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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?

#121

Post by lolinder »

ceejayoz wrote: post #100
throwawaymaths wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about three letters but two letters cannot be trademarked. The exact point is that WordPress cannot do anything legally, and that's understandably frustrating.

But until the last few weeks the Wordpress site enthusiastically endorsed its use by third parties. It wasn’t “we really wish you wouldn’t”.

Yep. This is what it said on September 19, the day before Matt launched his nuclear war:

> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.

It was changed to its current spiteful text on September 25.

http://web.archive.org/web/20240919043912/https://wordpressf...

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#122

Post by lolinder »

PaulHoule wrote: post #37

What I am not seeing in any of the discussions about this is the connection with various database products that used to be Open Source but then changed their licenses because they didn’t like AMZN and the like offering hosted versions of their products without paying anything. It’s a similar situation.

It's quite similar, and in both cases the problem is the same: open source is not a business model.

You can make a business that supports an open source product by providing hosting or services, but you cannot expect to be the largest provider or to make the most money off of it because you're giving away much of your labor for free.

This is all well and good if you're a company whose mission is simply to ensure that the software survives—in that case your business exists precisely to enable you to give away free labor—but we run into issues when companies want to become large and profitable and pay off investors.

That's why AWS's hosting is a problem. If you look at each database who's done it it's never about sustainability for the project, it's always that the for profit entity isn't profitable enough.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#123

Post by lolinder »

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…

Sorry, did you read Matt's blog post? The one that said this?

> DHH claims to be an expert on open source, but his toxic personality and inability to scale teams means that although he has invented about half a trillion dollars worth of good ideas, most of the value has been captured by others.

And this?

> Rails, finally some open source! Looks like ~943k lines of code, 143k from Basecamp org. Automattic publishes 6.58M lines of open source code, 6.9x more than you. Yet, we’re “doing open source dirty”? Shopify used Rails to build a $7B/revenue and growing business, why didn’t you?

And this?

> 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small?

Matt isn't talking about sustainability for open source—no one could accuse Rails of being unsustainable—he's talking about open source as a vehicle for developing personal wealth.

If at this point you think Matt is motivated by anything other than greed, you haven't been reading enough of what he's writing. The trademark thing and "sustainability" is a very thin veneer on top of a man who thinks $400 million net worth is still too little.

https://archive.is/4yLNR

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#124

Post by gitaarik »

pessimizer wrote: post #79
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.

He's right about every user of every open source project. The license gives you code, it doesn't give you trademarks, infrastructure support or moral support. I am amused to see the usual HN vibe both complaining that commercial entities crowding out creators with their own software is violating the "spirit of open source," and insisting that FOSS maintainers don't owe you anything morph into commercial entities don'…

What is he right about exactly?

And is Automattic providing trademark, infrastructure and moral support to WP Engine? As far as I understand WP Engine is just a WordPress plugin.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#125

Post by gitaarik »

pessimizer wrote: post #80
codegeek wrote: post #23

Mullenweg just keeps digging. He is the only person I have ever seen interacting in such a petty manner that he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim. If Trademark was the issue, why did it take him over a decade ? Why is he not going after all the other gazillion WP providers that use similar phrase on their website ? We all know the answer. The only company (WP Engine) that beat his for profit…

What you've said is completely true, but I still can't detect any bad behavior here. He stopped supporting a company that was threatening (not unfairly) his company with his software. Why would he be obligated to justify that? If you built your business next to mine, and I shared e.g. my water infrastructure with you for free or for a nominal fee, then one day your business got large enough to threaten my business, a…

Well isn't that the deal when you're building a company around an open-source project? It's a bit childish to go after people that are better at making money of your open-source project. Maybe you should then just not go into open source, if you cannot handle these kinds of situations.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#126

Post by gitaarik »

throwawaymaths wrote: post #32
codegeek wrote: post #23

Mullenweg just keeps digging. He is the only person I have ever seen interacting in such a petty manner that he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim. If Trademark was the issue, why did it take him over a decade ? Why is he not going after all the other gazillion WP providers that use similar phrase on their website ? We all know the answer. The only company (WP Engine) that beat his for profit…

Well charitably I would suspect that for the first question, he probably didn't want to rock the open source community too much. Look at the trouble the rust foundation got into for trademark enforcement, and it hasn't really been a decade. In general, there's no good time to start flexing on your trademark. For your second question, Matt claims that it's partly because WP engine disabled core features of WordPress.…

Well isn't that the thing about open-source software, that you can change the code and redistribute it? What is wrong about that? The WP Engine customers can ask WP Engine about that, it has nothing to do with Automattic.

Or WP Engine customers don't understand and are coming to Automattic for this? Well you can answer to refer to the WP Engine docs? You don't have to give them support if they're not your customer.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#127

Post by gitaarik »

pessimizer wrote: post #85
jongjong wrote: post #82

As an open source creator, I can understand Matt's position to some extent and the frustration behind seeing some competitor profiting from his work. He is clearly eccentric. The part about him asking WP Engine for revenue-sharing in exchange for changing words in his speech made me chuckle. What I don't understand is why he cares so much. He is probably one of the wealthiest OSS people of all time so it seems petty…

I think when you're rich you'd rather give charity to the needy than to other rich guys.

So in what way is he giving charity to other rich guys?

Or do you mean that any OSS dev is giving charity to people making money using that software?

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#128

Post by gitaarik »

nfRfqX5n wrote: post #50
jeltz wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you are contrarian just to be contrarian? That is a very lazy thing to be, arguably even lazier than blindly following the masses. It is a way to feel superior without having to think. Why don't you read up and form your own opinion? It is just like 15-30 minutes of research.

My opinion is both parties are in the wrong, but everyone is piling on this guy and calling him mentally ill

Not everyone, I see a lot of people with civilized, mature, intellectual comments. But yeah strong actions also result in strong emotions in people, so it's not surprising to see a lot of strong reactions.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#129

Post by preommr »

lolinder wrote: post #123
preommr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sorry, did you read Matt's blog post? The one that said this? > DHH claims to be an expert on open source, but his toxic personality and inability to scale teams means that although he has invented about half a trillion dollars worth of good ideas, most of the value has been captured by others. And this? > Rails, finally some open source! Looks like ~943k lines of code, 143k from Basecamp org. Automattic publishes 6.…

> he's talking about open source as a vehicle for developing personal wealth.

He made his point poorly, but ultimately it's about OSS projects making more money and not running on people's generosity until they get burnt out because they have to do the OSS work and their real job to pay the bills. That it's a single maintainer or a group of people that get rich is irrelevant, to the real issue and only got brough up because Matt was trying to be insulting, which as I said, was wrong.

> If at this point you think Matt is motivated by anything other than greed, you haven't been reading enough of what he's writing.

I think this is an instance of, in some aspects and theoretically, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#130

Post by preommr »

jeltz wrote: post #103
preommr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is an uncharitable take.

An alternative one would be that DHH had ideas and works that could've been much more successful that would let him hire people that would further the goals of OSS. That he could have had companies with corporate values that are more distinct from companies whose goals are purely to extract value for their shareholders.

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