Live data from Hacker News

Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

wordpress.org

21–30 of 130 posts

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#21
post #17
post #14

This is just a play to pretend that WordPress.org is run by volunteers when in truth it's entirely run by Automattic. If it was actually ran by volunteers, he couldn't make any of it stop... because people volunteer their time without being told what to do. I can't wait for him to lose millions of dollars for a hissy fit. It's going to be delicious.

Except the injunction was against .com, not the .org Part of the case is that he is muddying the water on purpose and the separation in two entities is fake, and actions like this may backfire in a big way (and I'm not even talking about the taxes aspect of it at the end). Again, I doubt any lawyer with any once of competency validated this move, let alone write it publicly like this that it's because of the legal ca…

> Except the injunction was against .com, not the .org

Against .com (Automattic) and .org (Mullenweg as an individual)

> Part of the case is that he is muddying the water on purpose and the separation in two entities

Three, actually: WordPress Foundation, Automattic Inc., and Matt Mullenweg (as an individual)

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#23

Damn, reading all this makes me feel terrible. I wonder what goes on in somebody’s mind to make them self-sabotage their lives like Matt has over the past couple of weeks.

> self-sabotage their lives

He's made his millions. He could leave wordpress completely and have a great rest-of-life. In fact, he probably should.

I knew him when he was working out of CNET's basement on 2nd st in SF, doing the initial commercialization of wordpress. I honestly don't see anything inconsistent in his current behavior with who he was back then.

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#24
post #19
post #3

> As you may have heard, I’m legally compelled to provide free labor and services to WP Engine thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers, so in order to avoid bothering the court I will say that none of the above applies to WP Engine, so if they need to bypass any of the above please just have your high-priced attorneys talk to my high-priced attorneys and we’ll arrange access, or just reach out directly to me…

> If you would like to fund legal attacks against me, I would encourage you to sign up for WP Engine services, they have great plans and pricing starting at $50/mo and scaling all the way up to $2,000/mo. Actually tempted.

[deleted]

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#25

"I’m legally compelled to provide free labor and services" Can a court sue a person for lying/libel about the court itself? Now I'm imagining like how doctors and psychiatrists need to go to other doctors and psychiatrists for themselves. Normally if you lie about me we both go to a court, but if you lie about the court, where does the court go?

[deleted]

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#26

Damn, reading all this makes me feel terrible. I wonder what goes on in somebody’s mind to make them self-sabotage their lives like Matt has over the past couple of weeks.

It’s not about success or failure, it’s about investing your ego so deeply into your business that morality and sanity end up seeming like reasonable currencies to spend as a last resort to viewing yourself as a failure. He is the Matt in the company name Auto-Matt-ic, so of course he’s taking it poorly. There are serious downsides to Cult of Personality meets Cult of Infinite Annual Growth.

Honestly, though, the weirdest thing to me about all of this is that corporations already behave like Matt every day, yet when a human starts doing so, we consider involuntarily removing them from society. Perhaps we ought to be less forgiving of his behaviors from the non-humans, too.

Re: Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions

#29

After reading all these comments, I started to worry and even panic because it seemed to me that I was on the wrong side. HN, which side are we on?

This is a faceted issue where both sides have valid points. Also, HN is not a single entity.
Post reply on HN