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Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

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Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably not too many. The average WordPress site is run by a small business that doesn’t care the slightest bit about tech industry drama, or what open source even means.

I think these days, the average WordPress site runner is trying to find a cheap/free. Non-technical solution. I help out with a sports league who run a couple wordpress sites. - One, its totally the wrong CMS for how they use it. - Two, they have almost no ability to diagnose and debug issues themselves. Honestly 80% of the issues that get raised to me are even just solved by clicking "keep plugin automatically updat…

Whats the alternative? Most people have just switched to Instagram or Twitter for stuff like that. Easy daily update/schedules ect.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#382
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really not the right way to hire a lawyer you need right now . Probably not the right way to hire a lawyer at all, frankly. How does he expect a junior attorney to help him at all, especially one who is depending on him for his paycheck?

> That’s really not the right way to hire a lawyer you need right now. > Probably not the right way to hire a lawyer at all, frankly. > How does he expect a junior attorney to help him at all, especially one who is depending on him for his paycheck? Most large companies outsource the bigger stuff and anything non day-to-day (like trademark enforcement and litigation) to law firms.

Yup, that’s what I was referring to - but they’re already doing a lot of weird stuff, so hiring someone internally to handle litigation (or similar) would be the kind of dumb I would expect.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#383
post #268
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s really not the right way to hire a lawyer you need right now . Probably not the right way to hire a lawyer at all, frankly. How does he expect a junior attorney to help him at all, especially one who is depending on him for his paycheck?

The job specifically asks for a JD with 8+ years of experience. The position will lead corporate, securities and governance work. This is not a junior attorney. Here’s the job ad: https://automattic.com/work-with-us/job/associate-general-co...

Thanks, I was going off the description from the parent poster. My bad!

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#384

So whoever is good enough to land a job in this crappy market got a sweet payday and the moat will stay in the company. What a brilliant move! I think these people really overestimate how much people give a shit about their company and what they are doing. Automattic is a sweet remote first shop which pays well - albeit I've heard you have to drink plenty of BS in day to day job. Attacking WP Engine and preventing th…

> (which is not even OSS if you can ban people you don't like) You're hallucinating that part of OSS. There's no requirement in any open-source software to interact with people you'd rather not interact with, for whatever reason you have, and there are extremely low limits to your continuing obligations for past interactions if you decide to "ban" them. (I'm using my non-lawyer understanding/memory on OSI-approved li…

The Open Source Definition is only about copyright licensing, but it does mention "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups".

https://opensource.org/osd/

Technically you can of course discriminate in other ways and remain Open Source, like banning folks from downloading, or interacting with your bug tracker etc. Often those bans will be ineffective, for eg when there are multiple download mirrors that don't have the same bans as you, or people use Tor etc. Some of these sorts of bans don't seem to be in the spirit of the FLOSS movement though.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#385

So whoever is good enough to land a job in this crappy market got a sweet payday and the moat will stay in the company. What a brilliant move! I think these people really overestimate how much people give a shit about their company and what they are doing. Automattic is a sweet remote first shop which pays well - albeit I've heard you have to drink plenty of BS in day to day job. Attacking WP Engine and preventing th…

Its everyones freedom to build a parallel open-source eco-system, that cooperations can not legally leech on.

That wouldn't be Open Source. There is an alternative movement called "Fair Source" though:

https://fair.io/

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#387

It will be interesting how many customers start flying the coop. Wordpress can be entrenching software but I have also found that a lot of the plugin heavy sites are just using plugins/customizations for trivial things you could easily eclipse. Migrating off of it is easier done than said in that case. We will be leaving WP Engine and Wordpress behind after we spend 2 months rebuilding on sensible software on a sensi…

I run dozens of WP sites and help others create and maintain with it, I won't be leaving it any time soon - although at times it is appropriate to change hosts or even to change to a static site. Wordpress makes those things easy. I always have discussions with people about possible hosting issues, and issues with licenses changing when suggesting to use or continue to use WP (or anything else you do not control) Thi…

Well you can’t change hosts because Matt doesn’t like some of them when they don’t pad his bank account.

Never said it wasnt easy. It’s also bloated and poorly developed. It’s a bit like asking why people don’t use bricks instead of tires.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#388

It will be interesting how many customers start flying the coop. Wordpress can be entrenching software but I have also found that a lot of the plugin heavy sites are just using plugins/customizations for trivial things you could easily eclipse. Migrating off of it is easier done than said in that case. We will be leaving WP Engine and Wordpress behind after we spend 2 months rebuilding on sensible software on a sensi…

What did you move away to? I loved wordpress back in the 2-3.0 days lol. But all the other CMS are way too complicated for me, let alone normal people. I still have old sites stuck on relatively old versions.

We’re moving to ContentStack + react frontend. However if you want control I recommend hosting Payload.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#389

It will be interesting how many customers start flying the coop. Wordpress can be entrenching software but I have also found that a lot of the plugin heavy sites are just using plugins/customizations for trivial things you could easily eclipse. Migrating off of it is easier done than said in that case. We will be leaving WP Engine and Wordpress behind after we spend 2 months rebuilding on sensible software on a sensi…

Curious why you say WP Engine is terrible? My org has been using them for several years without issue.

They rate limit queries

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#390
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, presumably you can look at a history of wins in similar cases instead of hourly rate or reputation?

This isn't like a football match where the variables are well-known. Lawsuits are decided on facts if they end up going to court, and every case is unique even if they follow similar fact patterns.

If you are saying it’s essentially random, why would you go with an expensive lawyer when you can hire basically anyone (competent). Is it just virtue signalling?
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