPress.org is confusing the trademark,
| but doesn't state whether WordPress.com has a license to use
| the trademark.
|
| 4. The author claims that Matt's dissatisfaction with WP
| Engine's contribution is unreasonable because there aren't
| terms and conditions or a contract. This is missing the point
| entirely. The point is that good members of the community
| shouldn't need to be forced to contribute. If they want to
| play by the letter of the law, Matt isn't obligated to
| provide the free services that their business relies on, just
| as they aren't obligated to give back. It cuts both ways, and
| if they won't operate in good faith, it is self destructive
| to continue to enable them.
|
| I'm out of energy to continue, so I'll stop here.
| glenstein wrote:
| >2. The author claims that Matt attempted "extortion" and
| refused to give WP Engine more time to address his demands.
| It does seem true that Matt refused to give them more time.
| However, Matt claims this conversation has been going on
| for more than a year. A deadline seems appropriate if your
| counterparty keeps delaying.
|
| What would "seem appropriate" would be some form of terms
| and conditions, or contract, or legal authority that would
| warrant any of this business about imposing any deadlines
| or demands of any kind whatsoever, in the first instance.
| The time isn't Matts to give or not give to begin with.
|
| >The point is that good members of the community shouldn't
| need to be forced to contribute.
|
| I think the author was at pains to emphasize through the
| beginning middle and end of the article that there was such
| a thing as a right way to make this case. And the problem
| is weaponizing certain levers at WordPress in ways that
| raise all kinds of conflict of interest issues, have the
| potential to cause all kinds of collateral damage, and
| undermining credibility and integrity of WordPress as a
| long-term project.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I agree that there is a right way to make this case, but
| we don't know if it was already made behind closed doors.
|
| The ultimatum Matt made in the texts highlighted by WP
| Engine appears short, but it seems unlikely this was the
| first time Matt brought up these issues.
| jaredthirsk wrote:
| Even assuming the best was done behind closed doors,
| isn't it reasonable to WP Engine customers to give them
| notice of at least a few weeks or months that "unless
| your host complies, you will lose access to WordPress.org
| updates"?
|
| If Matt can pull the rug on one host's customers without
| notice, he can do it again. He has been on streams saying
| no other host is in the doghouse with Matt, but a week
| ago almost nobody knew WPE was on thin ice.
|
| If Matt didn't do the reasonable thing to warn WPE
| customers, what other unreasonable things is he capable
| of doing in the future?
|
| The "reprieve" of a new Oct 1 deadline is still far from
| reasonable in my opinion to the point that it is further
| infuriating that he is using it to virtue signal, though
| it is at least a tiny start of an implicit
| acknowledgement that he screwed up. But it's a matter of
| rebuilding trust in the ecosystem now, and I think Matt
| is still digging a hole, and this can't be fixed until he
| apologizes, and the governance of the WordPress.org
| update server is clarified (best case: out of Matt's
| hands), or somebody more neutral creates a competing
| update server, fracturing the ecosystem.
| synergy20 wrote:
| "So this post might be a lot of things, but I can assure you it's
| not me defending my old company just because I used to work for
| them. I've got literally no reason to do that."
|
| by all means this guy is not the best one to call removal of
| Matt. this also reminds me those VC that got rid of the founders
| because founders have some flaws, and VC forgot that,without
| those flawed founders there will be nothing to start with.
| pilgrim0 wrote:
| Yeah. The author starts by giving all the reasons he is biased.
| And still expects us to take their argument at face value? Come
| on...
| slyall wrote:
| I think the author is being open with their conflicts of
| interest.
|
| Which is a bit of a contrast to what Matt is doing.
| pilgrim0 wrote:
| There's a difference between being awkward and being wrong;
| being persuasive and being right.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| > I haven't really been involved in WordPress for about five
| years now....Yes, I used to work for WP Engine. I even kinda
| liked them, for a while (mostly while they just kinda left us
| alone for the first year or so). But I wouldn't say my time
| at the company left a good taste in my mouth.
|
| > We don't need to dredge up a bunch of old and buried stuff
| that isn't really important anyway, but suffice to say: I
| really don't have any reason to be a WP Engine cheerleader.
| Most of the people I knew there have left, and I've watched
| from the sidelines as the company has implemented a bunch of
| scummy policies and shady sales tactics to squeeze money from
| their customers and make it harder to leave.
|
| If this isn't good enough for you then you're not being
| honest, you are just desperately looking for any excuse to
| defend Mullenweg.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| If he didn't have a financial stake in his former company,
| WP Engine, he would have put it at the top of his list of
| disclaimers. His company was acquired by WP Engine, it
| would be crazy if he didn't get stock as part of that deal.
|
| The omission of that suggests that he _does_ have a
| financial stake.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Being transparent about one's potential conflicts of interest
| is exactly what you are supposed to do.
|
| Contrast that with Matt's original tirade where he didn't
| mention the licensing deal he put in front of WP Engine that
| they turned down.
| timeon wrote:
| But being transparent does not change the fact.
| glenstein wrote:
| But it does mean we're empowered to proceed and consider
| his claims on the merits and not just go into a shutdown
| and disregard which I would suggest is an intellectually
| lazy cop out, and not at all in nuanced way of bringing
| consideration of potential biases to bear on the merit of
| the arguments. If the effect of encountering that
| information is that you refuse to consider any arguments
| on their merits then I think there's a kind of
| information literacy issue at play, because the correct
| assessment would be to assess the extent to which they do
| or don't mitigate the severity of the claims, rather than
| to brush them aside wholesale.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I also noticed in his list of disclaimers he did not say
| whether he has a financial stake in either party. I assume he
| does own stock in his old employer, WP Engine, given that his
| company was acquired.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| If he's an idiot maybe. Or at least desperately in need of a
| competent financial planner. Who the hell would hold onto the
| stock of a (still relatively small) acquiring company a
| decade plus after the acquisition?
| cachedthing0 wrote:
| The word 'press' in wordpress suddenly got another meaning, what
| a mattfia....
| halfjoking wrote:
| Own the community hate, and change the name to WorstPress?
| breck wrote:
| Matt just needs to let copyright and license go. A long walk
| could cure him of his blindless.
|
| Then Wordpress will be fine.
|
| In general, anyone who doesn't wake up to E=T/A! will go extinct.
|
| Copyrights are for cons. Patents are for parasites. Licenses are
| for losers.
|
| You can only ignore nature for so long.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| What about this situation is the undeniable force of nature?
| breck wrote:
| There are 2 groups of businesses: those like in this
| Wordpress battle that are fighting over copyrights, patents,
| and trademarks & those that have realized these things are
| retarded and make them innovate at <1% the speed of those who
| embrace the public domain.
|
| Empirically we have been seeing this for a while (look at the
| dominance of open source programming languages, for example.
| Even Microsoft open sourced C# b/c they saw it was dead
| otherwise), but now we have a simple undeniable formula which
| explains this which is roughly E = T/A! [0]
|
| You can keep your head in the sand and pretend that things
| aren't going to change, but the bottom line is if you stick
| to (c) and patents you retard your own development and will
| be driven to extinction by your competitors.
|
| [0] https://breckyunits.com/eta.html
| daft_pink wrote:
| You would think that a company as invested in WordPress as WP
| engine is would invest more in the community and contribute to
| the software and also want to contribute to get features that
| would help it save money.
| bastawhiz wrote:
| Do all the WordPress plugins that they maintain not count?
| youngtaff wrote:
| Or the sponsorships of WordCamp?
| iambateman wrote:
| I hope, for the good of the community, that Matt will choose
| either nonprofit leader or tech CEO. It's become clear that both
| roles cannot live within one person.
|
| If he were just the leader of the WordPress foundation, this
| whole thing would just be an embarrassing PR failure. As it is, I
| wonder if his actions will rise to the level of criminal.
|
| After watching his interview with The Primeagen, it seems like he
| is mentally wearing the clothes of a righteous prophet...the
| misunderstood advocate of a disrespected organization.
|
| Unfortunately, he's ignoring the fact that he invested in WPE
| years ago, is CEO of a direct competitor, has publicly said he
| hopes WPE loses billions of dollars as a result, apparently has
| no proof in writing, and is pulling thousands of innocent
| developers into his petulant crusade.
| blinded wrote:
| "apparently has no proof in writing" sounds like there are
| emails and what not. But those should come out as the lawsuit
| progresses. Just because he didn't make any public now doesn't
| mean they don't exist.
| iambateman wrote:
| We will see. He was asked in the interview twice and he _did_
| respond and it wasn't good. He pulled his calendar out and
| read out dates he met with their CEO.
| blinded wrote:
| Something for discovery imo (if it gets that far). He
| seemed put off that wp engine would release his texts,
| would be unfair of him to do the same? I'm not sure.
| underseacables wrote:
| This was a really good article, something that jumped out at me
| was that there might be a serious legal issue with the IRS.
|
| WordPress, the for-profit company, may be too intertwined with
| WordPress the 501c3 foundation. I'm not a lawyer, but a nonprofit
| is supposed to be very careful about how it operates. Matt's post
| on wordpress.org is clearly crossing the line by blending the
| for-profit company, with the nonprofit foundation. Perhaps it's
| not illegal, but it is certainly unethical.
| neom wrote:
| I like Matt, he's both a caring guy and a sensitive guy. As a
| sensitive and caring guy myself who tried the CEO thing, I think
| sadly, those are not particularly useful "top qualities" for that
| job.
| threeseed wrote:
| There are plenty of caring and sensitive CEOs.
|
| In fact good leadership demands high amounts of empathy,
| sensitivity and emotional intelligence.
|
| Either way he is not demonstrating those qualities now.
| neom wrote:
| I very specifically used the words "top qualities" - I'm not
| disputing they are quite important, but being overly caring
| about certain things or overly sensitive about certain things
| are not what should be number 1 or 2. In all the CEO's I've
| invested in over the years, I find when they get in sticky
| situations, it tends to be they're over expressing these two
| qualities in a situation, they are caring tooo much about
| something or being overly sensitive about something. I think
| right now, he is caring too much about something about being
| too sensitive about others, and having seen matt thru the
| years and dealing with Automattic at DigitalOcean, can't say
| I'm surprised. Like I said, I like matt, he's just not always
| the most.. level headed dude in my experience.
| salesynerd wrote:
| The general consensus of commentators seems to be that Matt is
| wrong in the way he approached this matter. Going by the wisdom
| of the crowds, maybe that's true.
|
| However, my question is this: has WPE given a factual rebuttal to
| Matt's claims? Especially, considering that their entire business
| is dependent on WordPress?
|
| I am concerned that in the eagerness to judge Matt's conflict of
| interest, we should not throw out the baby with the bath water.
| aimazon wrote:
| Matt hasn't made any claims that need a rebuttal. Matt's claims
| are factually correct. The issue is that they're immaterial.
| Matt has demanded that WPEngine pay 8% of their revenue to
| Matt's company (Automattic). Matt has retroactively changed the
| terms of use of the WordPress trademark to create a violation
| by WPEngine. Matt has engineered the situation, we can't
| separate the claims from the conduct because they're one and
| the same.
|
| Matt's position is (ostensibly) based on his hard line views
| about the moral obligation to contribute created through the
| use of open-source. The trademark sideshow is based on Matt's
| understanding that a moral argument isn't going to convince a
| private equity backed company to spend money they don't need to
| spend. Matt believes WPEngine has a moral obligation to
| contribute and the trademark licensing fee is the easiest tool
| he has to force action.
|
| Matt is making a moral argument. WPEngine don't care because
| they're driven by money not morals.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I think those final 8% demands we've heard about have been
| after months of stalled conversations with WP Engine.
|
| Given the lack of reliable information right now, I'm going
| to believe the individual that has a decades-long track
| record indicating that they care about open source over the
| private company that is legally obligated to pursue profit as
| its only objective.
| aimazon wrote:
| What are you choosing to believe? The 8% isn't disputed.
| Matt has acknowledged it is true. Matt has acknowledged his
| actions are because he believes WPEngine are not fulfilling
| their moral obligation. The facts are settled, the question
| is whether you side with Matt's belief about WPEngine's
| obligations and how you feel about Matt's actions (in the
| context of Matt operating a competitor).
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I'm saying that his 8% demand sounds like the last line
| in a long conversation with an interlocutor acting in bad
| faith, trying to slow walk the inevitable demise of the
| relationship.
|
| If WP Engine had acted in good faith, Matt wouldn't have
| had to come up with terms unilaterally.
| jcranmer wrote:
| I do not think it appropriate to believe the individual who
| is in two roles and is trying to use his position in one
| role to benefit his other role, especially while trying to
| muddy in which role he is acting.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > I think those final 8% demands we've heard about have
| been after months of stalled conversations with WP Engine.
|
| Who gives a shit, it doesn't matter. Why would he think WP
| Engine would pay anything they're not contractually
| obligated to pay?
|
| This has all played out similarly elsewhere, e.g. to the
| point that some companies have started to carve out a new
| types of licensing so that all of the "open source revenue"
| doesn't just get vacuumed up by the big clouds/hosting
| providers (e.g. see the "Fair Source" movement being
| promoted by Elastic and others).
|
| Matt could have gone down that route. I could easily
| imagine a million ways he could have handled this better
| and gotten the community on his side. Instead he's acting
| like a collosal asshole.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| Are contracts everything? Matt created Wordpress. I think
| he's more deserving of the spoils than some company whose
| owner is Silver Lake, one of the most evil PE firms.
|
| Reminder: https://www.wired.com/2011/06/skype-silver-
| lake-evil/
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Again, who gives a shit? I'm in no way saying WP Engine
| is some sort of angelic organization, and I don't care.
| All I see is childlike behavior from someone who
| definitely should not be in control of both Automattic
| and the WordPress Foundation, and my guess is that if the
| board doesn't force his ouster that WPF will have serious
| issues with the IRS.
|
| Also, the whole point of open source is that you _don 't_
| "own it" after it's open sourced. If you don't like those
| terms, license them under different ones, which exactly
| what the whole recent "Fair Source" movement is about and
| what other companies like Sentry have handled in a much
| more dignified fashion.
| salesynerd wrote:
| Maybe, the newcomers have learnt the lessons from the
| travails of the old open source projects? That doesn't
| mean that the oldies should just suck it and keep quiet.
| nsonha wrote:
| Accept it, it is the deal with opensource. It's also the
| basis that people should be using when debating OSS
| versus other models. People should not be making business
| or policies or economic decisions based on some
| unenforceable honor system
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| Agreed, WP Engine shouldn't have left their customers
| wellbeing up to the whims of an organization they were
| antagonizing.
|
| WP Engine was banking on the free stuff from
| Wordpress.org, and they got burned because they bit the
| hand that was feeding them.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| That's the entire reason people are so pissed, and what
| TFA is about. WordPress.org is _supposed_ to be part of
| the foundation, one that has a _charitable_ purpose to
| support the WordPress community. It 's fine to argue WP
| Engine was a bad community member, but cutting off access
| to WPE customers (after demanding payment _to Automattic_
| ) looks exactly like extortion.
|
| Matt has shown he simply can't be trusted to keep his
| roles as head of WordPress Foundation and Automattic CEO
| independent.
| glenstein wrote:
| >shouldn't have left their customers wellbeing up to the
| whims of an organization they were antagonizing.
|
| The point of the article is that it's precisely these
| actions that have damaged the integrity of WordPress for
| everybody, because we can now no longer look at WordPress
| as having stable stewardship, but as something ready to
| whimsically descend into unpredictable retaliatory
| actions, without any rhyme or reason or structure.
|
| Once you start talking that way, it seems to me you've
| completely lost sight of what it is to be the healthy
| steward of a norms driven foundation. The reason you work
| out things in charters, and in terms of service and so on
| is precisely to avoid situations like this, where there
| are spirals of escalation all hinging on subjective
| interpretations of everything.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| Matt hates PE firms so much, the only other active member
| of the WordPress Foundation board, as appointed by Matt
| is...
|
| ... the Managing Partner of one of those evil PE firms.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| That is exactly why he cut them off. They aren't
| contractually obligated to pay. The only "contract" is
| the implied social contract of building your company on
| open source.
|
| If they want to play hardball about what's required
| instead of acting generously, _like Matt has done for
| decades_ , then they are getting their just deserts.
|
| Matt isn't obligated to be nice to dick heads.
| WordPress.org isn't obligated to provide service for
| free.
|
| WP Engine decided that they would only do what's good for
| them. Fine. If they piss in the pool, they can't be mad
| when everyone else gets out. It is irrational for
| WordPress to continue acting like there isn't an
| extractive entity in their midst.
| glenstein wrote:
| >If they want to play hardball about what's required
| instead of acting generously, like Matt has done for
| decades, then they are getting their just deserts.
|
| I can't help but notice that once it gets to the question
| of whether there's any actual authority to demand a
| licensing fee, the conversation stops being about what is
| or isn't legal, who is authorized to do what,
| considerations of proportionality or collateral damage or
| any of that, and just start slipping into this mode of
| speaking like mobsters from the 1920s. If that's the
| cadence you find yourself slipping into it might be an
| indicator of whether you're the good guy.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| > Matt isn't obligated to be nice to dick heads.
|
| Well, in some sense, _he is_ , at least as it relates to
| his leadership of WordPress Foundation. As a charity with
| a mission to support the WordPress community, his actions
| over the past week look like a singular _attack_ on the
| community in order to benefit the for-profit Automattic.
|
| This comment on a previous post puts it better than I
| could: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41661086
| salesynerd wrote:
| I believe that we should give a shit, and it does matter.
| The "balkanization" of open-source licensing into more
| restrictive versions is ultimately going to adversely
| impact all of us.
|
| And, if Matt had not chosen to be an asshole, would this
| issue have gotten the prominence that it has got?
|
| Also, WPE could easily have taken the wind out of Matt's
| sails by declaring their (direct or indirect) commercial
| support for WordPress.org while reducing to pay money to
| Automattic. As far as I know, they have chosen to not do
| so.
|
| For all I know, Matt may lose the battle; but, open
| source would lose the war if companies and individuals
| continue to use the kind of arguments that WPE and it's
| defenders are making - that, they are legally not
| obligated to care two bits about the open source software
| on which their entire businesses are built, leave apart
| what is moral.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| The whole point of contracts and licenses is to
| explicitly spell out what is allowed and expected. I
| mean, who is to say "how much" support is expected if
| it's not written down. Matt wanted 8%. Why not 15%, or
| 1%?
|
| The idea that users of open source software "owe"
| something back to the original developers is revisionist
| history, and if you don't like how users are using your
| software, why did you open source it with a permissive
| license in the first place? There are plenty more
| restrictive licenses (e.g. GPL) that support a more "if
| you take you have to give" model. Saying "well, we wanted
| to open source it but not _that_ kind of open source " is
| BS.
| cscurmudgeon wrote:
| > the individual
|
| The same guy running a for profit company?
| salesynerd wrote:
| I have, often, come across comments on HN threads that
| corporations that are driven only by money are evil. For
| example, many threads with Google, Facebook, et al have
| expressed such sentiments.
|
| If we agree that to be true, then WPE should also be
| considered evil, shouldn't it? Then, why so much defence for
| them and all vitriol for Matt?
|
| And, if we accept that WPE are right to focus only on the
| legality of their action, then should we not apply the same
| logic to all corporations when they focus on maximizing their
| revenues and profits?
| glenstein wrote:
| >However, my question is this: has WPE given a factual rebuttal
| to Matt's claims?
|
| I mean... The article talks about this extensively. And the
| article is my first exposure to the issue but presumably it's
| not the first place where these points have been presented. The
| authority or obligation to give back isn't a legal one, the
| authority to demand 8% raises all kinds of conflict of interest
| issues and appears dubious if not outright illegal, the global
| message posted to admin dashboards was an abuse of power, and
| the banning from using plugins doesn't even pretend to have a
| legitimate pretense.
|
| Apparently part of the backstory here is there's a dizzying
| context, and there might be some subjectivity involved in
| surfacing these as the pertinent issues, but I wasn't left with
| the impression that the ball is in WPE's court to explain any
| kind of smoking gun that hasn't been accounted for by the
| discussion in the article.
| timeon wrote:
| > The article talks about this extensively.
|
| The article is trying to manufacture consent with vague
| authority: "Most reasonable and knowledgeable people seem to
| share this opinion." While it is someone who is not
| impartial. He claimed that he worked in WPE before and than
| 'extensively' writes why it shouldn't matter - without
| telling anything.
|
| I'm not saying that what 'Matt' did is OK. Seems to me no
| party here is in right. But that is not my point. My point is
| that these kind of articles - especially lengthy vague ones -
| are just increasing the drama.
| glenstein wrote:
| I understand that part of hn policy is that comment through
| should be getting more nuanced over time, but this seems
| like a bunch of zoomed out fuzziness that barely touches on
| any details.
|
| The author makes all kinds of specific arguments that don't
| have anything to do with consensus, and the structure of
| the arguments is grounded on the inherent rightness or
| wrongness of interpretation of various rules, the existence
| are non-existent of copyright, the disproportionate and
| escalatory choices Matt has made, a whole host of specific
| arguments that don't have anything to do with where the
| consensus falls.
|
| They do mention that Matt has appeared to have turned many
| in the community against him, but the arguments are pretty
| freestanding even if you want to set that aside, and
| there's also another interpretation other than
| manufacturing consent which is simply that it's a
| legitimate observation about what's really happening.
|
| I can't say for sure, but there's so much more going on
| here that's more specific to the issue of right and wrong
| within zooming out and saying "gosh this sure is a lot of
| drama". I think if that's the level at what you're engaging
| in the conversation it's just making everything fuzzier.
| hk1337 wrote:
| Let it die.
| b0ner_t0ner wrote:
| All the cool PHP kids use Laravel anyway.
| _bent wrote:
| From Mullenwegs personal website (https://ma.tt)
|
| > Afterward, I also privately shared with [ThePrimeagen] the cell
| phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on
| or debate these points. As far as I've heard she hasn't
| responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists
| live?
|
| this is not normal.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| The thing is that none of this matters. This is what happens
| when you get too zoomed in on the tiny little island you live
| on and make a total ass of yourself.
| QuantumGood wrote:
| A sad but seemingly near-perfect example of the elitism /
| privilege that comes from living in a bubble and not knowing
| it.
| talldayo wrote:
| This one really rubbed me the wrong way:
| https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/
|
| > I have kept my personal philanthropy private until now.
|
| > This is something I've tried to keep quiet, because true
| philanthropy isn't about recognition. ...
|
| > If Lee Wittlinger, who controls Silver Lake's investments in
| the WordPress ecosystem, or Heather Brunner, the CEO of WP
| Engine, would like to publish their charitable contributions
| over the past 12 years, they are welcome to do so.
|
| Is he trying to avoid turning charity into a pissing contest,
| or is he trying to use his affluence to shame a competitor?
| This guy literally can't keep his story straight over the
| course of a _single blog post_.
| patmcc wrote:
| I'm also _very_ curious, given his other statements and how
| he seems to conflate actions of the foundation, automattic,
| his own person, and wordpress.org, whether these
| contributions are _his_ or one of theirs. And to what causes,
| at that; can you give to your own foundation, I wonder?
| aimazon wrote:
| The contributions are legit. Despite his claim to have
| never spoken publicly about his contributions before, he
| has spoken about them (when it was convenient to make a
| point about his moral superiority). He donated hundreds of
| thousands per year to the Apache Foundation, for example.
| Additionally the WordPress Foundation's financials are
| public, they don't receive many donations (tens of
| thousands per year).
| patmcc wrote:
| Huh, that's very interesting - https://projects.propublic
| a.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...
|
| I though part of Matt's point was that Automattic "gave
| back" to the foundation?
| aimazon wrote:
| The WordPress Foundation is irrelevant to WordPress
| itself, it just holds events. The WordPress project is
| owned by Matt and that's what Automattic donates to (in
| the form of Automattic employees working roughly 4k hours
| per week on the WordPress project). There's also the
| money spent on running WordPress.org by Automattic but
| that's entirely opaque (nobody knows how much it is,
| although it's claimed to be millions).
| interestica wrote:
| What if Trinidad changed residency requirements for its TLD?
| ...
| djbusby wrote:
| At least give Heather a few days to respond/engage, given the
| big-ass-drama that Matt created.
| aithrowawaycomm wrote:
| She shouldn't be engaging with or responding to ThePrimeagen
| at all, he is a jackass who solely appeals to ignorant young
| developers: https://youtube.com/@ThePrimeagen/videos
|
| He is not even close to a journalist, he is a dumb tech bro.
| I hope Heather blocked his number. This is insanely scummy
| and stupid behavior from Mullenweg.
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| With nearly half a million followers, it does make him a
| journalist in the sense of "wielder of the 4th power". (But
| perhaps this only makes matters worse, depending on how he
| uses that power.)
| appendix-rock wrote:
| Yeah. A journalist like Andrew Tate.
| mtndew4brkfst wrote:
| Calling Prime a journalist even by implication is hysterically
| funny.
| blinded wrote:
| Author assumes contribution data from wp engine is distorted
| simply because they don't agree with Matt's communication /
| response from the trademark dispute. That doesn't seem to fair?
|
| If they worked there for that long perhaps they can provide
| insight into the upstreaming of issues strategy or if it was an
| org focus or an afterthought?
| ipaddr wrote:
| Distorted because both companies are very different and putting
| resources in helps Automaticc in different ways. Having 47
| people working on specific things is a strategic thing where
| the other company is just hosting.
| blinded wrote:
| Fair point.
| ChrisNorstrom wrote:
| "WordPress powers 43.5% of all websites as their CMS. Around 478
| million websites are built on WordPress" Thanks to Matt
| Mullenweg's leadership and now you want him removed because he
| has flaws?
|
| Let me guess you want another Mark Zuckerberg in there?
|
| What's wrong with you people? He needs a stern talking to, not
| complete removal. This is another re-occuring case of "create
| hero, destroy hero" where the public likes to build someone up,
| find a flaw with them, act like they are irredemable, act like
| you're so distraught and hurt by their behavior, cry your tears,
| and destroy the hero you once celebrated.
| minimaxir wrote:
| > He needs a stern talking to, not complete removal.
|
| He's getting one from his customers.
| ipaddr wrote:
| A CEO who takes 43.5% and reduces it to 25% should be asked to
| leave. He may have gotten to 75% (now down to 43.5%) but even
| Jobs was fired.
| blinded wrote:
| In the Prime interview it sounded like there were attempts in the
| past to ensure the trademark was not violated and he expressed
| the feeling like they were stringing him along. If he had only
| hired lawyers, not made that talk with his accusations, and let
| the lawyers handle it would more people be on his side?
| glenstein wrote:
| I think that was a major take away from this article. There was
| a right way to navigate it, but by navigating it in a harmful
| way you also become an actor capable of, and accountable for,
| the way you've chosen to respond.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| I think it probably would have been quieter, but people would
| be accusing him of not being transparent instead. I think it's
| kind of nuts to not give Matt the benefit of the doubt while
| more information comes out. He is the party with a past that
| demonstrates good behavior and intentions.
| philistine wrote:
| He obliterated his past when he fired the Death Star
| (blocking access to the repository for all WP Engine sites).
| That's the whole point of the article!
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| WP Engine, a for profit company, should be providing what
| their customers need, not relying on free services from a
| foundation for required functionality.
|
| Especially if they have a fraught relationship with the
| provider of those free services.
|
| System76 provides the PopOS repos that are based on Ubuntu.
| They don't freeload.
|
| Canonical provides the Ubuntu repos that are based on
| Debian. They don't freeload.
|
| WP Engine is freeloading, no doubt about it.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Were they ever asked to run a mirror of the plugin repo
| for use with their customers?
|
| If the bandwidth/infra costs to support all of WPEngines
| customers were so much, then they must have, right?
|
| If they were asked and refused that's certainly one
| thing. If they were never asked, and then when they
| refused the demands for money.. then it looks like matt
| was just looking for a wrench to hit them with and this
| one came to mind.
| timeon wrote:
| > Were they ever asked to run a mirror of the plugin repo
| for use with their customers?
|
| No need to ask someone with common sense who is already
| doing it.
| FireBeyond wrote:
| > Canonical provides the Ubuntu repos that are based on
| Debian. They don't freeload.
|
| At least for Ubuntu, the packages they distribute
| generally don't have the same checksum as Debian, so
| they're not the same packages (at least as binaries).
|
| Also, "wordpress.org" is hard-coded as the plugin repo
| source all over WordPress.
| youngtaff wrote:
| > He is the party with a past that demonstrates good behavior
| and intentions.
|
| Go talk to other people who've had dealing with Matt and
| you'll find plenty who don't agree with that statement
| tolerance wrote:
| This man is having a breakdown disguised as a legal battle.
| deepfriedchokes wrote:
| This definitely screams mental health.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| While Matt comes looking "not good" and his apparent
| impulsiveness and "less than optimal" communication skills are
| doing more damage than good, I find it "interesting" most of the
| people attacking him either choose to ignore of gloss over the
| absolute trash WPEngine management people are.
|
| It's rich coming from people demanding a high standard for Matt
| but not for the WPEngine people.
|
| In the end all of it will get "solved" because there's way too
| much money in this to go any other way.
|
| As Danny Glover famously said: "I'm too old for this shit"
| chenmike wrote:
| Honest question: what am I supposed to be demanding from
| WPEngine? They're not the ones out there posting unhinged
| rants.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| That's not an honest question.
|
| If you are completely fine with WPEngine's commercial
| practices, trademark violations in their marketing materials
| ( like it or not ) and moral OK for them not picking up part
| of the bill of what they consume ( talking about infra
| resources, not even talking about code ), then.. why the f**
| are you so bothered by an unhinged rant from some guy? It's
| GPL after all.. Don't you see the irony? or you just want to
| see it because Matt is kind of an unlikable dbag? Is that the
| level of depth we are at when cheerleading for this stuff?
| chenmike wrote:
| How are you allowed to tell me if that's an honest question
| or not? Do I have some hidden WP Engine shill comments in
| my history or something? Can you read my mind?
|
| I don't have a strong opinion on WP Engine's behavior,
| because I'm not convinced by Matt's arguments. I do have an
| opinion on Matt's behavior though. I think it's unhinged.
|
| Feel free to respond but I'm done with this conversation,
| given how unpleasant I feel it's going to be given the
| incredibly uncharitable tone in your response. I recommend
| taking a walk or something.
| ergonaught wrote:
| Matt has effectively threatened the businesses of companies whose
| web presence is hosted via WPE/FW.
|
| He's got to go.
| keane wrote:
| On this issue, there's been a lot of discussion along the lines
| of "the trademark for an open-source project should work the way
| I prefer which is..." or "if I was in a decision making position
| I would simply..." or "in a perfect world...". Others, like this
| post, unwisely include appeal to motive. It would be better for
| us to stick to discussion that is able to limit itself to the
| substance of both parties' claims.
|
| The first thing I think cannot be neglected to be mentioned in
| posts about the dispute is that (1) Matt created the project
| (yes, a fork counts), (2) his friend coined the name, (3) Matt's
| company originally registered the trademark. Then (4) Matt's
| company donated the mark to a foundation to make it widely
| available for noncommercial use while they retained the exclusive
| commercial license to the mark. No mention of this in this
| presentation.
|
| To be fair to commentators, part of the trickiness surrounding
| this dispute is an old issue regarding open source projects: do
| the open source software licenses imply a trademark license? The
| answer is generally understood to be: no. Having a license to
| software does not grant you a license to a trademark. For more on
| this I found illuminating the 2009 article in the International
| Free and Open Source Software Law Review by Tiki Dare JD
| (Director of Trademarks at Sun Microsystems, Inc.) and Harvey
| Anderson JD (General Counsel of the Mozilla Corporation) titled
| "Passport Without A Visa: Open Source Software Licensing and
| Trademarks":
| https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/11/37
|
| As one is not given a license to the trademark, a common
| understanding is that one can:
|
| - limit one's use of the trademark to nominative or descriptive
| fair use (A)
|
| - use the mark under supplemental guidelines from the trademark
| owner (B)
|
| - acquire a dedicated license to the trademark (C)
|
| At https://wpengine.com/plans (take your screenshots now) they
| have titled services they offer simply "Core WordPress",
| "Essential WordPress", and "Enterprise WordPress". It could be
| claimed this branding exceeds nominative use. It is far beyond
| the mentioned descriptive use of a "managed WordPress hosting
| company". If this branding exceeds fair use, it needs to comply
| with justifications (B) or (C). It very clearly does not comply
| with the published guidelines, both before and after recent
| modifications, that read "All other WordPress-related businesses
| or projects can use the WordPress name and logo to refer to and
| explain their services, but they cannot use them as part of a
| _product_ , project, _service_ , domain name, or company
| name...". You can also see examples of use (current/cached and
| perhaps somewhat inadvertent) of "WordPress Engine" itself at
| https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awpengine.com+%22wordp...
|
| Many commentators seem hung up on the fact that using the letters
| 'WP' was and remains an allowed practice according to (B).
| However, with regard to any trademark guidelines it could safely
| be assumed that a mark owner is not suggesting that one may use
| protected marks in ways that cause confusion as this is counter
| to the purpose of trademarks. Commentators are likewise hung up
| on the idea that the guidelines were subject to change or are
| despairing about the recent edits that clarified that the use of
| 'WP' under (B) must avoid uses that could imply the product or
| service were synonymous with WordPress itself. For similar open
| source software trademark guidelines and as a useful point of
| comparison, I think commentators should take a look at Red Hat's
| public guidelines, which explicitly remind users that guidelines
| like these can be changed:
| https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-pol...
|
| Other commentators are focusing on the length WP Engine had 'WP'
| in their name. With use since 2010, some have implied that a
| statute of limitations has passed but the Lanham Act has no such
| time limit. These commentators don't seem to be considering
| Automattic's confusion claim. WP Engine has claimed in their
| materials that they are "The most trusted WordPress platform" and
| "The Most Trusted WordPress Tech Company". 'Trusted' can be read
| with the meaning 'seen as trustworthy' rather than the meaning
| 'utilized' which could be found to be creating confusion. The
| most [seen as trustworthy] platform would presumably be the
| project itself (in an expansive understanding of 'platform' that
| a non-technical user might perceive). If CNET started calling
| itself "The Most Trusted Firefox Source" I would expect The
| Mozilla Foundation to ask them to stop. Many commentators appear
| to be suggesting there should be no enforcement of the WordPress
| mark, which seems an unusual position, or otherwise seem to take
| issue with Automattic's original trademark registration in the
| first place.
|
| Regardless, if WP Engine's uses of the marks exceeded rationales
| (A) and (B), they needed a license. This is what Matt was
| seeking, even allowing such a license to be paid in kind. At this
| point, a court will likely decide if their use exceeded (A) and
| (B). Calling for Matt to have a role change is one thing but to
| likely libel Matt with the term extortion, a criminal offense,
| especially after only moments before admitting "maybe there's
| validity there" (regarding infringement of Automattic's
| WooCommerce mark) is absolutely reckless and it's disappointing
| to see this unserious blog post promoted here. To see uncareful
| defamation coming from someone who made their living for many
| years off the software their target of ire created is especially
| bleak.
| jaredthirsk wrote:
| We seem to live in an age of narrative over strict substance,
| unfortunately, and I think the author captured the narrative
| quite well, with a weakness or two on detail that you pointed
| out, so I appreciate your attempt to elevate the precision of
| the discussion.
|
| I don't think people using the word extortion understand how it
| is defined in a legal sense and the gravity of the criminality.
| The word extortion as people use it could be replaced with
| 'threat' or 'ultimatum', with some sentiment of unethicality or
| unfairness added back in. Legally, it may be fine for Matt to
| make ultimatums: "contribute in one of the ways I demand, or my
| free WordPress.org API that I provide is no longer accesible to
| you", but as a community steward, it seems unfair to the many
| users of WPE who were not given that ultimatum with any notice
| (initially), or enough notice after the "reprieve" (Oct 1 still
| isn't enough notice.)
|
| The only argument of Matt's I find compelling is that WPE's
| plan names look like a potential misuse of the WordPress mark.
| If I was WPE, that would be the only thing I would be worried
| about, and consider changing (though to do it right now might
| look like an admission of guilt.) If I was a judge, I would
| consider slapping WPE's wrist on that point, and considering
| WPE at most 1% at fault in this entire debacle based on facts
| available. I don't find the overall trademark confusion
| argument compelling (especially in light of WordPress.org vs
| WordPress.com confusion, and WordPress.org as Foundation vs
| WordPress.org as Matt the CEO of a competitor to WPE
| confusion), though if Matt wants me to believe his own mom is
| clueless, I will let him have that point.
|
| After fault finding regarding acts of harm is done, then I'd be
| willing to consider which companies, including WPE, are
| leeching in a way that makes them not healthy members of the
| community, but only after all this is sorted out.
|
| Putting aside all legal arguments, I agree with the
| directionality of Josh Collinsworth's main point regarding the
| health of the ecosystem. To put in my own words: Matt's
| behavior with banning a host's customers from security and
| feature plugin updates from WordPress.org without sufficient
| warning (or clear enough reason) has damaged trust in a core
| single point of failure in the WordPress ecosystem -- I see no
| excuse for this -- and it is important for the ecosystem to
| restore this trust as soon as possible.
|
| It's an unacceptable situation to begin with, that something
| that powers 43% of all sites on the Internet can have security
| updates degraded on the whim of one individual, no matter how
| much he contributed to the software in the past.
|
| The most direct way to repair trust would seem to be at the
| very least to put WordPress.org's update server in the
| ownership and operation of someone else, preferably a
| functioning board who was bound to serve the
| community/ecosystem in a way that included minimizing ecosystem
| disrupting events like this one, and who established
| transparent guidelines on what sort of behavior can get a
| company banned from using these servers (and few mention they
| are also banned from future conferences). That this event came
| without warning to many users seems outrageous.
|
| Another thing Josh has right: I and virtually all people hate,
| to a high degree, greedy ownership of corporations that
| intentionally lets quality rot as pricing is jacked up and
| money is squeezed out, so it is very remarkable that so many
| people think the more critical infraction to the community here
| is what Matt has done. This isn't about the greedy private
| equity firm or trademarks right now. It's about a bigger and
| more urgent problem. We have plenty of time to get back to
| corporate greed after the current emergency is resolved.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Hmm. Maybe this is a bit of an outlandish take, but although his
| decisions do seem at least superficially sus, I have a hard time
| agreeing with Josh's take. He chooses to make a lot of highly
| agreeable comparisons, but to me it seems more like a city (or
| some level) of government severely turning up the temperature on
| a particularly egregious contingent of landlords, landlord, or
| demographic, who've been abusing the system we've all been chill
| with until it's just not cool anymore. You could crank up
| property tax by double or triple _the next year_ , and not offer
| the ability to vote on the issue of zoning anymore, or you could
| do the thing that no politician has the balls or the power to do
| and fundamentally change the system in a way that takes those
| issues off the table entirely, making the whole system more
| equitable in the future. The repercussions could be dire for some
| people, but it is what it would take to give a giant fuck you to
| the people who hold the reins. If the landlords can always hold
| the poor vulnerable freelancers that live in their basement suite
| over the heads of anyone who could otherwise theoretically change
| the rules, nothing will ever really change, and the people who've
| been along for the profitable ride won't want it to. But if you
| don't do it, you might risk your future hypothetical economy.
|
| Now, I know that's all a bit of a reach, but it's hard for me to
| not think asking for Matt to be removed for this reason is just
| like all those people who ostensibly would want public transit to
| be funded for all those other people who can't afford cars, until
| they finally got around to ripping up the street you use to drive
| to work every day and jacked up your taxes by $50.
|
| But, all that said, I've also never liked WordPress at all and
| don't have a dog in the fight, this is just a thought experiment.
| However, if I had to move because my landlord eventually got
| screwed for not reporting my rent on their income tax, I'd be
| like "well sometimes that happens, was nice while it lasted but
| my place was a shithole, they weren't competing fairly, and they
| were constantly showing up to city council meetings trying to
| block a mid-rise from going up while I was at work paying their
| mortgage".
| sublinear wrote:
| If wordpress is to survive it needs to not be wordpress
| r721 wrote:
| @photomatt answers to some questions in this subthread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676411
| hackerbeat wrote:
| This guy clearly doesn't know what he's talking about.
| sierra1011 wrote:
| Lightly off-topic, but:
|
| >Five for the Future asks that if you benefit from WordPress, you
| give back 5% of your time directly to that open-source project
|
| As someone that semifrequently has to support WP installs, I
| would definitely make a case for it not being a benefit in my
| life
| AStonesThrow wrote:
| Is that why it's named "Auto _matt_ ic", because the founder's
| name is "Matt"? Cute.
|
| EDIT: Yep - https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-
| tc1-origin/
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