Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#71

Post by legitster » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:50 PM UTC

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…

I think revealed in this is that Matt has no understanding of the Wordpress userbase, and bizarre unpopular features like Gravitar and Gutenberg now make more sense in hindsight.

ACF was one of the most important enterprise plugins in the ecosystem when they hijacked it. They essentially did a supply chain attack on the top WordPress users and expected there to be no repercussions.

He was also apparently upset that WP Engine was not pushing Jetpack, Automattic's own thoroughly mediocre service package that they try upselling to every WordPress user.

So I get the impression Matt is really, really, really out of touch with his own userbase, and he still sees the primary feature of WordPress as a blogging platform.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#72

Post by bityard » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:50 PM UTC

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.

Under US labor laws at least, you only have to pay someone if they are doing work that benefits the company materially somehow. They would be forbidden from grabbing bugs out of their queue and saying, here go fix this and maybe we'll hire you. Same with unpaid internships which are _supposed_ to be training and shadowing opportunities only, no actual work being done.

That said, I did just peek and my notes and I read that candidates are paid two week's salary for the coding assignment.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#73

Post by Dalewyn » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:51 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #38

zeruch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

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.

Way too many progressive people proclaim the virtues of free and open and then when others take them for their word.

If you want compensation of any kind you must stipulate them before the fact.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#74

Post by dhosek » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:51 PM UTC

KerrAvon wrote: post #68

codetrotter wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 significa…

Twitter is dead, it just hasn't stopped twitching yet. Turns out network effects are extremely durable. There is no time like the present to move to BlueSky if you haven't already.

Indeed, network effects are durable but not unbreakable. I haven’t deleted my Twitter account yet, mostly because there are those (increasingly rare) occasions when it’s necessary to log in to view some thread or the like, but when I find myself there, it always feels like a raging dumpster fire. Building a new network on BlueSky took a while, but it was definitely worthwhile, and while there are a handful of people I miss from Twitter, I have a good community that fills the need that Twitter used to. I suspect that for most tech people, Mastodon is going to be the new destination and there will never be a single destination for social networking again, but maybe that’s a good thing.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#75

Post by DamnInteresting » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:52 PM UTC

FireBeyond wrote: post #8

bityard wrote: post #2

Last year, I was contacted out of the blue by an Automattic recruiter who encouraged me to apply for an engineering position there. I was intrigued for a few minutes because I recognized the company and knew they did some really terrific open source work once upon a time. But then I regained my senses... I don't have any kind of reputation or extensive proof of accomplishments or character outside of my resume and re…

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…

I've been building sites on WordPress for almost 20 years. A couple of years ago I ran into an old friend, and it turned out she worked for Automattic. She encouraged me to apply there, so I did.

The initial interviews went well, so I moved on to the code test. It was a slog; I was working full-time and raising a three-year-old. But I loved the idea of working for the keepers of WordPress, so I powered through. During this process I got a peek inside Automattic, and there were some concerning oddities. One that stuck out to me was that there is an annual week-long gathering of employees, and it is mandatory.

Then my "trial" began. It was certainly within my technical capabilities, but it was something like 2 weeks worth of full-time work, all to write code that would ultimately be thrown away. I was instructed to invoice Automattic $30/hour for the time I spent on it, and told that taking too long to finish would result in rejection. I got a few hours in before I concluded that it was just not possible, and I withdrew my application.

There was also a fair amount of weird forced corporate jargon in the materials. Instead of "employees" it was always "Automatticians," and things like that. It felt a bit cultish. In retrospect, I think I dodged a bullet.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#76

Post by legitster » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:54 PM UTC

markdown wrote: post #70

legitster wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Thanks. Good to know that there are decent hosts to choose from, that help support WP by paying licensing/service fees.

They don't "support WP". All the fees are going to Automattic, as was revealed in term sheet Matt himself shared.

The "volunteers" on the WP project that approve all of the work and revisions are full time Automattic employees. The work that the Foundation does primarily benefits Automattic.

There is nothing to even support besides Automattic.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#77

Post by jjulius » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:56 PM UTC

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

>... [I] believe he will end up being in the right on this

>My opinion is both parties are in the wrong...

So you feel which way, now?

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#78

Post by acdha » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:58 PM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #57

ceejayoz wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

How much of that code is still left? I’d think the bigger problem is that they’d have to get everyone who ever contributed to it not as an Automattic employee to agree to a re-license.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#79

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 9:59 PM UTC

mjburgess wrote: post #38

zeruch wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

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't owe the FOSS maintainers of the software users anything, and are owed trademarks and access to infrastructure.

WP Engine is a hedge fund spinning money out of FOSS. It's fine, it makes more choices available for people. But the idea that Automattic has to acknowledge them, and that acknowledgement cannot be hostile, that's not in the license.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#80

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Oct 17, 2024, 10:06 PM UTC

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, am I obligated to let you keep using my water, or should you have figured something else out long ago?