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While this blog post is a very balanced take and definitely not a knee-jerk reaction, I disagree with some of the biases pointed out. Sure, WP Engine advertises

by neya 2y ago

While this blog post is a very balanced take and definitely not a knee-jerk reaction, I disagree with some of the biases pointed out. Sure, WP Engine advertises itself contributing back on their home page. But, rightfully so? Yeah, they don't contribute back as much as Matt or anyone would like to, but, they still contribute back, right? Next, one of the author's arguments is that WP Engine doesn't stop others as advertising itself as the "Wordpress Engine". Sure, but this same parallel can be drawn towards Wordpress.org itself. The homepage of Wordpress.org SCREAMS open-source. But, is it really though? It is an ecosystem around a centralised (plugin) repository controlled by one person/entity. That's not truly open source. Today WP Engine is blocked because they upset the overlords. Tomorrow, it could be anyone of us. Also, the whole argument made on the official blog post was WP Engine customising the admin panels, branding and other components to change the experience of Wordpress as they see fit. Isn't that the point of open source? In the same spirit, I can also argue that Automattic doesn't really provide 100% open source Wordpress' experience either - It has many walled features across different price points. If Wordpress is truly open source and if Matt's concerns are really around the spirit of open source, the fair thing that he/his company should have done is released the whole source code that powers the entire Wordpress.com eco-system including their backend systems on how they handle billing and scale. But, you know what? That will never happen, because that is their competitive advantage. As someone who handles multi-million visitor sites on Wordpress, I can tell you this - the whole Wordpress eco-system thrives because the code is bad and it just won't scale - both performance wise and development wise as your content grows. The entire competitive advantage of Wordpress.com is actually masking this bad code and scaling difficulty behind a pretty interface. I would love to see them open source that. Of course, that won't happen. This is just one entity abusing another with their power. I am in no way supporting WP Engine (they seem sleazy and I would never host any of my client sites with them). But, there are plenty of people they could have gone after - how about Kinsta? They do the same thing. This was just a personal attack. You simply can't sugar-coat that.

fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago
Yeah the most confusing thing to me is how the hell code that bad ever got so big. It’s literally my go-to example of why the MVC design pattern is so good for web development. There is basically no view/controller separation - you can change core behavior of the backend in a template.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  Simple: Programmers think code quality matters. In the real world, nobody gives a darn about your code quality. Zero interest. It just needs to work, keep working, and that’s it. I assure you probably >90% of code in deployment right now doesn’t even have CI/CD.
- bdzr 2y ago
  WordPress has always had a phenomenal admin editing experience relative to what else existed. That on top of a dogmatic adherence to backwards compatibility made the free (and paid) theme/plugin ecosystem thrive.
kolanos 2y ago
> I am in no way supporting WP Engine (they seem sleazy and I would never host any of my client sites with them). What makes them sleazy? I have yet to see anything substantive to suggest WP Engine is acting any differently than any other managed service provider.
- authorfly 2y ago
  I disagree with Matt's actions, but not why he is truly compelled to take action. It's been pretty clear for a long time that WP engine was founded to be a maximally profitable business model to fill in the security/reliability gap, with the founder identifying this as why he went into the business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw (note he doesn't mention Open Source there or extraction of value - he's just rightfuly pointing out good fundamentals of business for bootstrapped developers). He mentions how $50 or $100 a month is much better than $5 or $10 a month - and that leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you realise WP Engine still charges that today, a little. Where this comes to the sleazy part is that: A) WP Engine has kept prices the same or increased over the years B) But WordPress has became more secure and a lot of what WP Engine used to uniquely do they no longer do C) WP Engine contributes significantly more to sponsoring conferences seats, and PR spend, then actual contributions I think the combination of these things is what actually drove Matt to make his move: A) Awareness that the original founder made WP Engine to maximize profit; which Matt naturally feels relatively deprived of as a competitor B) The behavior of sponsoring conferences, but not giving back in WP Engine C) Rumors of suppression/avoiding working on Wordpress Core by WP Engine managemnet, which Matt seems to have genuinely been taken by (perhaps a few true WP engineers did reach out - no evidence that I've seen) D) That WP Engine having a "big bad investor" would get people on his side, as that they were blurring the line a little. E) A perception of, or increasingly urgent actual cashflow issues at his company making him think that the longer he put it off, the weaker he will be. F) His own blindness to the obvious hypocrisy with Wordpress.com / Wordpress.org. Matt making threats and essentially extorting WP Engine is entirely wrong. This said, I understand why he did took some action. I'm not sure what I would have done.
klez 2y ago
> The homepage of Wordpress.org SCREAMS open-source. But, is it really though? It is an ecosystem around a centralised (plugin) repository controlled by one person/entity. That's not truly open source. According to whom? It is open source in the measure that you're allowed to fork and redistribute your modified version. That satisfies the open source definition. If those plugins are open source themselves WPE can set up their own repository and point to it. If it's not, well, they decided to bet on something that could be taken off their hands at any moment. You may say that this goes against the open source spirit, but that's a different thing. Wordpress is, by any reasonable measure, Open Source. > WP Engine customising the admin panels, branding and other components to change the experience of Wordpress as they see fit. Isn't that the point of open source? Sure, but... > In the same spirit, I can also argue that Automattic doesn't really provide 100% open source Wordpress' experience either - It has many walled features across different price points. No. The difference is Automattic owns Worpdpress' copyright, WP Engine doesn't. Also, does Automattic claim they provide a 100% open source Wordpress experience? Let's be clear: I'm not defending WP's actions here (I think what they did is just plain dumb), and I don't have a horse in this race, but here we're conflating what would be ideal (everything is FOSS, Automattic releases everything they do and they compete only on service) with the reality that Automattic is a business and it pursues its own interest. Maybe they're pursuing it in a way that in the end will do them and the ecosystem more harm than good, but what they're doing is just business, and has nothing to do with the definition of open source.
- redwall_hp 2y ago
  > Automattic owns Worpdpress' copyright WordPress has no CLA. The copyright is collectively held by all contributors. WordPress is also a fork of b2.
- neya 2y ago
  For the record, Wordpress is GPL, and IANAL, but as far as I know, any modifications you make to the core must be released back (on request in the very least). That's why almost every Wordpress theme, including commercial themeforest themes don't stop you from releasing the source code if someone requests for it. So, this is not Automattic having to release out of moral high ground, but rather due to the GPL licensing they chose to use for Wordpress. So my point is, if this whole fiasco was in the spirit of open source, then this should have started with Automattic releasing their entire codebase surrounding their platform and not just pick their competitor and harass them.
arp242 2y ago
> Sure, WP Engine advertises itself contributing back on their home page. But, rightfully so? Yeah, they don't contribute back as much as Matt or anyone would like to, but, they still contribute back, right? It says "We passionately stand for WordPress, giving back, and DE&I". With about 40/week on half a billion in revenue that doesn't strike me as "passionate", or even worth proudly advertising on a home page. All of this is what I would like to call "open washing": build an entire business on $open_platform, contribute back the minimum amount you need to fix your own problems, and then proudly declare what a bunch of altruistic good guys you are. Lots can be said about 1) and 2) in itself, which has been discussed on HN frequently in the past and I don't want to repeat all of that so I won't offer my opinion here (which is long and nuanced in itself). But the whole "proudly advertise what a bunch of good guys we are" really rubs me the wrong way. It's just open washing: pretending to care when you don't. Overall it kind of reminds me how some people put "Open Source contributions to $FAMOUS_PROJECT" on their CV. And then I go and check it's four PRs from 6 years ago, two of which are typo fixes and the other two are bugfixes. These are real contributions, yes. I don't want to disparage them. But at the same time: highlighting them as "Open Source contributions to $FAMOUS_PROJECT" is not really accurate or appropriate. This kind of stuff is basically an insta-reject when I'm reviewing CVs (which, unfortunately, is far more common than I'd like).
- neya 2y ago
  I agree with everything you said. My only question is why aren't we holding Automattic to the same standard we are scrutinising WP Engine? By the same argument, Matt claims Automattic contributes 3915 hours a week, but this is all behind a single flip switch - the plugins repository which they can turn on and off for people they like and don't. Ok, let's leave the plugin argument aside, why are we brushing over the fact that Automattic is a competitor to WP Engine and Wordpress.org is the open source project which has nothing to do with either of them (business wise), for Matt to use the open source platform to settle his feud with a competitor is downright a low blow. That's an abuse of his power over the project which is supposedly "open source". Is it really open source if a for-profit entity comes in and turn the lights off for another for-profit entity, without consulting other contributors of the said project, simply for using the project in the same spirit in which it is intended to be used?

by neya 2y ago

fhdsgbbcaA 2y ago

Yeah the most confusing thing to me is how the hell code that bad ever got so big. It’s literally my go-to example of why the MVC design pattern is so good for web development. There is basically no view/controller separation - you can change core behavior of the backend in a template.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
Simple: Programmers think code quality matters. In the real world, nobody gives a darn about your code quality. Zero interest. It just needs to work, keep working, and that’s it. I assure you probably >90% of code in deployment right now doesn’t even have CI/CD.
bdzr 2y ago
WordPress has always had a phenomenal admin editing experience relative to what else existed. That on top of a dogmatic adherence to backwards compatibility made the free (and paid) theme/plugin ecosystem thrive.

kolanos 2y ago

> I am in no way supporting WP Engine (they seem sleazy and I would never host any of my client sites with them). What makes them sleazy? I have yet to see anything substantive to suggest WP Engine is acting any differently than any other managed service provider.

authorfly 2y ago
I disagree with Matt's actions, but not why he is truly compelled to take action. It's been pretty clear for a long time that WP engine was founded to be a maximally profitable business model to fill in the security/reliability gap, with the founder identifying this as why he went into the business: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otbnC2zE2rw (note he doesn't mention Open Source there or extraction of value - he's just rightfuly pointing out good fundamentals of business for bootstrapped developers). He mentions how $50 or $100 a month is much better than $5 or $10 a month - and that leaves a bad taste in your mouth when you realise WP Engine still charges that today, a little. Where this comes to the sleazy part is that: A) WP Engine has kept prices the same or increased over the years B) But WordPress has became more secure and a lot of what WP Engine used to uniquely do they no longer do C) WP Engine contributes significantly more to sponsoring conferences seats, and PR spend, then actual contributions I think the combination of these things is what actually drove Matt to make his move: A) Awareness that the original founder made WP Engine to maximize profit; which Matt naturally feels relatively deprived of as a competitor B) The behavior of sponsoring conferences, but not giving back in WP Engine C) Rumors of suppression/avoiding working on Wordpress Core by WP Engine managemnet, which Matt seems to have genuinely been taken by (perhaps a few true WP engineers did reach out - no evidence that I've seen) D) That WP Engine having a "big bad investor" would get people on his side, as that they were blurring the line a little. E) A perception of, or increasingly urgent actual cashflow issues at his company making him think that the longer he put it off, the weaker he will be. F) His own blindness to the obvious hypocrisy with Wordpress.com / Wordpress.org. Matt making threats and essentially extorting WP Engine is entirely wrong. This said, I understand why he did took some action. I'm not sure what I would have done.

klez 2y ago

> The homepage of Wordpress.org SCREAMS open-source. But, is it really though? It is an ecosystem around a centralised (plugin) repository controlled by one person/entity. That's not truly open source. According to whom? It is open source in the measure that you're allowed to fork and redistribute your modified version. That satisfies the open source definition. If those plugins are open source themselves WPE can set up their own repository and point to it. If it's not, well, they decided to bet on something that could be taken off their hands at any moment. You may say that this goes against the open source spirit, but that's a different thing. Wordpress is, by any reasonable measure, Open Source. > WP Engine customising the admin panels, branding and other components to change the experience of Wordpress as they see fit. Isn't that the point of open source? Sure, but... > In the same spirit, I can also argue that Automattic doesn't really provide 100% open source Wordpress' experience either - It has many walled features across different price points. No. The difference is Automattic owns Worpdpress' copyright, WP Engine doesn't. Also, does Automattic claim they provide a 100% open source Wordpress experience? Let's be clear: I'm not defending WP's actions here (I think what they did is just plain dumb), and I don't have a horse in this race, but here we're conflating what would be ideal (everything is FOSS, Automattic releases everything they do and they compete only on service) with the reality that Automattic is a business and it pursues its own interest. Maybe they're pursuing it in a way that in the end will do them and the ecosystem more harm than good, but what they're doing is just business, and has nothing to do with the definition of open source.

redwall_hp 2y ago
> Automattic owns Worpdpress' copyright WordPress has no CLA. The copyright is collectively held by all contributors. WordPress is also a fork of b2.
neya 2y ago
For the record, Wordpress is GPL, and IANAL, but as far as I know, any modifications you make to the core must be released back (on request in the very least). That's why almost every Wordpress theme, including commercial themeforest themes don't stop you from releasing the source code if someone requests for it. So, this is not Automattic having to release out of moral high ground, but rather due to the GPL licensing they chose to use for Wordpress. So my point is, if this whole fiasco was in the spirit of open source, then this should have started with Automattic releasing their entire codebase surrounding their platform and not just pick their competitor and harass them.

arp242 2y ago

> Sure, WP Engine advertises itself contributing back on their home page. But, rightfully so? Yeah, they don't contribute back as much as Matt or anyone would like to, but, they still contribute back, right? It says "We passionately stand for WordPress, giving back, and DE&I". With about 40/week on half a billion in revenue that doesn't strike me as "passionate", or even worth proudly advertising on a home page. All of this is what I would like to call "open washing": build an entire business on $open_platform, contribute back the minimum amount you need to fix your own problems, and then proudly declare what a bunch of altruistic good guys you are. Lots can be said about 1) and 2) in itself, which has been discussed on HN frequently in the past and I don't want to repeat all of that so I won't offer my opinion here (which is long and nuanced in itself). But the whole "proudly advertise what a bunch of good guys we are" really rubs me the wrong way. It's just open washing: pretending to care when you don't. Overall it kind of reminds me how some people put "Open Source contributions to $FAMOUS_PROJECT" on their CV. And then I go and check it's four PRs from 6 years ago, two of which are typo fixes and the other two are bugfixes. These are real contributions, yes. I don't want to disparage them. But at the same time: highlighting them as "Open Source contributions to $FAMOUS_PROJECT" is not really accurate or appropriate. This kind of stuff is basically an insta-reject when I'm reviewing CVs (which, unfortunately, is far more common than I'd like).

neya 2y ago
I agree with everything you said. My only question is why aren't we holding Automattic to the same standard we are scrutinising WP Engine? By the same argument, Matt claims Automattic contributes 3915 hours a week, but this is all behind a single flip switch - the plugins repository which they can turn on and off for people they like and don't. Ok, let's leave the plugin argument aside, why are we brushing over the fact that Automattic is a competitor to WP Engine and Wordpress.org is the open source project which has nothing to do with either of them (business wise), for Matt to use the open source platform to settle his feud with a competitor is downright a low blow. That's an abuse of his power over the project which is supposedly "open source". Is it really open source if a for-profit entity comes in and turn the lights off for another for-profit entity, without consulting other contributors of the said project, simply for using the project in the same spirit in which it is intended to be used?