Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

WP Engine is not WordPress

wordpress.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 175 posts

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#71

Post by blackoil »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have a long rant about how open source is wage theft and value extraction by unscrupulous third parties is built in and unavoidable. But setting that aside, I learned of WP Engine when they launched here, on hacker news. At the time their value proposition was "bullet proof and secure wordpress for people who just want to publish and not learn devops". Over the years, I've watched them through a progression of mana…

> I have a long rant about how open source is wage theft.

Good you didn't write, or else I may have read it for free and did a wage theft.

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#72

Post by benjaminwootton »

bastawhiz wrote: post #33

Am I missing something? This feels like such a bizarre hill to die on. He's upset that a company offers hosting of his software with a default setting changed. I guess, don't have that setting then? There's no mention of the source code being changed or custom patches being applied. So the allegation that it's "something that they’ve chopped up, hacked, butchered to look like WordPress" is maximally overblown. Unless…

If this is their worst complaint about one of WPs biggest hosts then he isn’t doing too badly.

I’m not sure if he’s still involved, but the founder Jason Cohen seems very nice and down to earth. I’m sure he would turn the setting back on in 5 minutes if Matt came knocking and this is all there was to it.

WP Engines whole reason for being is that open source Wordpress is a car crash to manage. The hacks, the spam, the broken addons on upgrades are in a league of their own. They’ve probably done more to help the platform than hinder it.

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#73

Post by nqzero »

jonas21 wrote: post #60
ChuckMcM wrote: post #17

I have a long rant about how open source is wage theft and value extraction by unscrupulous third parties is built in and unavoidable. But setting that aside, I learned of WP Engine when they launched here, on hacker news. At the time their value proposition was "bullet proof and secure wordpress for people who just want to publish and not learn devops". Over the years, I've watched them through a progression of mana…

> I have a long rant about how open source is wage theft and value extraction by unscrupulous third parties is built in and unavoidable. How can it be wage theft when people voluntarily contribute to it? If you don't want others to use your software, don't write open source software.

try releasing something under an open-but-not-open-source license as a solo developer or small team. there's a lot of established developers (presumably earning high salaries) that will very vocally badmouth the license choice. i'd seen this happen over and over again eg here, and when i've asked other developers why they open sourced their products they've said the same, and it was one of my concerns when i approached launch

sadly, my market fit was so bad that nobody ever looked at the license ::karma::

note: i have no problem with someone choosing not to use a product with a license they don't like (i do the same). it's the dissing of others that would use it that potentially crosses the line. i'm not even saying it *is* theft, only that there's a valid argument to that effect

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#74

Post by snowwrestler »

donohoe wrote: post #70
Kye wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automattic's own managed WordPress platform severely restricts features all the way up to the top plan. I guess it's okay for them to do it. edit: I am referring to WordPress.com which is the offering comparable to WP Engine.

I think you need to give more context. I’ve been a WP VIP customer at various points and I don’t think this is true as a general statement. It really depends on context.

I think they are referring to WordPress.com.

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#75

Post by usaphp »

Kye wrote: post #32

This has the same energy as a spat between two Mastodon instances. Did he make any effort to work this out with them in private? I'd think he would mention that if he did. Actually, since WordPress supports ActivityPub now, it's a spat between two massive AP platforms with apocalyptic potential. Someone needs to get follower migration from WordPress to anything else on the AP fediverse done quick.

He mentioned during the talk that he made multiple attempts to resolve this in private but the other side wasn’t interested in hearing him, he also said he did not want to do this presentation

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#76

Post by donohoe »

bdcravens wrote: post #25

We settled on Wordpress and WP Engine for the marketing side of my employer's website. Strictly speaking, I'm in charge of all of our technology choices, but my time and attention is better spent on our product, and WP Engine and its deployable artifacts is good enough for leadership. (We are a very small company) My boss (ie the owner) has never asked me about per post versioning. When we need to roll back, WP Engin…

I hear you for marketing. On journalism side it is helpful - depends on editorial workflow which varies from org to org.

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#77

Post by usaphp »

It looks like people here are missing the context of the source of the issue between Matt and WP engine. Couple days ago he posted on X that wpengine has similar revenue to automattic, yet doesn’t contribute back to open source as much as they promised to (5 hour per week per employee or something like that). A wpengine employee replied to a post saying that management doesn’t allow them to contribute to Wordpress open source because it doesn’t align with KPI targets. That employee got fired the next day. That’s when Matt’s issue with wpengine escalated.

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#78

Post by [deleted] »

lightlyused wrote: post #15

They really thing WordPress is something special. It really isn't; there are better systems. I think Matt is just mad because he is not getting any revenue from wpengine. That being said, some commercial users of open-source software need to be better contributors to the eco-system and not just vampires.

[deleted]

Re: WP Engine is not WordPress

#79

Post by Kye »

usaphp wrote: post #77

It looks like people here are missing the context of the source of the issue between Matt and WP engine. Couple days ago he posted on X that wpengine has similar revenue to automattic, yet doesn’t contribute back to open source as much as they promised to (5 hour per week per employee or something like that). A wpengine employee replied to a post saying that management doesn’t allow them to contribute to Wordpress op…

This seems like a detail that could be covered in a few sentences in the post. In fact it seems central to his argument so it's weird that he didn't. Allegedly it's in the hour-long video, but that's asking a lot.
Post reply on HN