10 ms·

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,

by 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?

arp242 2y ago
Automattic spends about 4,000 hours/week on WordPress, or about 100 people. This is a big investment, and more than all other companies on the first "pledge" page put together (which is 2,539 hours).[1] That of course doesn't mean they're above criticism or anything, but you also can't really ignore that an enormous chunk of development is funded by Automattic (i.e. WordPress.com). In return of doing all this work, they get quite a lot of power over the project. That's kind of how it works everywhere: when I was a scout leader the people who were there every weekend, spent a lot of time on admin stuff, etc. etc. had more "power" than the people who would occasionally show up and help out. Or to put it in another way: if you contribute a few useful PRs to one of my projects, and then you proceed to be a dick to me (or others) then I'll ban you. Even if that's outside of the GitHub repo (like, say, Hacker News) because at some point I'll be "fuck that person". Yes, your contributions were useful. But also: I did 90% of the work here, and your ten PRs are not on the same level. It might be different if you (or WP-Engine) had spent roughly the same amount of time, or at least roughly on the same order of magnitude. But that's not the case here – the gap is huge. So I do hold them to different standards, because one put their money where their mouth is, and the other didn't. All of that said, I'm not sure if Mullenweg's actions are all that wise. But also: I don't have all the details, so I find it difficult to judge. --- [1]: As an aside, I don't know how they actually measure this or how accurate these numbers are. But I haven't seen anyone – including WP-Engine – dispute them, so I will assume they're reasonably accurate.
evanelias 2y ago
> My only question is why aren't we holding Automattic to the same standard we are scrutinising WP Engine? If I understand the situation correctly, Automattic has a commercial license for the WordPress trademark, while WP Engine does not. > Is it really open source if I am not even remotely a lawyer, but my understanding is the answer is a strict and emphatic "yes". Open source is about the copyright license, which is a license to use, transmit, and modify the software. WordPress uses a recognized open source license. Everything in the ecosystem, such as a plugin registry, is completely separate to the notion of whether or not the core software is open source. There are valid criticisms of the behavior here, but "is it really open source if ..." is not one of them.

by neya 2y ago

arp242 2y ago

Automattic spends about 4,000 hours/week on WordPress, or about 100 people. This is a big investment, and more than all other companies on the first "pledge" page put together (which is 2,539 hours).[1] That of course doesn't mean they're above criticism or anything, but you also can't really ignore that an enormous chunk of development is funded by Automattic (i.e. WordPress.com). In return of doing all this work, they get quite a lot of power over the project. That's kind of how it works everywhere: when I was a scout leader the people who were there every weekend, spent a lot of time on admin stuff, etc. etc. had more "power" than the people who would occasionally show up and help out. Or to put it in another way: if you contribute a few useful PRs to one of my projects, and then you proceed to be a dick to me (or others) then I'll ban you. Even if that's outside of the GitHub repo (like, say, Hacker News) because at some point I'll be "fuck that person". Yes, your contributions were useful. But also: I did 90% of the work here, and your ten PRs are not on the same level. It might be different if you (or WP-Engine) had spent roughly the same amount of time, or at least roughly on the same order of magnitude. But that's not the case here – the gap is huge. So I do hold them to different standards, because one put their money where their mouth is, and the other didn't. All of that said, I'm not sure if Mullenweg's actions are all that wise. But also: I don't have all the details, so I find it difficult to judge. --- [1]: As an aside, I don't know how they actually measure this or how accurate these numbers are. But I haven't seen anyone – including WP-Engine – dispute them, so I will assume they're reasonably accurate.

evanelias 2y ago

> My only question is why aren't we holding Automattic to the same standard we are scrutinising WP Engine? If I understand the situation correctly, Automattic has a commercial license for the WordPress trademark, while WP Engine does not. > Is it really open source if I am not even remotely a lawyer, but my understanding is the answer is a strict and emphatic "yes". Open source is about the copyright license, which is a license to use, transmit, and modify the software. WordPress uses a recognized open source license. Everything in the ecosystem, such as a plugin registry, is completely separate to the notion of whether or not the core software is open source. There are valid criticisms of the behavior here, but "is it really open source if ..." is not one of them.