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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?

#51

Post by PaulHoule »

ceejayoz wrote: post #43
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.

Well, they changed their licenses . That's not what happened here.

It’s another way of fighting back which could be more or less effective. (Right now I am dreading that I’ll need to change the database my RSS reader users because I can’t really use it commercially or open source the code.)

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#52

Post by pyrale »

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.

Because database products didn't build a platform in hopes that Amazon would add features to it, it's quite the opposite.

This looks more like Amazon copying products from successful sellers on its marketplace, then pushing them to the side.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#54

Post by legitster »

ankleturtle wrote: post #6

The article update links to a Google Doc in which Matt takes issue with the following remark from the article: > he's a wealthy CEO of a for-profit corporation that is attacking a competitor Matt responds: > WP Engine is a “competitor”, but so is every other web host in the world. Automattic and WordPress.org have had good relations with all the others for 21 years. WordPress.org recommends a number of hosts. It seem…

> WordPress.org recommends a number of hosts.

It's worth pointing out that, of the hosts Wordpress.org just promoted (https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/wp-engine-promotions/) 3 are owned by Automattic and the other 2 pay Automattic licensing/service fees.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#55

Post by swores »

ceejayoz wrote: post #39
throwawaymaths wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

Disabling/limiting revisions is built in to WordPress. All WP Engine did is add: define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); to their configs.

Even if they had literally disabled 80% of the functionality of wordpress, would that still be the concern of anyone other than WP Engine and their customers?

Why would anyone using open source software be required to use 100% of the functionality that the software is capable of providing?

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#56

Post by [deleted] »

kuschku wrote: post #36
FireBeyond wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automattic's recruitment process is also... "involved": > Write a thoughtful cover letter, and thorough responses to application questions. I've seen these kind of application questions before. These are not from Automattic but comparable to what I saw from them: "Describe in detail, including the metrics, KPIs and reasoning you used when you launched your previous 0 to 1 product to ensure a good fit to your customer…

> Code Test for engineers - We expect the code test will take no more than a couple of days, and this is done asynchronously over the course of approximately a week Doesn't that run foul of minimum wage laws and social security laws? At that point you're doing unpaid work.

[deleted]

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#57

Post by colechristensen »

ceejayoz wrote: post #43
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.

Well, they changed their licenses . That's not what happened here.

Wordpress can't because it was a fork of b2/cafelog. You can't un-GPL code you didn't own in the first place.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#59

Post by codetrotter »

zeruch wrote: post #17
runjake wrote: post #7

One important people to keep in mind as they read this post, the linked Google Doc, and tweets from the past day where a bunch of people are receiving unsolicited DMs[1] from Automattic with grammar that matches Matt's: - Matt, under various guises, is shifting blame to different entities that are effectively himself. - Automattic is Matt. Matt is the CEO of Automattic. - The WordPress Foundation is, effectively, Mat…

"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…

> 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 significance of the Digg -> Reddit mass-migration.

Therefore I am not convinced that people will actually be leaving Wordpress in droves. No matter how bad the situation currently seems for WP users.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#60

Post by swores »

kuschku wrote: post #36
FireBeyond wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automattic's recruitment process is also... "involved": > Write a thoughtful cover letter, and thorough responses to application questions. I've seen these kind of application questions before. These are not from Automattic but comparable to what I saw from them: "Describe in detail, including the metrics, KPIs and reasoning you used when you launched your previous 0 to 1 product to ensure a good fit to your customer…

> Code Test for engineers - We expect the code test will take no more than a couple of days, and this is done asynchronously over the course of approximately a week Doesn't that run foul of minimum wage laws and social security laws? At that point you're doing unpaid work.

How is it legally different to sitting a one hour interview? You're not getting paid for that either, that doesn't make it a minimum wage violation because its not doing work.

I think their code test / interview process sounds terrible, but the two days of code test is part of the interview, it's not producing code for the company to use.

(I do think that any company that wants applicants to spend that much time should pay for that time, but only for ethical, not legal, reasons.)

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