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Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

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Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#271

Post by qlte »

flomo wrote: post #142
dofm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is surely very evidently mentally ill. This is a man who, to be fair to him, has been beneficially bullish and iconoclastic in the WP community's favour for decades, as well as writing a big chunk of what was "early modern" WP. Before he came unglued. The fact that he looked, sounded, talked the way he did, was involved, put his own money where his mouth is, and was press-available to the extent he was is a lot of…

> He is surely very evidently mentally ill. I agree and upvoted your post. But can I just say that it is super-reddit to diagnose someone based on your B- undergrad psych classes. We should go back to the classics like "he went off his rocker!", or "he's totally unhinged!" or "completely delulu!" (of course the people who know, know, and they shouldn't tell you.)

They did not in fact diagnose anything, "mental illness" is not a specific condition in the DSM. You'd have a valid point if they confidently stated he had bipolar disorder or something.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#272

Post by bedroom_jabroni »

fnky wrote: post #255
bedroom_jabroni wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WP Engine didn't make ACF, they acquired the company that acquired the OG creator of the plugin. Their contribution to the plugin was a switch to a subscription-based model and they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails that could be interpreted as them forcing you to stop bundling the plugin with your theme (we had a lifetime license) and directing customers to their sal…

He didn't say they made it, he said they _own_ it. The issue was not that forking of ACF in and of itself was controversial. It was that they hijacked and repurposed the original WordPress Community page and distribution to point to their own, including any subscribers to the existing project in the name of "security". One could argue that because WP Engine was banned from accessing the WordPress.org infrastructure,…

I wasn't correcting the parent post. I was being sceptical regarding them contributing by owning ACF because they just bought the plugin with the intention to squeeze its userbase for more money for a product that was more or less complete at the moment of acquisition. Or, to paraphrase it, they hijacked and repurposed the original ACF pricing :)

The supply chain attack was shitty and uncalled for but still very tame. I think launching a fork as a separate entry would have been sufficient and less drama.

Surprisingly two wrongs made a right and the average customer got a little bit unfucked by not having to pay for the ACF PRO subscription if they don't want to.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#274

Post by graemep »

toyg wrote: post #235
graemep wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That lead me to a number of good sources, especially this: https://mjtsai.com/blog/2024/09/24/automattic-vs-wp-engine/ which links to a lot more I already knew Matt was throwing a tantrum and refusing to address conflicts of interest. However WP Engine also do not come out of it looking good. Nor do a lot of people in the WP community. Matt is a problem, but it does not look like he is the only problem.

The Wordpress community got so big, that inevitably it attracted leeches. Unfortunately, Matt chose to address a home-infestation problem with a firethrower.

Great way to put it. Ignoring collateral damage too.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#275

Post by ibejoeb »

wpm wrote: post #113
downrightmike wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He got tired of WPEngine not contributing back to wordpress, so he made it his mission to try and get them to pitch in.

Does WPEngine have any obligation to contribute back? How is WordPress licensed?

Open to correction here, but I understand it to be like this: the kernel of the contention is about the use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks, not the software itself. Essentially, WP Engine is a commercial entity profiting from the use of the trademark. Regardless of how it has been handled, it does not seem to be a frivolous claim.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#276

Post by burnte »

reticulates wrote: post #75
Spinfusor wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If he has 84% voting share, can't he just fire the board?

Firing the board is the least Matt-like option. He has absolute control and ownership over the WordPress project, I think it is more likely that he starts his own Automattic splinter company and removes Automattic from the WordPress project. I’d guess he is already filing incorporation docs for Antimatter Inc. or some other Matt themed name.

> He has absolute control and ownership over the WordPress project

The only thing he has that can't be moved or recreated are the trademarks. In an extremely short span of time everyone went from Xfree for their X server to Xorg, and Xfree limped along for a bit before falling over. This is the beauty of open source.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#278

Post by piperswe »

technion wrote: post #85
solarkraft wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automattic also bought Tumblr and Pocket Casts, publishing the code of the latter. I used to have a subscription just to support them.

The purchase of Tumblr was basically Elon purchasing Twitter without the political gain. I'm amazed the purchase decision was ever made, and more amazed that it still exists after the hit to the user base.

And unlike the Twitter acquisition, Tumblr users basically universally hate its new owner. Twitter has plenty of Elon boosters, but I've never seen someone on Tumblr actually _like_ photomatt.

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#279

Post by thunderfork »

pluc wrote: post #208
Anonasty wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just side note that AI is not destroying one of the largest e-commerce platform, Woocommerce on top of Wordpress.

Ok, Shopify is then. If you've ever used Woocommerce, the one thing you want to do is stop using Woocommerce.

A Shopify monopoly (and thus a shopify payments monopoly) would be very rough for a number of reasons

Re: Automattic's board forces CEO Matt Mullenweg into leave of absence

#280

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

mcmcmc wrote: post #107
ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you would prefer a media circus and investor scrutiny when your employer's executives are fired for failures or misconduct? This is likely to cause the price of the shares to drop, including any ESPP and stock grants you and your coworkers have vested. Is the satisfaction of seeing an executive dragged through the mud worth losing a chunk of your net worth to you, no matter how much the exec deserves it? I'd rathe…

Satisfaction? It’s about truth and justice, investors deserve to know about executive malfeasance

Weird to see so many posters suddenly pop up that are anxious to protect investors (who have the access and means to protect themselves) at the expense of harming employees and workers. Glad to see you all getting into the ultra-capitalist spirit of Hacker News I guess?
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