I can't speak to the merits or rightful grievances of Wordpress.org or Wordpress.com in this, but it is clear that Matt is fucking unhinged.
Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
131–140 of 263 posts
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#132> Last week, Mullenweg announced that he’d given Automattic employees a buyout package, and 159 employees, or roughly 8.4 percent of staff, took the offer. “I feel much lighter,” he wrote. Wow, that's telling. 8.4% of his company decided he was acting in enough bad faith to quit without another job lined up in this economy? And he takes it as a good sign? Wow...
I'm sure WP Engine will be happy to take them in.
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#133“WP Engine is free to offer their hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code to their customers, and they can experience WordPress as WP Engine envisions it" Does anyone know what the context about this is? What did WP-Engine change which Matt disliked? As I understand they were disabling page revision history (but would enable it if you asked) and only because they had some other proprietary to wp-engi…
WordPress doesn't like products/orgs that offer services related to WordPress using "WP" in their name to imply affiliation with WordPress. WordPress has recently updated their terms of use to reflect this. Matt is also on record criticizing WP Engine for never having donated to the WordPress Foundation. This is all coming to light after the breakdown of licensing negotiations between Automattic and WPEngine EDIT: ht…
> WordPress has recently updated their terms of use to reflect this.
That’s… a very odd way of portraying this.
The policy, for like a decade, was:
“The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.”
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1foknoq/the_word...
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#134“WP Engine is free to offer their hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code to their customers, and they can experience WordPress as WP Engine envisions it" Does anyone know what the context about this is? What did WP-Engine change which Matt disliked? As I understand they were disabling page revision history (but would enable it if you asked) and only because they had some other proprietary to wp-engi…
It's about revision history, as Matt laid out here: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/
However, disabling revision history is a setting offered as part of WordPress: https://wordpress.org/documentation/article/revisions/#revis...
I'd argue that WordPress.com, the paid hosting platform that Automattic operates, is more of a "hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code". By default you can only load a subset of themes or plugins and only if you choose the Business plan or higher. This seems like a bigger issue than having revisions turned off with a WordPress-provided setting.
It also seems a bit rich to be offering a product using the GPL license and then being upset that people make changes to it?
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#135This whole bit of drama really makes me glad I never invested time/energy in WordPress. It's like Real Housewives of Computer Nerds level of whining, and feels just as fake. Regardless of right/wrong, the whole thing has just turned into a 80s made for TV type of situation. There was a much better way at handling this, but somebody had access to social media and the wheels promptly fell off.
The nice thing is it's GPL, so the founder/owner can't just take his ball and go home. It's also widely-used/important enough that it will get forked if leadership problems start to make it unusable for too many people.
The problem though, for people who want to use WordPress, is that WP sites fundamentally rely on wordpress.org for downloading and installing plugins and themes, and critically for security updates to plugins and themes. (You can install/update manually, but the standard admin dashbord is set up to make wordpress.org integration by far the best way to do so.)
Yeah, you've got your GPL copy of all the source code. But next week's discovery of vulnerabilities in whatever random plugin gets to be this weeks news means you need to download/install the updated version. Which canonically is found at wordpress.org. We host a couple of dozen sites on WPEngine (and have done for about a decade, very happily with the price, features, and service). Our internal business continuity planning is now investigating ClassicPress, keeping an eye on comms from WPEngine to see what their path forward in terms of keeping WP sites updated without wordpress.org access, and questioning whether it's time to stop using WordPress at all. We already have a few sites that use WP as the admin/publishing tool, and generate the site as static html for hosting via S3/CloudFront - we may make that our standard deployment bit if we had to move all our WP sites off WPE, we may as well investigate other newer tools.
We are certainly having conversations right now with potential new clients warning them of the drama in the WordPress ownership/ecosystem, and advising considering alternative options or at least waiting until the dust settles on Matt's current ill advised crusade.
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#136Is there really nobody in the Wordpress.org organization who can provide a check on this kind of behavior? Or do they really collectively share this Matt character’s attitude toward professionalism?
Wordpress is free as in owned by Matt Mullenweg. He has control of the Wordpress foundation, owns wordpress.org, etc. There aren't any adults who can put a leash on him, although I wonder WTF Automattic's board of directors is doing.
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
> What's the risk? You own the code, and you aren't pre-committed to updating to any new versions in the future. This isn't a static website we're talking about — WordPress is probably one of the most attacked web software in the world given its footprint. WordPress doesn't do LTS releases or backports either.
WordPress 3.7, which introduced automatic updates, received security backports all the way to 3.7.41. From 2013 to 2022. 4.1 and above are all still receiving them.
Doesn't WordPress officially only support the two latest minor version release though ? I can't find an official source at the moment but a quick googling seems to confirm that.
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe the word should be : renounce? https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/renounce
I’m a fan of “repudiate”. It’s got heft to it, like an antique pocket watch.
It does have a nice gravitas to it, however I think "repudiating something" suggests a kind of vocal and intentional opposition, as opposed to allowing for a kind of disinterested neutrality.
While Wordpress.org would probably like its visitors to oppose or criticize WP Engine, you don't have to do that to get past the logon page, being uninvolved is sufficient.
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's not that at all. Matt wants money to flow to his commercial entity, or if they donate developers to the project, he still gets to see everything about their books. It's an invasive agreement designed to give his commercial entity a competitive advantage.
And work of the WP Engine developers would be directed by Wordpress.org, which is just Matt, not the foundation. From https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-term-sheet.pdf : Fee. In exchange for the License Grant, WP Engine shall do one of the following: (a) Pay Automattic a royalty fee equal to 8% of its Gross Revenue on a monthly basis, within fifteen days of the end of each month. "Gross Revenue" means all revenue…
> access to employee records and time-tracking
I’ve seen subsidies where hourly totals are required ‘employee records’?
Why does money go to Automattic instead of the Foundation?
Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
WordPress doesn't like products/orgs that offer services related to WordPress using "WP" in their name to imply affiliation with WordPress. WordPress has recently updated their terms of use to reflect this. Matt is also on record criticizing WP Engine for never having donated to the WordPress Foundation. This is all coming to light after the breakdown of licensing negotiations between Automattic and WPEngine EDIT: ht…
> WordPress has recently updated their terms of use to reflect this. That’s… a very odd way of portraying this. The policy, for like a decade, was: “The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.” https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1foknoq/the_word...
Sure, allow me to clarify.
Matt voices a number of grievances including WP Engine's changes to WordPress, their use of the term "WP", their donation/sponsorships, and more. At first glance they all seem a bit silly.
The important context, in my opinion, is that this comes after the breakdown of a licensing agreement between WP Engine and Automattic, an agreement that would've seen tens of millions of dollars paid to Automattic by WP Engine for a license that WP Engine does not think they need.
To put a point on it, none of the things WP Engine is accused of doing were problematic before the breakdown of licensing negotiations or the filing of WP Engine's lawsuit.