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Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

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Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#101

Post by jeltz »

Dalewyn wrote: post #73
mjburgess wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, he's not right about WP Engine. Wordpress is an open source project. If he's "right" about WP Engine, then he's "right" about basically every user of every open source project, and there ceases to be any such thing. OS is take-it-or-leave-it, if he wants contributions back, put it in the licence and also offer support.

Way too many progressive people proclaim the virtues of free and open and then when others take them for their word. If you want compensation of any kind you must stipulate them before the fact.

But is Matt progressive in any sense of the word?

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#102

Post by jeltz »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #99
foco_tubi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if WP Engine disables revisions. Wordpress.com disables the use of plugins, arguably a core feature of WordPress, unless you pony up $300 a year for a "Business" tier account.

I don't know about you but I would be more frustrated not being able to revise posts? It's bad enough on twitter I can't update my posts, I have to delete and repost

Every WordPress installation I have seen has had plugins. And likely used revisions too. So I would say about the same, both are mandatory features for most users.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#103

Post by jeltz »

preommr wrote: post #34
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #14

Matt’s response to DHH was really some of the pettiest stuff I’ve seen from a major public figure in the tech world Maybe its a newfound persona, maybe its a new marketing angle, or maybe its just someone going a little unhinged. But all isn’t right in the WordPress world

It is petty, but I find myself on Matt's side. I think he's right about the movement, right about better monetization for open source, right about the trademark issues, and while rude, his comments are harsh truths about DHH and his work in OSS. Obviously, they way he's handled everything has been bad - very valid to ask why he didn't act sooner about the trademark issue. And, snide comments about DHH not donating en…

The harsh truth that DHH made a ton of money but did not choose to dedicate his life to become filthy rich but instead also focused on making the world a better place through open source?

I am no fan of DHH but I do not see any harsh truths.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#104

Post by FireBeyond »

jasdfwasdf wrote: post #42
duskwuff wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quite as bad. At least A8C doesn't ask you to talk about what grades you got in high school.

Canonical accepts my PR's but won't hire because I didn't graduate high school :-)

Reminds me of the (sadly not apocryphal) stories:

"Required: 10 years of experience in X"

"Sorry, Joe, while your cover letter told a good story of how you created X 5 years ago, we are looking for people with more experience in X. Good luck on your search!"

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#105

Post by Kye »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #99
foco_tubi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if WP Engine disables revisions. Wordpress.com disables the use of plugins, arguably a core feature of WordPress, unless you pony up $300 a year for a "Business" tier account.

I don't know about you but I would be more frustrated not being able to revise posts? It's bad enough on twitter I can't update my posts, I have to delete and repost

Revisions in this discussion is a copy of revisions you've made so you can reference or revert to one. You can still update posts all you want.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#106

Post by chucky123 »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #99
foco_tubi wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares if WP Engine disables revisions. Wordpress.com disables the use of plugins, arguably a core feature of WordPress, unless you pony up $300 a year for a "Business" tier account.

I don't know about you but I would be more frustrated not being able to revise posts? It's bad enough on twitter I can't update my posts, I have to delete and repost

I can't speak for blogging usecases, but for agency websites we would disable revisions and a bunch of other things for every single wordpress installation(even the blog posts that show up on the main admin area)

Heck even Jetpack, Automattics official plugin, recommends limiting revisions: https://jetpack.com/blog/wordpress-revisions/

Lastly, Wpengine never fully disabled post revisions, they just limited it to 2-3.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#107

Post by square_usual »

jeltz wrote: post #96
codetrotter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a boon for competitors I suppose I would think so too, but it’s not guaranteed. Everyone thought for sure that Twitter would die with what Elon Musk has been doing to it, but somehow it seems to still be alive. Likewise, everyone thought there would be a total exodus of users from Reddit to Lemmy or Kbin. And while those platforms did get a lot of new users, it feels like it didn’t reach the level of significa…

Reddit is much worse today than before the exodus, it is recovering and maybe it will eventually fully recover. The issue with the Reddit exodus is that people fled to various different platforms and not just one. Plus some people likely just stopped using social media. This shattering to various different platforms stopped the momentum from totally killing Reddit. And maybe the same will also project WordPress. I am…

Yeah, entire parts of reddit have been hollowed out and a lot of the subs have changed in many ways. I don't enjoy using reddit any more, even as someone who mostly didn't care about the protest.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#108

Post by mardifoufs »

mjburgess wrote: post #38
zeruch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous." This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now. It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about…

Well, he's not right about WP Engine. Wordpress is an open source project. If he's "right" about WP Engine, then he's "right" about basically every user of every open source project, and there ceases to be any such thing. OS is take-it-or-leave-it, if he wants contributions back, put it in the licence and also offer support.

Well if we are just going by what's "allowed" legally and going by the license... automattic also hasn't done anything that's either illegal or a breach of the license. So going by that logic, they haven't done anything wrong either.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#109

Post by bigiain »

legitster wrote: post #71
zeruch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous." This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now. It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about…

I think revealed in this is that Matt has no understanding of the Wordpress userbase, and bizarre unpopular features like Gravitar and Gutenberg now make more sense in hindsight. ACF was one of the most important enterprise plugins in the ecosystem when they hijacked it. They essentially did a supply chain attack on the top WordPress users and expected there to be no repercussions. He was also apparently upset that W…

Shit, I'd forgotten that Gravitar is Matt's.

Just deleted my Gravitar profile/account, which required me to delete my Wordpress.com account too.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#110

Post by bigiain »

legitster wrote: post #71
zeruch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous." This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now. It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about…

I think revealed in this is that Matt has no understanding of the Wordpress userbase, and bizarre unpopular features like Gravitar and Gutenberg now make more sense in hindsight. ACF was one of the most important enterprise plugins in the ecosystem when they hijacked it. They essentially did a supply chain attack on the top WordPress users and expected there to be no repercussions. He was also apparently upset that W…

> Matt is really, really, really out of touch with his own userbase.

I think Matt probably has some idea of a "user base" for which he's "fighting the good fight". But it doesn't include _me_. Or any of the place IO work at's clients who're running WP for their website. Or the ACF plugin developers, or any of the other developers publishing themes or plugins on wordpress.org who must be thinking "WF actual F" about now.

As I commented elsewhere:

So far as I can tell, when Matt talks about "the WordPress Community", he means:

  - Matt
  - the people who didn't quit Automattic last week
  - _maybe_ the WP core developers who don't work at Automattic, so long as they keep their criticisms to themselves
And the community of people who _use_ WordPress to run their websites, and the people who help them to do that, and the 3rd party plugin and theme developers who make WP work for so many different kinds of websites - can all go and get fucked.
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