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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?

#81

Post by mschuster91 »

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, but that's about it.

There aren't that many when it comes to the usual wordpress "niche" aka "slap it on a 5$ VPS and be done with it". Virtually everything else has a muuuuch steeper learning curve, and you gotta be lucky to find third party integrations for more than the usual suspects (WP, Drupal, Joomla).

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#82

Post by jongjong »

As an open source creator, I can understand Matt's position to some extent and the frustration behind seeing some competitor profiting from his work. He is clearly eccentric. The part about him asking WP Engine for revenue-sharing in exchange for changing words in his speech made me chuckle. What I don't understand is why he cares so much. He is probably one of the wealthiest OSS people of all time so it seems petty in that context.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#83

Post by sieabahlpark »

segasaturn wrote: post #69
richbell wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and even tweeting out the private handles of the user he was beefing with. While I think Matt's current behaviour is abhorrent, my understanding is the linked article buries the lede a bit. The user claimed they were banned due to bigotry and that Tumblr was lying about them having NSFW content. Things continued to escalate until Matt shared a list of their NSFW accounts. https://www.threads.net/@samhenrigold/post/…

The accounts were empty and didn't have any NSFW content on them. The only explicit thing was the usernames of the accounts, which doesn't violate any rules. Posting the user's private account names was just meant to smear them as a sex-pervert.

[dead]

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#84

Post by pessimizer »

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

My opinion is very similar: both parties are in the right, but one is calling up a mob to pile up on this guy and call him mentally ill.

Automattic has the right to cut off use of its trademarks and infrastructure for any reason, and the hedge fund has the right to whine about it because they got used to the generosity.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#85

Post by pessimizer »

jongjong wrote: post #82

As an open source creator, I can understand Matt's position to some extent and the frustration behind seeing some competitor profiting from his work. He is clearly eccentric. The part about him asking WP Engine for revenue-sharing in exchange for changing words in his speech made me chuckle. What I don't understand is why he cares so much. He is probably one of the wealthiest OSS people of all time so it seems petty…

I think when you're rich you'd rather give charity to the needy than to other rich guys.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#86

Post by xnx »

"It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute"

No one with money at stake will allow their Wordpress install to be subject to random sabotage by the whims of unhinged behavior. I don't know if a fork is the solution, but Matt can't have admin access to so many installs.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#87

Post by richbell »

segasaturn wrote: post #69
richbell wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and even tweeting out the private handles of the user he was beefing with. While I think Matt's current behaviour is abhorrent, my understanding is the linked article buries the lede a bit. The user claimed they were banned due to bigotry and that Tumblr was lying about them having NSFW content. Things continued to escalate until Matt shared a list of their NSFW accounts. https://www.threads.net/@samhenrigold/post/…

The accounts were empty and didn't have any NSFW content on them. The only explicit thing was the usernames of the accounts, which doesn't violate any rules. Posting the user's private account names was just meant to smear them as a sex-pervert.

> The accounts were empty and didn't have any NSFW content on them.

Was this confirmed by Tumblr staff?

And if the accounts were empty then what's the harm?

> ...was just meant to smear them as a sex-pervert.

The user voluntarily made several accounts with extremely vulgar and sexual names, ostensibly for NSFW purposes. If merely sharing the names is enough to "smear them as a sex pervert", I don't think that's Matt's fault.

Especially considering the post was in response to the user inciting harassment against Tumblr staff.

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#88

Post by ValentineC »

legitster wrote: post #71
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…

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 W…

> I think revealed in this is that Matt has no understanding of the Wordpress userbase

Ironically, ever since past data of "active installs" was removed from the plugin directory [1], Matt is, as sole owner of WordPress dot org [2], the only person in the world with unfettered access to plugin usage trends.

[1] https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/6511

[2] https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-w...

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#89

Post by throwawaymaths »

swores wrote: post #55
ceejayoz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Trademark is exactly supposed to protect the reputation of WordPress. If people confuse WPEngine for WordPress, and assume if WPEngine doesn't have it, WordPress doesn't then that's damaging to WordPress. Except that WordPress doesn't (and legally can't) claim "WP". I'd be frustrated.

This is like asking what is it a concern of McDonald's if you open up your own restaurant call McDonald in your town and make it a dump

Re: Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

#90

Post by didgetmaster »

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.

I am confused. Is WordPress trying to change the open source license to a more restrictive one? Suddenly trying to enforce some terms of the existing license that they never did in the past? Or is it an old fashioned legal dispute where each party says the terms of the contract mean something different?
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