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WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

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Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#51

Post by neya »

This sets a very dangerous precedent - that this software "sold" as free and open source, free as in free beer and free as in speech is not really free at all. This only exposed the fact that the plugin repository was all along centrally managed and Wordpress has never been truly free all along. That if you tick off the overlords, then you can be banned from this critical central repository of plugins. All this for someone customising the way their admin panel looks like and making some changes they had the right to, in the first place.

I think someone should use this as an opportunity to build a better Wordpress clone. You know what, I'm going to do it. I don't care about adoption and market share. I care about freedom. This is not freedom.

It reminds me of the WURFL saga that happened a few decades ago for the exact reason.

And you know what? Even for such a large, mature product, it is full of security issues, bug and has absolutely poor code quality and poor development experience. Did I mention it doesn't even scale without throwing tons of money at it? I will update you guys soon.

/endrant

Thanks.

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#52

Post by cyral »

oliwarner wrote: post #43
type0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His own competing managed WordPress service (confusingly named Wordpress.com) disables features as well They are allowed to do this because Automattic owns the trademark along with WordPress Foundation

Has anyone actually been confused about the hosted service and the software? I struggle with this argument because so much SaaS follows this model with self-hosted community editions. It's not like .com is trying to sell you a proprietary self-hosted version.

So many people get confused between .com and .org. It’s a sticky on the WordPress reddit and less technical people definitely think going to Wordpress.com to sign in is somehow their install’s login. Which makes his point about people being confused about WP Engine so silly when he runs the most confusing part of WordPress.

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#53

Post by JimDabell »

oliwarner wrote: post #43
type0 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> His own competing managed WordPress service (confusingly named Wordpress.com) disables features as well They are allowed to do this because Automattic owns the trademark along with WordPress Foundation

Has anyone actually been confused about the hosted service and the software? I struggle with this argument because so much SaaS follows this model with self-hosted community editions. It's not like .com is trying to sell you a proprietary self-hosted version.

Yes, WordPress.org and WordPress.com are mixed up all the time, so much so that /r/WordPress on Reddit has had a sticky for years linking to a page on WordPress.org that explains the difference. According to WordPress.org itself:

> People are often confused about the differences between WordPress.com and WordPress.org because they sure sound similar. This workshop highlights the key differences between .Org and .Com.

— https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/what-is-the-difference-...

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#54

Post by chuckadams »

sureIy wrote: post #45
bravetraveler wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it says a bit about how dubious 'new and improved' can be Security updates, features? Perhaps yay. Redesign, boo. I already use the thing.

Yeah, exactly. Do you really want to put that much effort because “redesign boo”? Makes no sense. Put the effort learning the new UI and move on. Every single “bring the old X back” project ends badly, you’re just extending your own pain by using those projects because they’ll slowly fall out of date. The only way to successfully “bring the old X back” is to convince the original vendor, like it happened for the Metr…

If it were just a matter of a new admin UI, that would be one thing. A quick peek under the covers reveals how howling-at-the-moon-insane the Gutenberg block format is, how brittle it is when working with filters and other low-level things, and that's been the real source of pushback from developers.

TBH I kind of liked Metro back when it was used for XP Media Center. Win8 just did a crap job at integrating it with the rest of the system (and arguably repeating the same crap job with win10/11)

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#55

Post by LegionMammal978 »

LegionMammal978 wrote: post #18

> What I will tell you is that, pending their legal claims and litigation against WordPress.org, WP Engine no longer has free access to WordPress.org’s resources. Since when has WP Engine been threatening litigation against WordPress.org or the WordPress Foundation? Their C&D letter [0] was only addressed to Automattic Inc. Perhaps it has to do with the claims of trademark infringement in the counter-C&D letter [1]?…

An update from this morning: WP Engine have said that they hadn't filed any litigation against WordPress.org [0].

[0] https://x.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#57

Post by echoangle »

gulbanana wrote: post #47
MattPearce wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please point out where Tumblr’s TOS is “weirdly transphobic”. Users who post pornography are banned regardless of gender identity. Matt’s sabbatical from Automattic was already underway when this incident occurred. Disclaimer: I work for Automattic but I am speaking personally.

are all of you called Matt over there?

That’s why it’s called AutoMATTic

Wait, is Automattic really called that because Matt Mullenweg founded Automattic? I never realized that

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#58

Post by true_detective »

I've been paying attention to this drama, is this the correct timeline? Please correct any mistakes.

1. Wordpress.org is a not for profit blogging platform that's widely used, a crazy figure like 50% of websites are created using this platform. It was created in 2003 and Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder. It's community driven and developed and open source (meaning that the source code is freely available for anyone to modify and redistribute).

2. Wordpress.com is a for profit website which offers managed WordPress hosting. Wordpress.com is owned by Matt's company autoMATTic. Their main competitor is WPEngine.com which is not affiliated with Matt. Wordpress.com was created in 2005, WPEngine.com in 2010.

3. Matt used to be a major investor in WPEngine.com, but that's no longer the case. In 2024 Matt demands 8% of WPEngine.com's revenue for leveraging Wordpress.org (which is, as previously stated, free and open source software). He says the name WPEngine.com is confusing to customers, as they may confuse it with the non-profit Wordpress.org (his own for-profit website is Wordpress.com). What's more, instead of paying Wordpress.org they must pay autoMATTic, Matt's for-profit company.

4. When WPEngine refuse to pay, he delivers a speech at the main WordPress conference publicly shaming WPEngine, saying they don't give back. They frack the WordPress eco-system, and urges customers not to use their platform.

5. WPEngine issue a cease and desist letter to Matt. Matt sends one back demanding WPEngine stop using Wordpress.org due to trademark violation, and bans them from the platform.

Re: WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

#60

Post by tomachi »

sureIy wrote: post #38
stogot wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re conflating two posts. He didn’t change any terms until they took legal action against them. If my neighbor came over to my house everyday and made a sand which, then sued me… then I’d lock the front door Though I don’t know how much merit his original post had.

No this is more like city hall saying “you can’t build here” 10 years after watching you build. Too late, the house was built and you implicitly gave permission for it.

If WP engine has taken legal action against Matt, that is extremely disrespectful, and not gracious; he even tried so do it softly via the dashboard;

"WP Engine accused Automattic and Mullenweg of not keeping their promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and giving developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software."

What promises? People make and release software using the GPL "copyleft" license because they enjoy doing so. Everybody is free to cease doing that if they no longer enjoy it. If it no longer brings them joy. And if it is costing measurable quants of money for the non-profit .org to provide back-end services to the $100 billion dollar corporation who is profiting from using the core plugins and themes etc.

Perhaps 8% of gross is a bit much, but I don't see them counter offering 1% and a way to work up over time. They were purchased for $250 million in 2018 so they have plenty o' cash. Bad faith wpengine for trying to strip-mine WordPress like that.

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