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My WordPress Slack Ban

linuxjedi.co.uk

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Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#41

Post by FireBeyond »

swatcoder wrote: post #26

Expect to see this kind of drama happening regularly and frequently as the gazillion dollar commercial industry continues to subvert every ideal of the original open source ethos. Some of the best and now most commercially critical open source software started a long time ago, by people buying into RMS-like visions of the future. Turns out, we did not arrive in that future. We arrived in the one where both $xxxB comp…

What?

WordPress was a fork of B2 and quickly intended to make money.

Matt and Automattic bought into WPE. They were the ones who sold their shares to the Private Equity firm that now owns it!

The only other board member of the Foundation is ... drum roll ... the Managing Partner of another Private Equity firm, that Matt himself appointed.

All his hand wringing about PE is to distract from the simple fact that he has repeatedly been an asshole through this process, and it's not because he "reached his breaking point" as an open source developer. This is so apologistic it's not funny.

He reached a breaking point as a CEO, because he made a horrible business decision to buy Tumblr, which has been nothing but a money pit, ever since.

Since then, MATT's for profit business has had this boat anchor around it, so he's looking for extra cash.

That's why he demanded their royalties be paid to Automattic, his for profit company, not the open source project.

> by people buying into RMS-like visions of the future.

Horseshit. People with RMS-like visions for the future don't see the commercial potential for an open source project, immediately spin up a Foundation with themselves as President, and immediately grant their own for-profit company a perpetual, exclusive and irrevocable commercial use license for said open source project. (They may however release self-congratulatory press releases talking about how they are champions of open source for assigning ownership of the project to their Foundation while neglecting to mention the licensing that they[1] signed off on, that very same day.)

You have apparently fully bought into the narrative.

> making angry demands on volunteers and small teams

What "angry demands" has WPEngine made of the project? I'd love to hear of at least one.

[1] I say 'they' but really, the licensing was signed for the Foundation by "Matt Mullenweg, President", and for Automattic by "Matt Mullenweg, President and CEO".

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#42

Post by FireBeyond »

tptacek wrote: post #27
pocketsand wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work for me or I will publicly shame you, try to damage your reputation, and make your employees potentially question your loyalty. Threatening people if they don’t take a job with you is in the most literal way a challenge to your autonomy as a human being.

I think a lot of this whole saga is easier to understand if you just remember that WordPress is a major open source project and a company, so you get to see a lot of the stuff every company --- almost none of whom run major open source projects --- does in the ordinary course of business. Anyways, if you thought there was any freedom or purity to the tech job market, bad news for you.

> Anyways, if you thought there was any freedom or purity to the tech job market, bad news for you.

Ahh, "everyone else does it" - no, have never been threatened that if I refuse a job offer, or otherwise decline, that my current employer will be told all about how disloyal I was to them.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#44

Post by Brian_K_White »

ecshafer wrote: post #24
dcchambers wrote: post #4

Matt has handled this whole thing so poorly. I wanted to be on his side but everything that has come out is just not a great look. He could have had basically the entire internet on his side just by laying out the facts: "They use our product for free, generate hundreds of millions in revenue, and don't contribute back. It's just not fair. Please contribute more." Instead this tantrum has turned a bunch of people tha…

This sums up the situation nicely. Though the part where Matt tried to extort wp engine into paying him personally an absurd sum didn't help put him on the right foot. It seems like every step Matt makes just makes the whole situation worse.

Plus I don't know how you give that threat before the speech with a straight face.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#45

Post by Brian_K_White »

swatcoder wrote: post #26

Expect to see this kind of drama happening regularly and frequently as the gazillion dollar commercial industry continues to subvert every ideal of the original open source ethos. Some of the best and now most commercially critical open source software started a long time ago, by people buying into RMS-like visions of the future. Turns out, we did not arrive in that future. We arrived in the one where both $xxxB comp…

RMS was and still is right.

If you care what someone else does with free software beyond making the source available, that is a you problem.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#46

Post by [deleted] »

FireBeyond wrote: post #41
swatcoder wrote: post #26

Expect to see this kind of drama happening regularly and frequently as the gazillion dollar commercial industry continues to subvert every ideal of the original open source ethos. Some of the best and now most commercially critical open source software started a long time ago, by people buying into RMS-like visions of the future. Turns out, we did not arrive in that future. We arrived in the one where both $xxxB comp…

What? WordPress was a fork of B2 and quickly intended to make money. Matt and Automattic bought into WPE. They were the ones who sold their shares to the Private Equity firm that now owns it! The only other board member of the Foundation is ... drum roll ... the Managing Partner of another Private Equity firm, that Matt himself appointed. All his hand wringing about PE is to distract from the simple fact that he has…

[deleted]

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#47

Post by dcchambers »

ecshafer wrote: post #24
dcchambers wrote: post #4

Matt has handled this whole thing so poorly. I wanted to be on his side but everything that has come out is just not a great look. He could have had basically the entire internet on his side just by laying out the facts: "They use our product for free, generate hundreds of millions in revenue, and don't contribute back. It's just not fair. Please contribute more." Instead this tantrum has turned a bunch of people tha…

This sums up the situation nicely. Though the part where Matt tried to extort wp engine into paying him personally an absurd sum didn't help put him on the right foot. It seems like every step Matt makes just makes the whole situation worse.

Yup...that and (allegedly) trying to extort the rival CEO with a job offer/threat.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#48

Post by Brian_K_White »

sergiotapia wrote: post #40
rty32 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might want to actually understand what's happening instead of simplifying the whole thing as tldr.

is this not true? Main Points of Contention Trademark and Branding Issues Mullenweg accuses WP Engine of misusing the WordPress trademark and causing confusion among users1. WP Engine has since changed some of its plan names to address these concerns1. Open Source Contributions Mullenweg criticizes WP Engine for not contributing enough to the WordPress open-source project relative to their profits5 . Core Feature Mod…

Like they said, go read up on it, since no this is not the story at all. By now there are many good write-ups.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#49

Post by takinola »

nashashmi wrote: post #33

The word affiliate is so loose that it could mean anything. IANAL but I recommend everyone read that word with the tightest of definitions. That means you are not an affiliate if: you are not wpengine, you are not their employee, you are not doing work for wp engine, you are not owned by wpengine, nor do you work for any wpengine companies, and you don't have any ownership in organizations or companies that wpengine…

The challenge is this is a commonsense interpretation of the checkbox. The legal interpretation could be much broader. If you have something to lose (ie you are a money making entity), you are much less willing to take the risk that someone someday will decide to interpret the checkbox in a manner that you did not expect.

Re: My WordPress Slack Ban

#50

Post by lolinder »

nashashmi wrote: post #33

The word affiliate is so loose that it could mean anything. IANAL but I recommend everyone read that word with the tightest of definitions. That means you are not an affiliate if: you are not wpengine, you are not their employee, you are not doing work for wp engine, you are not owned by wpengine, nor do you work for any wpengine companies, and you don't have any ownership in organizations or companies that wpengine…

> IANAL but I recommend everyone read that word with the tightest of definitions.

Why would you recommend that when Matt/WordPress is on record questioning WP Engine's common sense interpretation?

In a Twitter thread linked in TFA WP Engine put forward an interpretation like yours in an attempt to make their customers less nervous and WordPress (probably Matt) replied with a "what if..." casting doubt on that interpretation.

We're talking about a guy who is currently following through on a threat to wage "nuclear war" (his words) and has very clearly shown that he does not care how much collateral damage he causes. It's totally reasonable to take the broadest interpretation of the checkbox possible.

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