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WordPress retaliation impacts community

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Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#61

Post by Sharlin »

inglor_cz wrote: post #55

This is an interesting case of Dear Leader going haywire even outside of a real power context. No armies and billions of dollars involved. It indicates that building a community not prone to self-destructive conflicts over bruised egos is a hard task even if its individual members are smart people. Politics seems to be harder than tech to pull off right.

> It indicates that building a community not prone to self-destructive conflicts over bruised egos is a hard task even if its individual members are smart people.

My prior is that if anything, self-destructive conflicts over bruised egos are more likely if the individual members are smart people. At least for certain values of "smart".

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#62

Post by spiderfarmer »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #41

@WPEngine - fork Wordpress, rebrand yourself and the code. Setup a plugin / update hub like Wordpress.org and provide a pathway for your customers and devs to migrate. I recognize this is non-trivial. Ending an abusive relationship usually is.

They profit off Wordpress' brand for free. Maintaining a fork and building a new brand will be expensive. As much as I despise Matt's antics, there's not much to gain for WPEngine by forking it.

The best scenario for all parties is to burry the hatch and for Matt to step down.

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#63

Post by amiantos »

kmeisthax wrote: post #18

> Mullenweg had also asked Automattic employees to pick a side, shortly after banning WP Engine from WordPress.org. He wrote on October 3 that Automattic had extended an ""Alignment Offer"" to its employees. The company provided a buyout package of $30,000 or six months of salary (whichever was higher) to employees who wanted to leave because they disagreed with Mullenweg's actions. Employees who accepted the buyout…

[flagged]

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#64

Post by bad_user »

bilekas wrote: post #32
dovin wrote: post #4

I've been trying to wrap my head around why this feels so wrong. If the project had been run like this from the beginning, in an opinionated way that prioritizes what the few creators of the project think are important, then that's one thing. But it seems like Wordpress has generally been the stable, boring, slow-moving project that isn't run like a personal fiefdom, and Mullenweg is trying to force it from the one m…

> Mullenweg is trying to force it from the one model to the other There are proper ways to do that, changing the license in a next version for example is how I think it should have been done in the first place. I've said it before here but this has all the markings of being extremely petty and Mullenweg not happy with their own licensing model.

> There are proper ways to do that, changing the license in a next version

All the projects doing that will soon discover that they were popular mostly because of the Open-Source licensing. Once that changes, the popularity, and goodwill go down, for the simple reason that trust gets breached and forks happen. Open-Source is essentially about the freedom to fork, and that's precisely what happens when governance fails.

Some of them will backtrack on that decision, but it will be too late; like ElasticSearch recently changing again to AGPL, except now the question is why would people choose it over the more trustworthy, open and secure OpenSearch.

There's nothing wrong with building proprietary software, but there is something wrong with pulling a bait-and-switch, betraying your community that invested in your product because of its Open-Source nature.

Matt surely knows that, and also, changing the license of WordPress is probably not possible due to them not having the full copyright. WordPress is not really theirs, despite all their contributions. Which is why this will not end well for Automattic.

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#65

Post by yellow_lead »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #15

Perhaps I missed something, but I wonder why WP didn't just include ACF functionality in WP Core from the very beginning? Why fight in public when you can just commoditize your dependant competitor?

Leadership is short sighted and not acting rationally.

Doing as you said is much smarter, but maybe takes a bit longer. My guess is Matt was reaching for some way to "hit them back" quickly.

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#66

Post by weinzierl »

"That is deeply unfortunate, because the questions about sustainability of open-source projects, and who profits from them versus who produces them, are in need of addressing. Instead of having that conversation, Mullenweg has put questions about governance, centralized software distribution, and software supply chains at the forefront."

Oh, I wish, because the discussion about, centralized software distribution, and software supply chains will have to be had and it cannot be separated from the open-source profits discussion.[1]

In my opinion some take aways from this should be:

1. As users we should do better avoiding unilateral dependencies. Specifically, every central repository we are using for free is a risk. Be it wordpress.org, npm or crates.io.[2]

2. As open-source author, decide if your project is a charity or not. Expect people to be angry, when you change your mind, even if the law is on your side.

3. Defend your trademarks vigorously from day one. Being lenient in the hope of free brand awareness will bite you.

[1] I am a bit disappointed that LWN, which I hold in high regard, recognized this, but still decided to ride the drama train. LWN I am used to better things from you.

[2] Java's convention of using domains in package names was ugly, inconvenient and did not solve the problem completely (see the issues around javax and sun packages), but it gave us a far better chance to avoid a dangerous dependency.

EDIT: I am tempted to add a fourth point, even if it is not 100% applicable to the case:

4. Don't expect people to understand open source licensing. Neither the authors who decided on a license in the first place, nor corporate lawyers - especially corporate lawyers.

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#67

Post by usaphp »

bad_user wrote: post #49
dovin wrote: post #4

I've been trying to wrap my head around why this feels so wrong. If the project had been run like this from the beginning, in an opinionated way that prioritizes what the few creators of the project think are important, then that's one thing. But it seems like Wordpress has generally been the stable, boring, slow-moving project that isn't run like a personal fiefdom, and Mullenweg is trying to force it from the one m…

Initially, I was taking the side of WP.org and Automattic; however, I changed my mind completely once they took over the “Advanced Custom Fields” plugin, and replaced it with another plugin that broke people's websites. So Matt weaponized the WP package repository, and stole the users of a well-maintained package, making WP site admins work over the weekend to fix the breakage. This isn't opinionated, this is theft.…

> replaced it with another plugin that broke people's websites

What makes you think it broke someone’s website? AFAIK they just patched the security issue that wp engine team couldn’t patch because they were locked out from pushing to repo?

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#68

Post by kergonath »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #62
CodeWriter23 wrote: post #41

@WPEngine - fork Wordpress, rebrand yourself and the code. Setup a plugin / update hub like Wordpress.org and provide a pathway for your customers and devs to migrate. I recognize this is non-trivial. Ending an abusive relationship usually is.

They profit off Wordpress' brand for free. Maintaining a fork and building a new brand will be expensive. As much as I despise Matt's antics, there's not much to gain for WPEngine by forking it. The best scenario for all parties is to burry the hatch and for Matt to step down.

> They profit off Wordpress' brand for free.

What the hell are you on about? Wordpress is GPL. Are all Linux distro profiting off Linus’ brand?

There is a very simple thing you can do if you don’t want people to do this: use a different license. You cannot eat your cake and keep having it.

> Maintaining a fork and building a new brand will be expensive.

Publishing free software is a decision. You cannot come years later to say “no, actually you need to pay”, or “yeah, it’s free but not like that”.

The whole “WPE does not contribute” point is completely disingenuous and I cannot believe that people are still uttering it in good faith.

> The best scenario for all parties is to burry the hatch and for Matt to step down.

The best scenario is Wordpress going up in flames, Matt being utterly ridiculed for his dishonest behaviour and the whole thing serving as a cautionary tale.

Re: WordPress retaliation impacts community

#70

Post by stevage »

serial_dev wrote: post #17
jcranmer wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He appears to have replaced the original post, which was a lot more ad hominem: https://archive.ph/UZZit

Funnily enough, your archive is already a friendlier version, there is one with even more ad hominem: https://archive.ph/7ZRbY

> I’ll just remind everyone at the start that this is a respectful debate, and DHH and I tried to get on a call but couldn’t because we were both traveling.

> DHH claims to be an expert on open source, but his toxic personality and inability to scale ...

Yep, real respectful.

I don't even understand the point of the post, other than to shit on the other guy. It doesn't advance any debate or raise any questions.

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