This situation is tragic, wish Matt was handling this better, and WPEngine is a parasite.
WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
21–30 of 67 posts
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#22I found it frustrating that the article highlights Mullenweg’s actions while failing to even briefly describe what WP Engine is, and what actions they took. The story felt very incomplete, perhaps intended for someone who is already familiar with all the details. I have copied below excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on WP Engine because I found it clarifying. > WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and org…
WP Engine is definitely using the open source to make money, and is a big competitor to wordpress, but Matt is going scorched earth in a way that seems both embarrassing and ineffective. It would be better if WP Engine contributed more to the open source project that they make so much money from, but it's not illegal or immoral. Maybe Amoral at worse?
If profiting off of open source without contributing back substantially is amoral, there's such a long list of companies (to say nothing of developers with upper middle-class incomes) who are similarly guilty.
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#23[flagged]
> It is about time for an Ayahuasca retreat or two to beat down some of that monumental ego. I mean, one of all of my ex's attempts to get people's validation was doing Ayahuasca (by drinking Yagé). It did nothing for her huge ego - not even throwing up like crazy did anything for her. It's not the first time Mullenweg shows his megalomaniac side and attempt to manipulate the community for his own benefit. I still re…
Sample size of 1. Don't discount the benefits of psychedelics. You must be willing to open yourself up to change and it's not an overnight thing. Takes time, many doses, many experiences, lots of introspection and meditation to wake up.
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
But that time is long gone and WordPress being what is it today fundamentally depends on paid labour and not free labour. It would have withered to the side like other CMSes that depended on free labour. Nearly every top contributor that we can see in the WordPress commit history was paid.
You’re mistaken friend. Just because that time is “long gone” doesn’t mean it wasn’t paramount to the success of this platform. A disproportionate amount of work towards the WP ecosystem has been unpaid.
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Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#25None of this is surprising - anyone who was on tumblr and saw the absolute meltdown he had (Automattic now owns Tumblr, for those who lost track), and his continuous weird scorch-earth attacks on the queer community where he kept making up lies and justifications for decisions that made little sense, would have known he was in the early stages of a seemingly complete mental breakdown.
He personally digitally stalked and targeted online users, followed them from site to site, publishing and using user details that weren't public, and personally started attacking and practically doxxing those that couldn't take or understand his weird (unintelligible) stances. He would even argue with random users by PM'ing directly.
Which gets even stranger that he doesn't know to stay quiet, considering Automattic had to pay out to the New York City Commission on Human Rights, for constructing teams and moderation policies that unfairly targetted LGBTQ+ individuals^2. They kept the policies after acquisition, made them worse, and ended up paying out for it - just for them to end up going back to what they were doing.
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To 404Media: There is an incredible article waiting to be written that has your name all over it. It was a huuuge thing that Automattic tried to cover up and keep from breaking containment. Just start with "the car full of hammers" comment that led to the blow-up (after a lot of targeted build-up).
He self-destructed and went absolutely mental, it was weird and strange. This was last year.
Edit: knowyourmeme^2 has a little bit of history, but it goes much deeper. It's a great story that Vice would have covered in extremely poignant details years ago, ready for the taking.
^1: https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/25/22949293/tumblr-nycchr-se...
^2: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/tumblr-ceo-transphobic...
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#26Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#27The most worrying thing is that Mullenweg just seems unwell and has created his own reality distortion field where he can no longer see the absurdness and damaging nature of his actions. His behavior reminds me of a cult leader or a celebrity where they surround themselves with only people who do their bidding and gradually slip into this state.
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#28I found it frustrating that the article highlights Mullenweg’s actions while failing to even briefly describe what WP Engine is, and what actions they took. The story felt very incomplete, perhaps intended for someone who is already familiar with all the details. I have copied below excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on WP Engine because I found it clarifying. > WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and org…
The tl;dr of the dispute is that, a few months ago, Matt Mullenweg decided to start ratfucking WPEngine, to which they responded by suing to get them to stop ratfucking, and the court yesterday ordered Matt to stop ratfucking, to which he has apparently responded he doesn't want anything to do WordPress if he can't ratfuck WPEngine.
The reason why Matt started ratfucking is somewhat unclear. In the most charitable interpretation, he was unhappy with how little WPEngine was contributing to WordPress, and intended to create a pressure campaign to get them to do more, which backfired considerably. In a less charitable interpretation, this was merely an extortion campaign which turned out to be unsuccessful.
Matt claims that this is all in defense of open source, but I'm disinclined to believe him when the legal filings in his defense essentially amount to WordPress (whether the .com, the .org, the Foundation, the trademarks, the code itself, etc.) is entirely his personal property for him to do whatever the hell he wants with and we're all blubbering idiots for thinking that any action he'd ever taken (like setting up a foundation expressly to keep it from being one person's personal property) could ever change that.
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#29"In October, 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. But shortly after, he reportedly complained that the company was now “very short staffed.”"
The jokes write themselves.
Re: WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
#30I found it frustrating that the article highlights Mullenweg’s actions while failing to even briefly describe what WP Engine is, and what actions they took. The story felt very incomplete, perhaps intended for someone who is already familiar with all the details. I have copied below excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on WP Engine because I found it clarifying. > WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and org…
WP Engine is definitely using the open source to make money, and is a big competitor to wordpress, but Matt is going scorched earth in a way that seems both embarrassing and ineffective. It would be better if WP Engine contributed more to the open source project that they make so much money from, but it's not illegal or immoral. Maybe Amoral at worse?
It's really weird for matt to say they don't contribute while simultaneously taking over one of the most popular plug-ins that they contributed.