Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way" • Hacker News Board

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#191

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 10:04 AM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #162

FireBeyond wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Matt is also on record criticizing WP Engine for never having donated to the WordPress Foundation. Donate, perhaps. Sponsor? The Foundation event where Matt "went nuclear" last month was sponsored by WP Engine to the tune of $75,000. And was one of many donations this year. (Adding insult to injury, the "independent" Foundation banned WP Engine from attending the event they were sponsoring... because they were in d…

There's a difference between sponsoring an event and donating to the operations of the core project. I know nothing about the specifics on the event, but I've done events where $75,000 would almost cover the cost of the stage. I've also seen events where the cost of the event was covered by sponsors many times over.

The foundation doesn't even contribute to core development anyway. Check out their yearly financial reports. In Matt's world, the only 'donation' that would directly support development would be to the commercial entity Automatic who is a direct competitor.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#192

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 10:14 AM UTC

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #147

pluc wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've already made their argument: WordPress.org has nothing to do with WordPress, Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. It's owned and operated by Matt privately solely out of the kindness of his heart and his love for open-source.

Who is paying the WP.org hosting bills? Is that coming from Matt? The Foundation? Automatic?

Ignoring direct monetary costs, if WordPress.org is wholly owned by Matt (not Automattic) and he's directing Automattic resources to maintain the site, is that not some kind of violation of fiduciary duty to Automattic? He's using company resources to maintain a personal project.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#193

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 10:27 AM UTC

ValentineC wrote: post #69

err4nt wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't need to fork WP itself (though they're totally free to do that, WP started as a fork after all), but it sounds like they may need to quickly focus on creating their own plugin and theme marketplaces, and other services that WordPress.org provided to WordPress CMS users but is not denying to WPEngine. Let this be a lesson to all of us - if you rely on a service provided by another organization external to y…

> if you rely on a service provided by another organization external to your organization, get an SLA! Get a contract that guarantees you the provision of services you depend on. Getting "takers" to pay for SLAs/licences is pretty much what Automattic or whoever's behind WordPress dot org wants.

The whole divergence of this kerfuffle into the resource usage of WPE hosted WP sites against the WP.org site is a distraction and an ex post facto justification. Matt got twisted when WPE wouldn't pay Automatic and is lashing out. If he wanted them to cover costs for WP.org, that would have been a totally different conversation.

Even crying foul over WP.org costs is disingenuous though. It's not WPE consuming the resources, it's the sites they host for customers. It'd be like Matt demanding 8% of AWS revenue because so many sites are hosted by them and accessing WP.org resources. Simply collecting the hosting of multiple WP sites under one provider should in no way obligated the provider directly. Either it's a freely accessable resource for WP sites or it's not. It should not be subject to the whims of a single person and used as a tool in their personal crusade.

Given that it's clear that WP.org is not actually a freely available resource, it's imperative that the WP codebase be adjusted to not use that resource anymore.

As I've said in most of my posts on this, I'm not involved in the WP world and have no ties to any party to this debacle.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#194

Post by manuelmoreale » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 10:56 AM UTC

pembrook wrote: post #187

doublerabbit wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s zero reason to use Wordpress IMO in 2024. Many folk, companies don't have the resources nor skillset to set up a LAMP equivalent for such. If you want to be the next wonder-host for $CMS be my guest. I recommend Kirby. No database required and only uses text files for its backend. https://getkirby.com/

No database required, but you’re still tied to being a “wonder-host” for Kirby. I’ve used it before, and many clients sites are now dead because their web host didn’t want to support old PHP versions anymore. Any cloud-based CMS doesn’t have that problem. That, plus, Kirby just isn’t robust enough to compare to something like Webflow.

I’m not entirely sure why you’re comparing Kirby to Webflow. They’re completely different tools built with completely different target audiences in mind.

Also

“many clients sites are now dead because their web host didn’t want to support old PHP versions anymore”

Isn’t the solution to that as simple as upgrading your CMS?

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#195

Post by chx » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 11:21 AM UTC

threeseed wrote: post #120

dylan604 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that essentially what caused this kerfuffle? Someone forked it and the original guy got upset about the how/why of the fork?

It’s more that WP Engine is successful and hasn’t meaningfully contributed back to the Wordpress project. Which I can sympathise with. But this isn’t what open source is about both legally and morally. And there are better ways to achieve this goal than by making a mockery of the Wordpress foundation and harming end users.

> and hasn’t meaningfully contributed back to the Wordpress project.

That's what Matt says. WPEngine claims otherwise -- in a legal document, no less.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#196

Post by bravetraveler » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 11:33 AM UTC

jart wrote: post #47

danielfoster wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't Wordpress open source? WPE is under no obligation to contribute source code or money. If WP is unhappy with the outcome, they should have released their product under a different license.

How would you feel about Google if they used things like Linux and never contributed anything to open source? As the most profitable entity in the WordPress space, WPE has a duty to give something back. What Matt is asking for isn't unreasonable.

How we feel matters not, the license does. Before and after Google there is Linux. Same for Matt and this CMS lineage

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#197

Post by richbell » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:18 PM UTC

gradientsrneat wrote: post #177

dylan604 wrote: post #90

This 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.

> feels just as fake I suspect some of the controversy is fake. I've heard one of the previous 404 articles, alleging Wordpress training AI on self-hosted Wordpress sites, is fake according a semi-trustworthy source. Speaking based on my gut feeling, the fact that so many low-caliber Wordpress controversy articles are all arising in quick succession seems odd to me. Some allegations seem credible, but I question to w…

This take is ignorant. Automattic is the one going on the offensive, nobody is "attacking" them.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#198

Post by wingmanjd » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:36 PM UTC

QQ00 wrote: post #94

dylan604 wrote: post #90

This 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.

but what's better alternative aside from rolling your own CMS?

I've enjoyed GravCMS [1], another php based CMS that used markdown for its content instead of a database.

For those interested in migrating away, I wrote an exporter from WordPress to Grav [2], which, given recent events, I've pulled back out and am updating again.

[1] https://getgrav.org/ [2] https://github.com/jgonyea/wp2grav_exporter

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#199

Post by belorn » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:46 PM UTC

bigiain wrote: post #167

mingus88 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The update issue doesn’t sound like a big deal. What’s stopping WP Engine from setting up their own mirror system? CentOS did this to Redhat for decades. They literally stripped out the trademarks and distributed the OS to anyone with no contracts at all. Patches were available same day that RH published them, and were applied from CentOS update servers. The endgame for WP seems to be that they give up this fight or…

WPEngine do have their own mirrors. This is what a test theme upgrade this morning tells me: Downloading update from https://theme-updates.wpengine.com/twentysixteen/twentysixte... The risk I need to address is what's stopping Matt denying WPE access to that place where all the plugins and themes are published? Where does plugin-updates.wpengine.com get its content from, and how soon is Matt gonna block that? And an…

As a customer and user of WPEngine, what role do you see wordpress in that relationship? Generally when I buy things I try to take some consideration of the sub-contractors and suppliers to the supplier of service, but I am aware that I do not have a direct relationship with them.

I doubt the courts will demand that WordPress foundation must provide servers and bandwidth indefinite and free of charge to anyone, especially when there is no contract between WPEngine and WordPress foundation. When Youtube removed API functionality and under a night destroyed companies that relied on those free API's, courts did not demand that Youtube went back. It is inherently risky for companies to depend on someone else servers and network service being provided for free without any contract.

The more easy path forward would be for WPEngine to switch dependency. Debian has an reliable repository. Core wordpress is already packaged there, it get updates, and a handful of the most popular themes are also packaged. If that is not enough then WPEngine could spend employee hours to package more themes. No need for proxies or workarounds. I would estimate that 90% of the customers on WPEngine could continue to exist using just that.

Re: Wordpress.org Login: "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way"

#200

Post by __m » Thu, Oct 10, 2024, 12:57 PM UTC

danielfoster wrote: post #46

jart wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WPE is the most profitable business in the WordPress space, and they haven't changed a single line of code in WordPress or so much as contributed a dime. So if you're eager to volunteer to be their free labor, be my guest.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but isn't Wordpress open source? WPE is under no obligation to contribute source code or money. If WP is unhappy with the outcome, they should have released their product under a different license.

Wordpress itself is a fork, so they had to keep the license