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WordPress Is in Trouble

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Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#231

Post by softwaredoug »

Suppafly wrote: post #220
hn8726 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the article: > Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine. source: https://automattic.com/2025/01/09/aligning-automattics-spons...

>down from nearly 4,000 a week Do they really pay that many people to work on development? That's 100 fulltime jobs.

It does seem like throwing investor money at 4000hrs/week open source development was a ZIRP

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#232

Post by terminalbraid »

wordofx wrote: post #212
beshrkayali wrote: post #64

I really think Matt is suffering from some sort of a mental breakdown. It’s a sad situation and there’s a lot to learn about open source projects with a huge user base and where the bottle necks exist. But I think people who know or are close to him should seriously consider an intervention. I can’t believe after two decades he’d just decide to throw it all out in a blazing fire and tarnish his reputation (and Wordpr…

He has investors to answer to. He has an over evaluation that unless he grows the value of his company he’s screwed. He’s trying to pull in revenue and he’s destroying a competitor to take their customers.

> unless he grows the value of his company he’s screwed

What are the consequences, exactly?

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#233

Post by shiftpgdn »

daitangio wrote: post #155
dangrossman wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's a mental breakdown, I think this is a (poorly executed) long pivot into Matt's companies having tighter control over the ecosystem and keeping more of the profits from hosting, plugin and theme sales. He's burning down "the community" on purpose. In a couple years, it'll be run more like Shopify, where the theme store and app store only list products that run their billing through Shopify and give…

I fear you are right. Remember they ask $25/monthly for 1 website on pressable, I can run Wordpress open source for 5x month on Linode, and there are ready made installation on docker, digital ocean and so on…

Pressable includes support, global caching, and a bunch of other things you won't get on a $5/month VPS. Also not everyone wants to play system administrator 7 days a week to keep their server from getting hijacked or nuked.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#234

Post by JohnTHaller »

jcranmer wrote: post #222
gspencley wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal take on this has to do entirely with how the decision to block WP Engine access to WordPress.org, unless they were willing to pay for it, was arrived at. And this is a critical detail that I'm fuzzy on. If anyone has context (even links with further info) I'd be very much appreciative. I have since read the WP Engine complaint. I understand what they are alleging. I'm just not 100% clear on the nitty and…

WordPress is an open source project, and part of being an open source project is you don't really have a right to demand that people not mooch off of your work, at least as far as most open source licenses are concerned [1]. If you don't like that, well, then open source isn't for you. The other major complication here is that Matt has thoroughly mixed his several roles together, so you have to spend time untangling…

WordPress' GPL license guarantees you access to the code and specific rights. It doesn't guarantee you access to the the WordPress database repository of plugins and themes.

WordPress could, in theory, make the repository free for access to all except larger hosting entities that put more of a strain on things, for which there is a fee or throttling. Possibly even indicating this within the WordPress admin UI which flavor of access the user is getting. "Pro" vs "Free" for example.

Note that I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and this is based on my understanding of open source licenses like the GPL over my 20 years working on PortableApps.com.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#237

Post by InsomniacL »

gspencley wrote: post #140
beshrkayali wrote: post #64

I really think Matt is suffering from some sort of a mental breakdown. It’s a sad situation and there’s a lot to learn about open source projects with a huge user base and where the bottle necks exist. But I think people who know or are close to him should seriously consider an intervention. I can’t believe after two decades he’d just decide to throw it all out in a blazing fire and tarnish his reputation (and Wordpr…

My personal take on this has to do entirely with how the decision to block WP Engine access to WordPress.org, unless they were willing to pay for it, was arrived at. And this is a critical detail that I'm fuzzy on. If anyone has context (even links with further info) I'd be very much appreciative. I have since read the WP Engine complaint. I understand what they are alleging. I'm just not 100% clear on the nitty and…

> But being a jerk isn't a crime and doesn't forfeit your rights.

The court case isn't about Matt being a jerk, it's about crime.

> WordPress.org has to pay for their servers

Wordpress.org was sold to volunteers as a community asset owned by the foundation not Matt and even Matt's lawyer made public statements to that effect.

Volunteers spent their time building it up, developing in to WordPress core reliance on w.org infra, etc..

Matt has a long history of un-ethical behaviour, and the current WPDrama is extensive. For me alone, the one screenshot of his threats to go to the press with confidential information about someone unless they did what he wants was enough.

Now volunteers find out from court documents that w.org is "Matt's personal website" as he puts it.

Additionally, now many volunteers are banned from the thing they helped build simply for voicing disagreement with his actions which are almost universally accepted as unethical. Many have been banned for reacting to one of his post with with disapproving emojji!!

Matt has built up the foundation through deception and then weaponised it.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#238

Post by kmeisthax »

> Then yesterday happened. Automattic announced that it would restrict its contributions to the open source version of WordPress. The company would now only put in about 45 hours a week total — down from nearly 4,000 a week — so as to match the estimated hourly contributions of WP Engine. This action is blamed on the “the legal attacks started by WP Engine and funded by Silver Lake”, which I think is a gross mischaracterization. WP Engine definitely did not start this.

WP Engine owns several WordPress plugin developers. Does plugin development not count now?

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#239

Post by Tokkemon »

Just this week I needed to completely revamp my personal website. I went with Squarespace because it's quick to spin up and I don't have to fiddle with tons of plugins and a complicated theme ecosystem. I just need a website that works. I used to use Wordpress for all my previous iterations, but now, it's done. Sad to see it become obsolete by not fixing them broader business and user-friendliness problems.

Re: WordPress Is in Trouble

#240

Post by draw_down »

beshrkayali wrote: post #64

I really think Matt is suffering from some sort of a mental breakdown. It’s a sad situation and there’s a lot to learn about open source projects with a huge user base and where the bottle necks exist. But I think people who know or are close to him should seriously consider an intervention. I can’t believe after two decades he’d just decide to throw it all out in a blazing fire and tarnish his reputation (and Wordpr…

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