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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

#211

Post by shprd »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #209
shprd wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 prete…

Look here and see how everyone contribute: https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledges/?order=hou...

>shake down WPEngine for money into his own pocket

It's not going to Matt pocket, Matt pays that multiple folds and has done that for years. Stop making ignorant accusations.

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

#212

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

shprd wrote: post #211
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 prete…

Look here and see how everyone contribute: https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledges/?order=hou... >shake down WPEngine for money into his own pocket It's not going to Matt pocket, Matt pays that multiple folds and has done that for years. Stop making ignorant accusations.

> It's not going to Matt pocket

Yes, it is. He demanded WPEngine pay 8% of revenues to Automattic. Not to the community. To Automattic: matt's private, for-profit corporation. The one matt runs along with a private equity friend of his. The one matt likely owns much of, too. The one matt named after himself.

Also, please stop ignoring the questions posed to you:

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

#213

Post by shprd »

ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #212
shprd wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look here and see how everyone contribute: https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledges/?order=hou... >shake down WPEngine for money into his own pocket It's not going to Matt pocket, Matt pays that multiple folds and has done that for years. Stop making ignorant accusations.

> It's not going to Matt pocket Yes, it is. He demanded WPEngine pay 8% of revenues to Automattic. Not to the community. To Automattic: matt's private, for-profit corporation. The one matt runs along with a private equity friend of his. The one matt likely owns much of, too. The one matt named after himself. Also, please stop ignoring the questions posed to you: Should matt have such a veto power over what the commun…

I answered what I can but here let me put your mind at rest:

> 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?

Am I sitting on some regulatory board? What this got to do with me? if I had to propose anything it'd be form a board from all major contributors to solve this conflict and reach a resolution

> "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

No, Matt supported and invested in them for years, before you and "the community" even heard about them. He was the one there from the very beginning.

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

#214

Post by ImPostingOnHN »

shprd wrote: post #213
ImPostingOnHN wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's not going to Matt pocket Yes, it is. He demanded WPEngine pay 8% of revenues to Automattic. Not to the community. To Automattic: matt's private, for-profit corporation. The one matt runs along with a private equity friend of his. The one matt likely owns much of, too. The one matt named after himself. Also, please stop ignoring the questions posed to you: Should matt have such a veto power over what the commun…

I answered what I can but here let me put your mind at rest: > 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? Am I sitting on some regulatory board? What this got to do with me? if I had to propose anything it'd be form a board from all major contributors to solve this…

> Am I sitting on some regulatory board? What this got to do with me

Well, I asked a simple question: Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? What do you think? Should he?

> if I had to propose anything it'd be form a board from all major contributors to solve this conflict

Ignoring for a moment that matt is banning contributors, rather than caring what they want: What about what the wordpress community wants? They are the most important and most numerous stakeholders here.

> No, Matt not only embraced them, he supported and invested in them for years, before you and "the community" even heard about them. He was the one there from the very beginning.

No, the community has embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community and to Automattic's success. So who specifically are you speaking of, who merely "tolerated" WPEngine?

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

#215

Post by Brian_K_White »

thih9 wrote: post #162
Brian_K_White wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where in the world, how the hell did you get the idea that stealing free code isn't stealing?

Stealing involves acquiring something in an illegal way. Free in the context of open source code usually means infinitely available under its license. These two are incompatible - unless some illegal license shenanigans are at play.

Stealing doesn't imply anything. It is taking someone else's posession.

In the case of gpl software, copying, and posessing a copy, and redistributing a copy of the code itself is not theft. The license grants those actions explicitly.

But the fact that the license grants those particular rights does not mean there is no license, and violating that license is exactly theft, which is what Mullenweg has done.

For someone persuing this whole pogrom under the banner of championing open source and being a good community member and challenging others integrity, this is about as hipocrytical and low as you can go. It would be a joke if it wasn't a fact.

I would not admit in public that you think that since a license does not require money, that means it has no owner or copyright and that it's impossible to steal it. Or that laws are the only thing that defines right and wrong and stealing. Money is just one of many terms in any agreement or contract or license.

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

#216

Post by FreakLegion »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #182
FreakLegion wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd need to see the cap table and articles of incorporation to know if the board has any power. Salesforce invested $300m in the D round and doesn't have a seat, for example. Phil Black and maybe Toni Schneider's seats might be protected, but Matt could have the voting power to replace the other two at will. Current drama aside, good for him if that's the case. Very few founders maintain absolute control past a Ser…

Good for him? He's just ruined that possibility for just about anyone else going forward. Praise him? No way. Ironic isn't it? He cries about the scourge known as PE, and he's single handedly f*ked every investor-seeking founder everywhere going forward.

Yes, good for him if the wholly speculative scenario I described is true. What's going on with Matt and WordPress will have zero impact on other founders.

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

#217

Post by toomuchtodo »

everforward wrote: post #210
toomuchtodo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, t…

I can understand the desire to prevent freeloading, but not agree with the methods to encourage better behavior. Economic systems are hard and imperfect.

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

#218

Post by FireBeyond »

mardifoufs wrote: post #140
FireBeyond wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WPE literally spends several hundred thousand dollars a year contributing to WP events. And then they get banned from those events while the WP Foundation keeps the checks. What absolute leeches they are.

Hundreds of thousands on events is nothing. The fact that this is the most repeated example of them contributing to WordPress just proves the point that they don't actually do much. Their entire business is based around wrapping WP and reselling it. That they can manage to spend a few hundred K's on what is basically marketing (visibility at WordPress events) is not surprising. Now, how much do they contribute to the…

> It's just weird how the conversation shifted to portraying Automattic as a leach or a bad maintainer and WPengine as a victim

WPEngine are adults, they can (and are) taking care of themselves.

But sorry, if you start using your position as CEO of Automattic, and President of WPF to:

- push rants forcibly into the dashboards of your for-profit offering's commercial competitors

- lock users of a competitor out of a whole raft of functionality because of your beef with their provider

- break users sites in the name of effectively hostage-taking a plugin

Then what else are you but a "bad maintainer"?

> as a leach [sic]

Matt doesn't want WPE's "revenue-sharing" license agreement to go to the community, the project, or the Foundation, though, he wants it to go to himself, via his private, for profit competitor. That's easily described as leeching.

> is basically marketing (visibility at WordPress events)

Well, given that at these recent events they've given money, been banned from attending and had all references to their name removed, I think their contributions are valid.

Also "that doesn't count, it's just marketing", yes, marketing dollars that they are contributing to the community to make the cost to the rest of the community in hosting events less. You sound like Matt here, "Well, yes, they contribute, but not in the way I tell them to, and in the amount I tell them to, so it's not reallllly a contribution."

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

#219

Post by throw16180339 »

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…

> 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.

If he succeeds with WP Engine, then he'll probably shake down other companies in the future.

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

#220

Post by wg0 »

lexicality wrote: post #13

It's very funny that Matt's original complaint was that WPEngine didn't contribute enough, and he has now banned them from contributing and stolen what they had previously provided

Just for 8% I would destroy the 92%.
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