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

Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

notes.ghed.in

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#11

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

rpgbr wrote: post #5
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #4

This is a really basic blog post and it doesn’t make any kind of convincing argument for the provocative title. Towards the end it says: > I really like WordPress, as I’ve stated many times, but Matt has become an irresponsible and damaging actor. He urgently needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership, or he risks undermining WordPress’ popularity and driving the community away. But it makes at best, a really w…

Author here. The main issue at play is that Matt used the blog of a GPLv2 project to attack a competitor of his own for-profit venture for playing by the rules — disabling revision posts is an official and documented WP feature. The point is: if Satan themselves decides to use and make a profit off based on WordPress, he is allowed as long as they follow GPLv2, which is the case with WP Engine. (Satan as an alternati…

> The point is: if Satan themselves decides to use and make a profit off based on WordPress, he is allowed as long as they follow GPLv2, which is the case with WP Engine.

To use your own logic, if the founder of a FOSS project leader wants to have a conflict of interest (which is a negatively biased framing of them earning a living off their two decades of hard work), they’re allowed to. If they want to criticize someone else making money off that project, they’re allowed to. It is downright bizarre that you think it is acceptable that “Satan” can profit off Wordpress but with the creator of Wordpress you suddenly take issue with a “conflict of interest”.

To further use your own logic: Is Matt violating the GPLv2? No. OK, then why are you whining about him? He has the same freedoms that you ascribe to WP Engine or others. It just looks like you’re carrying water for an evil private equity firm with a long track record of being evil. All to attack someone who actually created a massive positive impact on the world. Yea no thanks - no one is convinced by this weird demand that Matt needs to step down.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#12

Post by rpgbr »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #11
rpgbr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here. The main issue at play is that Matt used the blog of a GPLv2 project to attack a competitor of his own for-profit venture for playing by the rules — disabling revision posts is an official and documented WP feature. The point is: if Satan themselves decides to use and make a profit off based on WordPress, he is allowed as long as they follow GPLv2, which is the case with WP Engine. (Satan as an alternati…

> The point is: if Satan themselves decides to use and make a profit off based on WordPress, he is allowed as long as they follow GPLv2, which is the case with WP Engine. To use your own logic, if the founder of a FOSS project leader wants to have a conflict of interest (which is a negatively biased framing of them earning a living off their two decades of hard work), they’re allowed to. If they want to criticize som…

I never said he violated GPLv2. I'm just saying that his behavior is damaging the project. As a leader, he's bonded to a responsibility to guide and nurture the community. Attacking a participant of said community for no reason (or a pathetic one, like the revisions stuff) is not what most expect from a good leader.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#14

Post by replete »

The founder of an open source project he founded should step down because you don't like his opinions?

He's allowed to be pissed off that some other company is profiting without contributing back. Developing the single most popular website framework is not without cost. Don't like his paid service? Don't use it!

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#15

Post by mvuijlst »

rpgbr wrote: post #12
blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The point is: if Satan themselves decides to use and make a profit off based on WordPress, he is allowed as long as they follow GPLv2, which is the case with WP Engine. To use your own logic, if the founder of a FOSS project leader wants to have a conflict of interest (which is a negatively biased framing of them earning a living off their two decades of hard work), they’re allowed to. If they want to criticize som…

I never said he violated GPLv2. I'm just saying that his behavior is damaging the project. As a leader, he's bonded to a responsibility to guide and nurture the community. Attacking a participant of said community for no reason (or a pathetic one, like the revisions stuff) is not what most expect from a good leader.

It's not a pathetic reason. I'm 100% on Mullenweg's side here. The DNA of WordPress is to keep revisions of everything.

You may not care about the history of your website, many people do.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#16

Post by yunohn »

rpgbr wrote: post #9
aftbit wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I think its pretty acceptable for FOSS project leaders to call out behavior they don't like, even if it is technically legal. That's sort of the point of moral leadership, right? I do wonder to what extent this blog post is a preamble to a trademark lawsuit, which might be a bridge too far.

It could be if the leader didn't gained anything by pointing out a bad behavior in the ecosystem, which isn't the case for Matt. He runs a direct competitor to WP Engine.

I think it’s fair for the creator of the product (WP) to criticize competition that undermines a feature he considers important to him. He also makes a very important point about WPEngine not contributing back to the AGPLv2 codebase you are talking about.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#17

Post by yunohn »

mvuijlst wrote: post #15
rpgbr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said he violated GPLv2. I'm just saying that his behavior is damaging the project. As a leader, he's bonded to a responsibility to guide and nurture the community. Attacking a participant of said community for no reason (or a pathetic one, like the revisions stuff) is not what most expect from a good leader.

It's not a pathetic reason. I'm 100% on Mullenweg's side here. The DNA of WordPress is to keep revisions of everything. You may not care about the history of your website, many people do.

It also costs very little in DB for the vast majority of users, so it’s a classic case of Private Equity squeezing money from their product.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#18

Post by nchmy »

joshstrange wrote: post #3

> Additionally, it’s also ironic (hypocritical, I’d say) for him to complain about the lack of post revisions as something that undermines WordPress, while Automattic offers WordPress without access to plugins and all themes in its basic hosting plans, and makes Jetpack, a Trojan horse to upsell features (even the basics, like… stats), mandatory for all users. It's absurd that they gate so many features behind their…

No one should be using any of the big wordpress hosts - theyre all overpriced garbage.

Its so damn easy to get a WP site up and running with a decent and cheap VPS server and a cloud panel (e.g. runcloud, xcloud, enhance, spinupwp, gridpane, etc...). Some even have a free tier. Cyberpanel is even a free option, though clunky.

For a rounding error of blog traffic which can probably be fully cached in cloudflare CDN, you could use a 1vpcu server from Hetzner for like $3/month. Hell, I think there's a fully free tier at aws lightsail and Oracle cloud (theyre garbage, but again, just cache it all in cdn).

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#19

Post by FireBeyond »

yunohn wrote: post #16
rpgbr wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be if the leader didn't gained anything by pointing out a bad behavior in the ecosystem, which isn't the case for Matt. He runs a direct competitor to WP Engine.

I think it’s fair for the creator of the product (WP) to criticize competition that undermines a feature he considers important to him. He also makes a very important point about WPEngine not contributing back to the AGPLv2 codebase you are talking about.

> I think it’s fair for the creator of the product (WP) to criticize competition that undermines a feature he considers important to him

That his own product ALSO gates access to, unless you pay the top tier for?

I don't think it's fair to criticize the competition for that, and not acknowledge that you do the same, no.

Re: Matt Mullenweg needs to step down from WordPress.org leadership ASAP

#20

Post by rpgbr »

mvuijlst wrote: post #15
rpgbr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said he violated GPLv2. I'm just saying that his behavior is damaging the project. As a leader, he's bonded to a responsibility to guide and nurture the community. Attacking a participant of said community for no reason (or a pathetic one, like the revisions stuff) is not what most expect from a good leader.

It's not a pathetic reason. I'm 100% on Mullenweg's side here. The DNA of WordPress is to keep revisions of everything. You may not care about the history of your website, many people do.

I guess access to plugins is way more WP DNA than post revisions, and yet Matt's own WordPress.com restricts access to plugins to more expensive tiers only. (Not to mention the “confusion” he mentions regarding WP Engine, which is explicit with WordPress/WordPress.com.)
Post reply on HN