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The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

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Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#201

Post by ValentineC »

_fjg8 wrote: post #169
shprd wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> millions of dollars per year on event sponsorship Are you for real? Event sponsorship is part of the marketing budget. They're there to promote their company among competitors. It's a universal business expense. > plugin development ACF ACF is their own asset I mentioned this in my comment, they don't contribute significantly beyond their mouth. What you came with are just the receipts for what I said.

And Automattic's control over WordPress is part of their "marketing" budget. Let's not forget how valuable the exclusive commercial license for the WordPress trademark is to Automattic, their ability to use the WordPress.com domain has huge commercial value to them. I have no doubt that WP Engine would pay tens of millions of dollars per year for the exclusive commercial license to the WordPress trademark which is te…

> Let's not forget how valuable the exclusive commercial license for the WordPress trademark is to Automattic, their ability to use the WordPress.com domain has huge commercial value to them.

In the discussion for this post alone, we have commenters with no idea that WordPress can be self-hosted, or that dot com has a free plan.

That's skimming the top for how confused a non-HN-reading layperson could be at the whole project.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#202

Post by shprd »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #197
shprd wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are well-established legal processes for resolving issues like trademark infringement. Exactly, if that was the only thing WPE has leeched we wouldn't be here. They were tolerated for years but they kept digging more and more.

> They were tolerated for years This sounds like dictator speak. "Tolerated" by who? The community embraced them, it's matt and his private-equity-associated, for-profit corporation that didn't like their success. Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

Where do you get the idea that "he didn't like their success" when he helped them ever since their inception?

Can you mention any specific events before the recent debacle that show Matt have been anything but supportive of them for all these years?

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#203

Post by marpstar »

mgrandl wrote: post #30
sccxy wrote: post #9

Trust is lost forever. These are good times for Wordpress alternatives to shine.

I migrated our company site from Wordpress to PayloadCMS and the difference is night and day. Payload is sooo good.

Agreed. I'm going all-in on Payload from here on out. Easier to declare custom post types than WordPress and without the need to explicitly disable any legacy cruft. I built my first app on it last Winter and it's only gotten better. v3 is incredibly easy to use, plus it's all TypeScript which is a huge plus for me personally...

12 years building sites on WP... not anymore.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#204

Post by mardifoufs »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #198
mardifoufs wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That became a thing because he felt like they didn't contribute to WordPress. Like, that's the entire reason behind that (very weird imo) request for a royalty. I'm not sure if it's true, but there were talks about WPEngine devs basically not being allocated any dev time on WordPress anymore (whereas Automattic devs spend tens of hours a week on the actual OSS project). That was one of the catalyst behind the whole d…

> That became a thing because he felt like they didn't contribute to WordPress. Like, that's the entire reason behind that (very weird imo) request for a royalty. I think it's the other way around: the (false) claims about WPEngine not contributing became a thing because they refused his demands to direct 8% of their revenue into matt's private-equity-backed pockets. It would make no sense otherwise: "you aren't cont…

Hmmm, so is WPengine actually contributing to WordPress? Everything I've seen seem to indicate very little development work. But maybe I'm misinformed.

Also, the community (in terms of development) is basically automattic and... that's it. That's the whole problem! But again, I completely agree that the royalty request was extremely weird especially considering the supposed separation between WordPress.org & Automattic

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#205

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

mardifoufs wrote: post #204
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That became a thing because he felt like they didn't contribute to WordPress. Like, that's the entire reason behind that (very weird imo) request for a royalty. I think it's the other way around: the (false) claims about WPEngine not contributing became a thing because they refused his demands to direct 8% of their revenue into matt's private-equity-backed pockets. It would make no sense otherwise: "you aren't cont…

Hmmm, so is WPengine actually contributing to WordPress? Everything I've seen seem to indicate very little development work. But maybe I'm misinformed. Also, the community (in terms of development) is basically automattic and... that's it. That's the whole problem! But again, I completely agree that the royalty request was extremely weird especially considering the supposed separation between WordPress.org & Automatt…

> Hmmm, so is WPengine actually contributing

Yes, WPEngine is contributing to the wordpress community, but that's beside the point, since WPEngine's contributions to the community only came up when WPEngine refused matt's shakedown demand to transfer money into matt's pockets. Weirder still, matt banned WPEngine from contributing to the community on wordpressdotorg, then took some of WPEngine's community contributions and claimed them as their own.

> Also, the community (in terms of development) is basically automattic and... that's it.

It's interesting that you felt the need to qualify "community", limiting it to "in terms of development". The community is the sum total of all users of, and contributors to, the wordpress ecosystem. Matt has harmed millions of community members with his actions, and the community is telling him to knock it off, for the good of the community.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#206

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

shprd wrote: post #202
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They were tolerated for years This sounds like dictator speak. "Tolerated" by who? The community embraced them, it's matt and his private-equity-associated, for-profit corporation that didn't like their success. Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

Where do you get the idea that "he didn't like their success" when he helped them ever since their inception? Can you mention any specific events before the recent debacle that show Matt have been anything but supportive of them for all these years?

Why should we place a cutoff? We can discuss his behavior as of late, as well: Matt saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own, and demanded that they give his own for-profit corporation a large chunk of their revenue. When they declined his request, matt started fabricating all these gripes about private equity and contribution level.

It's quite telling that we don't see matt attacking less successful companies which do the same thing as WPEngine, much less putting forth the same pretexts for it.

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

And back to the first question: "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#207

Post by thiel_is_hitler »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #29
NetOpWibby wrote: post #5

Matt has been busy being a tool https://bullenweg.com/ I feel for everyone that uses Wordpress.

Why on earth is Matt’s nosebleed on this? Making fun of peoples medical issues is tasteless, and makes me wonder about the motivation behind the rest of the page.

I would consider that it's relevant in case he has been insufflating anything that would explain his erratic behavior. That said, as someone in recovery, it is still not something to make fun of. He does clearly need medical help whether that be for drugs, mania or whatever it is he has going on.

The "traveling too much" is exactly the same kind of BS I would have said in my addiction. Is he referring to air pressure? Because that would happen on the plane, not hours later.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#208

Post by shprd »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #206
shprd wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you get the idea that "he didn't like their success" when he helped them ever since their inception? Can you mention any specific events before the recent debacle that show Matt have been anything but supportive of them for all these years?

Why should we place a cutoff? We can discuss his behavior as of late, as well: Matt saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own, and demanded that they give his own for-profit corporation a large chunk of their revenue. When they declined his request, matt started fabricating all these gripes about private equity and contribution level. It's quite telling that we don't see matt attacking less succ…

> saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own

That's hilarious because Matt and Automattic actually invested in WP Engine, supported them in many ways ever since their inception and helped them be more successful and reach this level.

Your entire argument about "jealous of success" falls apart if you look only few months back. He wanted them to succeed for years and years, even after private equity, he still saw them as partners.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#209

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

shprd wrote: post #208
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why should we place a cutoff? We can discuss his behavior as of late, as well: Matt saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own, and demanded that they give his own for-profit corporation a large chunk of their revenue. When they declined his request, matt started fabricating all these gripes about private equity and contribution level. It's quite telling that we don't see matt attacking less succ…

> saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own That's hilarious because Matt and Automattic actually invested in WP Engine, supported them in many ways ever since their inception and helped them be more successful and reach this level. Your entire argument about "jealous of success" falls apart if you look only few months back. He wanted them to succeed for years and years, even after private equit…

None of that makes the "entire argument fall apart". Sounds like he regrets doing that.

The argument that matt is doing this for the community, though, totally falls apart when we see that he is actively harming community members, and the argument that he's doing it for open source totally falls apart when we see that he tried to extort WPEngine for money into his own pocket before contriving the aforementioned pretexts.

Why just WPEngine? It seems because they're successful and he's jealous of their money (hence demanding they give it to him, and not the community).

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

And back to the first question: "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

Re: The ACF plugin on the WordPress directory has been taken over by WordPress.org

#210

Post by everforward »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #139
wise_young_man wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked Automattic is a privately held for profit company. One could argue that it’s a private equity too. Just using different words to twist a narrative.

This is not the same. Private equity extracts as an investment, Automattic is an ecosystem participant (that happens to be privately held) that actively contributes to the community. That doesn’t mean Matt hasn’t taken things too far (I leave that to be determined by civil courts and the Wordpress community, no dog in the fight myself), but there is a difference, and it is very important to clearly delineate who is r…

I would argue that attempting to strong arm a competitor into paying for your open source product and then doing all of this when they won’t is way farther down the late stage capitalism road than most private equity companies.

That’s probably mostly because the private equity folks are just better at extracting money without causing an international scene. Matt’s ineptitude doesn’t make it categorically different, though.

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