11 ms·

If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed

307 points by graeme 2y ago

mvkel 2y ago
Given the age and ubiquity of Wordpress, I am shocked at the relative immaturity of Matt's communication skills. He thinks the world has all the historical understanding and nuance of the situation. Why would they? This looks like a world record speedrun attempt (any%) at destroying a legacy. It's worth noting that WPEngine looked like this all the way back in 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110112043959/http://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110112043959/http://wpengine.c... They have never pretended to be anything else. Why now, Matt?
- atonse 2y ago
  Exactly. This comes off as a totally unhinged and immature rant, unbecoming of the CEO of a company that likely has a 8 or 9 figure revenue. I didn’t know (or really care) about this battle, but I’ve always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful grandfathers of the blogging era, having insights from the observations from his perch. This blog post erased that.
  - moralestapia 2y ago
    >I’ve always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful grandfathers of the blogging era. I've always felt he was an asshole but could never ground that to a concrete observation. Now I'm certain of it.
    - mvkel 2y ago
      He's not an asshole, he's just "post-economic"
      - BlueTemplar 2y ago
        What does this mean ? That he doesn't have to care about earning a living any more, and so he's acting like... an asshole ?
        mvkel 2y ago
        In a Slack channel, "post-economic" was the term he used to describe his financial situation as a justification for his actions. So, yes? https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432?s=46 https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432?s=46
        moralestapia 2y ago
        Dang, what an ass.
        killingtime74 2y ago
        People don't have to make a living and now show who they really are
  - dawnerd 2y ago
    Something about these CEOs becoming or at least showing in public how unhinged they are. We’ve had quite a few in the last couple years. Almost like they think it’s cool.
  - hackerbeat 2y ago
    > I didn’t know (or really care) about this battle Then why comment on it?
    - atonse 2y ago
      I mentioned it’s because I have held Matt Mullenweg in higher regard as someone who’s been insightful about the evolution of the web.
- pilgrim0 2y ago
  According to his recent interview on Primeagen, he argues that WPEngine operations incur high costs to his company, due to the millions of installations consuming resources from Wordpress.org. And despite being a very large player, they contribute nothing back to the ecosystem. He argues that they even illegally modified code attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from Automattic. The fact that it took, apparently, so long for him to take some action can be interpreted in his favor, because he tolerated a lot along the years. Add the fact that they had somewhat good relations before WPEngine being taken over by private equity. So this is not about trademark, trademark is the best weapon he has to fight back against a very bad neighbor. And being the sole trademark holder, Automattic can enforce it arbitrarily, as it sees fit. Taking side with WPEngine I think is not only rationally baseless, but also immoral, since they put nothing and only take, which is in the very opposite of what Matt represents, whether or not you like Wordpress.
  - karmajunkie 2y ago
    i think the point of TFA was that those allegations are a gross distortion of the record, and MM’s ultimate actions are grossly inappropriate and harm the community he is pretending to stand up for.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    > He argues that they even illegally modified code attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from Automattic. Which turned out to be blatantly false, quelle surprise I'm currently asking @photomatt elsewhere what his plans are to help others lift the load from wp.org by way of supporting alternate plugin/theme repositories. I'll keep you posted.
    - ydlr 2y ago
      Maybe banning wpengine customers from the official repo is exactly the push the community needs to create alternatives.
  - sjs382 2y ago
    > he argues that WPEngine operations incur high costs to his company To the foundation? Ok, then work with them to create a mirror and share the load. Even publicly shamed them into doing so. Do what's good for the community and product rather than engaging in this embarrassing spat.
- _acco 2y ago
  That 2011 snapshot actually makes the opposite point: the WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP Engine" title on the screenshot! It does look like they fixed just a few months later, though: https://web.archive.org/web/20111001085943/http://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20111001085943/http://wpengine.c... (How fun to see the selling point "Digg-Proof Scalability")
  - interestica 2y ago
    > Digg-proof What's the modern soon-to-be-obsolete equivalent?
    - snowwrestler 2y ago
      Shitty-AI-crawler-proof
    - philistine 2y ago
      Your blog will be compatible with the blockchain!
    - inhumantsar 2y ago
      reddit-proof
  - rafark 2y ago
    > the WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP Engine" title Pretty sure that Wordpress logo is just the stock logo that came with every Wordpress installation. The name wp engine was the website name of that Wordpress installation.
- underseacables 2y ago
  It really does feel like Matt is saying "how dare you question me"
- Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
  Giving Matt the benefit of the doubt, the answer to “Why now?” is that enough is enough. Why does Matt deserve the benefit of the doubt? Because his companies have been contributing to WordPress while WP Engine has not. Matt claims he has been privately discussing with WP Engine for ~18 months about their level of contribution. Automatic contributes the equivalent of 75 full time employees to WordPress and WP Engine contributes 1, despite the companies being comparable in size. Matt’s actions may have been bad for optics, but I do not fault him for using the resources at his disposal to correct what he sees as injustice.
  - wslh 2y ago
    I really wonder what that mean contributing to WordPress... from the cybersecurity point of view in 2024, there is/were no contributions: it is common to be hacked when you use Wordpress (e.g. [1]). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/comments/1cv15mt/would_malware_even_be_an_issue_on_a_wordpress_site/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/comments/1cv15mt/would...
    - dns_snek 2y ago
      That discussion is largely about themes and plugins. Severe vulnerabilities in WP Core are quite rare.
      - wslh 2y ago
        I believe WP Core and plugins should not be viewed separately in terms of security. Plugins are omnipresent. Integrating security measures across both could create a more robust system overall.
      - yencabulator 2y ago
        Themes and plugins are the severe vulnerability of WP Core.
    - claudiulodro 2y ago
      WordPress is secure enough that whitehouse.gov runs on it and zero-day vendors pay $100,000+ if you have an exploit for the core WordPress software. It's not "magically secure" though -- you wouldn't say that AWS is insecure because some people set it up wrong or use bad integrations.
- chmod775 2y ago
  Unrelated, but that site is so much better than their current one. Now I finally know what they do and offer!
- adfm 2y ago
  Consider that there are other hosting providers out there giving back to the community and he's not going after them. Reciprocity seems to be an issue along with proprietary jank that screws interoperability. Say what you want, but I'd question investing in anything that's built on a foundation that relies on reciprocity that doesn't put in their share. Healthy relationships involve creating more value than you capture. That's something that should resonate with the thickest of fountainheads. And if it doesn't, you can always turn off the tap, which seems to be the case.
  - talldayo 2y ago
    > but I'd question investing in anything that's built on a foundation that relies on reciprocity that doesn't put in their share. Look - I agree. However, there is not a single person that thinks twice about buying an Android or iPhone handset because it might not be contributing fully to upstream Linux or BSD. People don't care. They don't question it because this is the norm, and frankly neither should Matt if he's going to disagree with the terms of a license he's not qualified to change. Even the Open Source community doesn't really care that much. Selling modified versions of a program is not inherently a violation of GPL, or even the intent of free software. Matt's disproportionately vocal uproar kinda proves that the only people who care in this instance are the ones trying to profit off Free Software. He's not being righteously cavalier, here - he's being courageously wrong.
    - adfm 2y ago
      There's a difference between picking up your ball and walking off the field and not dealing a hand to the empty seat at the table. Silverlake can buy the DVD.
throwaway984393 2y ago
Please, for the love of god, let it die. WordPress's horrible security, annoying maintenance, and cookie cutter sites have filled the internet with malware and garbage content. It's so annoying to maintain that we have to find these managed hosting places that provide very little value. And despite them, you still need to add a bunch of extra stuff to make a reliable site. Time to create something modern.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  >Time to create something modern. The track record of "modern" would suggest Wordpress is the second coming of Jesus, so no thanks. Wordpress is fine compared to "modern" software.
- 1over137 2y ago
  Let me guess, you are a web programmer? Because for those of us that are not, WordPress is a pretty easy and pretty capable way to self host something. Without it, lots more stuff would be centralized with Big Tech.
  - wmf 2y ago
    If WordPress didn't exist there would be other blogging software.
  - bdcravens 2y ago
    WP has emerged as a de facto standard, but there were alternatives before, and there will be alternatives to come.
  - leonidasv 2y ago
    If you can self-host something, you can run a SSG*-based blog platform (Hugo, Jekyll, etc). And static webpages are even simpler to self-host. If you are willing to bend a little bit for big tech, you can just host them dropping generated files in any S3-like object storage. *Static Site Generator
    - 2y ago
cynicalsecurity 2y ago
WordPress will survive all of us.
- c0brac0bra 2y ago
  And that's a shame
- minimaxir 2y ago
  .org or .com?
privacymatters4 2y ago
I watched the video/stream he did, and have very little good to say about it. while he may be right about it, cool; trademark infringement, yeah, they didn't give back, there's a feud; I'm sure it goes deep. He disabled millions of wordpress sites from being able to update/access things. Plugins.. functionality.. Sure, they don't deserve to get free API access and all that; none of that matters. What about non-profits for animal shelters, programs like st judes, things where livelihoods depend on it and they don't even know what an API or domain name is let alone what all this stuff is about and their whole stream of operations comes crumbling down because they paid somebody to set it all up for them and all they know to do is long in to wp-admin and press 'update' and make blog posts and check their 'payments' etc and modify/add things like their woo commerce plugins? We're smart, we know what all this means, a lot of people I come across in the real world can utilize wordpress because it's easy for them, but if I explain in depth how things work they look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. He doesn't care. I don't need that question answered. I already know. I don't have an opinion on it, but when 75% of the internet is running wordpress, have some tact.
- aphroz 2y ago
  If they don't know, now they know
  - edm0nd 2y ago
    The Notorious B.I.G. and all his homies hate WordPress
    - xwowsersx 2y ago
      WordPress, HTML, CSS, When I was dead broke, man, I couldn't picture this
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- timeon 2y ago
  As far as I know any WP instance is able to upload plugins/themes.
minimaxir 2y ago
Many techies hate it when CEOs are boring and only say comms that are vetted by their companies PR and legal teams... But this whole debacle is what happens when a CEO doesn't do that. There can be unexpected, company-ending results.
- groby_b 2y ago
  There's... a bit of a spectrum from completely blandified corporate comms to what Matt's doing there. It is perfectly possible to have a distinct voice without setting the house on fire. There is a middle ground.
  - Aerroon 2y ago
    I don't really think so. CEOs are still people. Eventually they're going to mess up and since they are constantly scrutinized it will be blown up.
    - deathanatos 2y ago
      There are plenty of people who have their own voice that is between "soulless corporation" and "watch it all burn"…
    - Crosseye_Jack 2y ago
      There are mitigating techniques to work around that. Another set of eyes, not to rewrite it into safe corporate speech, but just as a safety guard to say “hold up there bud… Stop and count to 10” Talking about “counting to 10”, you don’t hit the publish button right away, save it as a draft and leave it a few hours/over night and come back to it when your not as fired up. Hitting publish when your fired up is rarely a good thing. If you want to vent, swear and shout. Write that angry post, but then select all and delete it, take a breath, and start again. 9 times out of 10 you are going to be a lot less fired up the second time around. Granted the last two require some self control, but that’s what the first one is for. As you said, CEOs are human too, and as humans we all need a helping hand every once and awhile, nothing wrong about that.
cm2012 2y ago
Very informative article. Matt is definitely in the wrong here. I also loved how this was formatted, it was quite long but easy to read with a nice font.
troad 2y ago
I realise it's high drama o'clock, and therefore time for everyone to jump in and try to get in on that sweet drama traffic, but this is the epitome of an article that really could just have been a Tweet. There's not really any new information here, nor does the article offer some unique third-party take that hadn't been explored before. It's a lot of armchair psychology, third-hand anecdotes, and unfounded sweeping generalisations. TMZ: Tech Bros.
Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
This reads like part of the smear campaign predicted by Matt in his interview with Michael Paulson. Also note that the author doesn’t disclaim any financial stake in the company he used to work for, WP Engine, after his company was acquired. He merely claims that he isn’t a “fan of either party”, so we should value his opinion and trust that it is impartial. As for myself, I’ve never used WordPress or any CMS, I’m a lowly embedded software engineer. If Matt, the progenitor and steward of one of the most successful open source products in the world, asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech, I’m inclined to believe him.
- mvkel 2y ago
  > asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech By that definition, TinyMCE should be able to disable all textareas in Wordpress, since the product has used it freely for years without contributing anything. And Lodash should be able to disable TinyMCE. And QUnit should be able to disable Lodash. It's open source. Should every Linux user be -required- to contribute? I'd bet the OS quality would degrade if that were so. I am left with the question: why, after 13 years of WP Engine doing the exact same thing, is Matt now willing to burn down the house?
  - mitjafelicijan 2y ago
    I partially agree with you that this could be a slippery slope, but there is a difference here. TinyMCE is not burning through API and CDN resources of the dependencies it is using. Matt mentioned it's costing them millions per year to provide them with automatic updates and other services they provide. And he also mentioned that they can host these services on their own, since the code is GPL2. They don't do this because they don't want to pay these costs themselves.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - mvkel 2y ago
      Perfectly acceptable to make that claim, which would be a ToS violation. Why couch it as something else? if WP Engine contributed to source, would they suddenly be allowed to rack up API and CDN bills?
synergy20 2y ago
“So this post might be a lot of things, but I can assure you it’s not me defending my old company just because I used to work for them. I’ve got literally no reason to do that.” by all means this guy is not the best one to call removal of Matt. this also reminds me those VC that got rid of the founders because founders have some flaws, and VC forgot that,without those flawed founders there will be nothing to start with.
- pilgrim0 2y ago
  Yeah. The author starts by giving all the reasons he is biased. And still expects us to take their argument at face value? Come on…
  - slyall 2y ago
    I think the author is being open with their conflicts of interest. Which is a bit of a contrast to what Matt is doing.
    - pilgrim0 2y ago
      There’s a difference between being awkward and being wrong; being persuasive and being right.
  - aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
    > I haven’t really been involved in WordPress for about five years now....Yes, I used to work for WP Engine. I even kinda liked them, for a while (mostly while they just kinda left us alone for the first year or so). But I wouldn’t say my time at the company left a good taste in my mouth. > We don’t need to dredge up a bunch of old and buried stuff that isn’t really important anyway, but suffice to say: I really don’t have any reason to be a WP Engine cheerleader. Most of the people I knew there have left, and I’ve watched from the sidelines as the company has implemented a bunch of scummy policies and shady sales tactics to squeeze money from their customers and make it harder to leave. If this isn't good enough for you then you're not being honest, you are just desperately looking for any excuse to defend Mullenweg.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
cachedthing0 2y ago
The word 'press' in wordpress suddenly got another meaning, what a mattfia....
- halfjoking 2y ago
  Own the community hate, and change the name to WorstPress?
breck 2y ago
Matt just needs to let copyright and license go. A long walk could cure him of his blindless. Then Wordpress will be fine. In general, anyone who doesn't wake up to E=T/A! will go extinct. Copyrights are for cons. Patents are for parasites. Licenses are for losers. You can only ignore nature for so long.
- paulryanrogers 2y ago
  What about this situation is the undeniable force of nature?
  - breck 2y ago
    There are 2 groups of businesses: those like in this Wordpress battle that are fighting over copyrights, patents, and trademarks & those that have realized these things are retarded and make them innovate at <1% the speed of those who embrace the public domain. Empirically we have been seeing this for a while (look at the dominance of open source programming languages, for example. Even Microsoft open sourced C# b/c they saw it was dead otherwise), but now we have a simple undeniable formula which explains this which is roughly E = T/A! [0] You can keep your head in the sand and pretend that things aren't going to change, but the bottom line is if you stick to (c) and patents you retard your own development and will be driven to extinction by your competitors. [0] https://breckyunits.com/eta.html https://breckyunits.com/eta.html
daft_pink 2y ago
You would think that a company as invested in WordPress as WP engine is would invest more in the community and contribute to the software and also want to contribute to get features that would help it save money.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  Do all the WordPress plugins that they maintain not count?
  - youngtaff 2y ago
    Or the sponsorships of WordCamp?
iambateman 2y ago
I hope, for the good of the community, that Matt will choose either nonprofit leader or tech CEO. It’s become clear that both roles cannot live within one person. If he were just the leader of the WordPress foundation, this whole thing would just be an embarrassing PR failure. As it is, I wonder if his actions will rise to the level of criminal. After watching his interview with The Primeagen, it seems like he is mentally wearing the clothes of a righteous prophet…the misunderstood advocate of a disrespected organization. Unfortunately, he’s ignoring the fact that he invested in WPE years ago, is CEO of a direct competitor, has publicly said he hopes WPE loses billions of dollars as a result, apparently has no proof in writing, and is pulling thousands of innocent developers into his petulant crusade.
- blinded 2y ago
  "apparently has no proof in writing" sounds like there are emails and what not. But those should come out as the lawsuit progresses. Just because he didn't make any public now doesn't mean they don't exist.
  - iambateman 2y ago
    We will see. He was asked in the interview twice and he _did_ respond and it wasn’t good. He pulled his calendar out and read out dates he met with their CEO.
    - blinded 2y ago
      Something for discovery imo (if it gets that far). He seemed put off that wp engine would release his texts, would be unfair of him to do the same? I'm not sure.
neom 2y ago
I like Matt, he's both a caring guy and a sensitive guy. As a sensitive and caring guy myself who tried the CEO thing, I think sadly, those are not particularly useful "top qualities" for that job.
- threeseed 2y ago
  There are plenty of caring and sensitive CEOs. In fact good leadership demands high amounts of empathy, sensitivity and emotional intelligence. Either way he is not demonstrating those qualities now.
  - neom 2y ago
    I very specifically used the words "top qualities" - I'm not disputing they are quite important, but being overly caring about certain things or overly sensitive about certain things are not what should be number 1 or 2. In all the CEO's I've invested in over the years, I find when they get in sticky situations, it tends to be they're over expressing these two qualities in a situation, they are caring tooo much about something or being overly sensitive about something. I think right now, he is caring too much about something about being too sensitive about others, and having seen matt thru the years and dealing with Automattic at DigitalOcean, can't say I'm surprised. Like I said, I like matt, he's just not always the most.. level headed dude in my experience.
underseacables 2y ago
This was a really good article, something that jumped out at me was that there might be a serious legal issue with the IRS. WordPress, the for-profit company, may be too intertwined with WordPress the 501c3 foundation. I'm not a lawyer, but a nonprofit is supposed to be very careful about how it operates. Matt's post on wordpress.org is clearly crossing the line by blending the for-profit company, with the nonprofit foundation. Perhaps it's not illegal, but it is certainly unethical.
salesynerd 2y ago
The general consensus of commentators seems to be that Matt is wrong in the way he approached this matter. Going by the wisdom of the crowds, maybe that's true. However, my question is this: has WPE given a factual rebuttal to Matt's claims? Especially, considering that their entire business is dependent on WordPress? I am concerned that in the eagerness to judge Matt's conflict of interest, we should not throw out the baby with the bath water.
- _fjg8 2y ago
  Matt hasn’t made any claims that need a rebuttal. Matt’s claims are factually correct. The issue is that they’re immaterial. Matt has demanded that WPEngine pay 8% of their revenue to Matt’s company (Automattic). Matt has retroactively changed the terms of use of the WordPress trademark to create a violation by WPEngine. Matt has engineered the situation, we can’t separate the claims from the conduct because they’re one and the same. Matt’s position is (ostensibly) based on his hard line views about the moral obligation to contribute created through the use of open-source. The trademark sideshow is based on Matt’s understanding that a moral argument isn’t going to convince a private equity backed company to spend money they don’t need to spend. Matt believes WPEngine has a moral obligation to contribute and the trademark licensing fee is the easiest tool he has to force action. Matt is making a moral argument. WPEngine don’t care because they’re driven by money not morals.
  - Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
    I think those final 8% demands we’ve heard about have been after months of stalled conversations with WP Engine. Given the lack of reliable information right now, I’m going to believe the individual that has a decades-long track record indicating that they care about open source over the private company that is legally obligated to pursue profit as its only objective.
    - aimazon 2y ago
      What are you choosing to believe? The 8% isn’t disputed. Matt has acknowledged it is true. Matt has acknowledged his actions are because he believes WPEngine are not fulfilling their moral obligation. The facts are settled, the question is whether you side with Matt’s belief about WPEngine’s obligations and how you feel about Matt’s actions (in the context of Matt operating a competitor).
hk1337 2y ago
Let it die.
- b0ner_t0ner 2y ago
  All the cool PHP kids use Laravel anyway.
  - hk1337 2y ago
    I use Laravel at work. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I like Symfony better. It’s also just about a Rails clone for PHP.
_bent 2y ago
From Mullenwegs personal website (https://ma.tt https://ma.tt) > Afterward, I also privately shared with [ThePrimeagen] the cell phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on or debate these points. As far as I’ve heard she hasn’t responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists live? this is not normal.
- Mistletoe 2y ago
  The thing is that none of this matters. This is what happens when you get too zoomed in on the tiny little island you live on and make a total ass of yourself.
  - QuantumGood 2y ago
    A sad but seemingly near-perfect example of the elitism / privilege that comes from living in a bubble and not knowing it.
- talldayo 2y ago
  This one really rubbed me the wrong way: https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/ > I have kept my personal philanthropy private until now. > This is something I’ve tried to keep quiet, because true philanthropy isn’t about recognition. ... > If Lee Wittlinger, who controls Silver Lake’s investments in the WordPress ecosystem, or Heather Brunner, the CEO of WP Engine, would like to publish their charitable contributions over the past 12 years, they are welcome to do so. Is he trying to avoid turning charity into a pissing contest, or is he trying to use his affluence to shame a competitor? This guy literally can't keep his story straight over the course of a single blog post.
  - patmcc 2y ago
    I'm also very curious, given his other statements and how he seems to conflate actions of the foundation, automattic, his own person, and wordpress.org, whether these contributions are his or one of theirs. And to what causes, at that; can you give to your own foundation, I wonder?
blinded 2y ago
Author assumes contribution data from wp engine is distorted simply because they don't agree with Matt's communication / response from the trademark dispute. That doesn't seem to fair? If they worked there for that long perhaps they can provide insight into the upstreaming of issues strategy or if it was an org focus or an afterthought?
- ipaddr 2y ago
  Distorted because both companies are very different and putting resources in helps Automaticc in different ways. Having 47 people working on specific things is a strategic thing where the other company is just hosting.
  - blinded 2y ago
    Fair point.
ChrisNorstrom 2y ago
"WordPress powers 43.5% of all websites as their CMS. Around 478 million websites are built on WordPress" Thanks to Matt Mullenweg's leadership and now you want him removed because he has flaws? Let me guess you want another Mark Zuckerberg in there? What's wrong with you people? He needs a stern talking to, not complete removal. This is another re-occuring case of "create hero, destroy hero" where the public likes to build someone up, find a flaw with them, act like they are irredemable, act like you're so distraught and hurt by their behavior, cry your tears, and destroy the hero you once celebrated.
- minimaxir 2y ago
  > He needs a stern talking to, not complete removal. He's getting one from his customers.
- ipaddr 2y ago
  A CEO who takes 43.5% and reduces it to 25% should be asked to leave. He may have gotten to 75% (now down to 43.5%) but even Jobs was fired.
- wlonkly 2y ago
  You could just as easily say that that is true _despite_ his leadership, instead of _because_ of it.
blinded 2y ago
In the Prime interview it sounded like there were attempts in the past to ensure the trademark was not violated and he expressed the feeling like they were stringing him along. If he had only hired lawyers, not made that talk with his accusations, and let the lawyers handle it would more people be on his side?
- glenstein 2y ago
  I think that was a major take away from this article. There was a right way to navigate it, but by navigating it in a harmful way you also become an actor capable of, and accountable for, the way you've chosen to respond.
- Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
  I think it probably would have been quieter, but people would be accusing him of not being transparent instead. I think it’s kind of nuts to not give Matt the benefit of the doubt while more information comes out. He is the party with a past that demonstrates good behavior and intentions.
  - philistine 2y ago
    He obliterated his past when he fired the Death Star (blocking access to the repository for all WP Engine sites). That's the whole point of the article!
    - Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
      WP Engine, a for profit company, should be providing what their customers need, not relying on free services from a foundation for required functionality. Especially if they have a fraught relationship with the provider of those free services. System76 provides the PopOS repos that are based on Ubuntu. They don’t freeload. Canonical provides the Ubuntu repos that are based on Debian. They don’t freeload. WP Engine is freeloading, no doubt about it.
      - 2y ago
tolerance 2y ago
This man is having a breakdown disguised as a legal battle.
- deepfriedchokes 2y ago
  This definitely screams mental health.
PedroBatista 2y ago
While Matt comes looking "not good" and his apparent impulsiveness and "less than optimal" communication skills are doing more damage than good, I find it "interesting" most of the people attacking him either choose to ignore of gloss over the absolute trash WPEngine management people are. It's rich coming from people demanding a high standard for Matt but not for the WPEngine people. In the end all of it will get "solved" because there's way too much money in this to go any other way. As Danny Glover famously said: "I'm too old for this shit"
- chenmike 2y ago
  Honest question: what am I supposed to be demanding from WPEngine? They’re not the ones out there posting unhinged rants.
  - PedroBatista 2y ago
    That's not an honest question. If you are completely fine with WPEngine's commercial practices, trademark violations in their marketing materials ( like it or not ) and moral OK for them not picking up part of the bill of what they consume ( talking about infra resources, not even talking about code ), then.. why the f** are you so bothered by an unhinged rant from some guy? It's GPL after all.. Don't you see the irony? or you just want to see it because Matt is kind of an unlikable dbag? Is that the level of depth we are at when cheerleading for this stuff?
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    - chenmike 2y ago
      How are you allowed to tell me if that's an honest question or not? Do I have some hidden WP Engine shill comments in my history or something? Can you read my mind? I don't have a strong opinion on WP Engine's behavior, because I'm not convinced by Matt's arguments. I do have an opinion on Matt's behavior though. I think it's unhinged. Feel free to respond but I'm done with this conversation, given how unpleasant I feel it's going to be given the incredibly uncharitable tone in your response. I recommend taking a walk or something.
ergonaught 2y ago
Matt has effectively threatened the businesses of companies whose web presence is hosted via WPE/FW. He’s got to go.
keane 2y ago
On this issue, there's been a lot of discussion along the lines of "the trademark for an open-source project should work the way I prefer which is…" or "if I was in a decision making position I would simply…" or "in a perfect world…". Others, like this post, unwisely include appeal to motive. It would be better for us to stick to discussion that is able to limit itself to the substance of both parties' claims. The first thing I think cannot be neglected to be mentioned in posts about the dispute is that (1) Matt created the project (yes, a fork counts), (2) his friend coined the name, (3) Matt's company originally registered the trademark. Then (4) Matt's company donated the mark to a foundation to make it widely available for noncommercial use while they retained the exclusive commercial license to the mark. No mention of this in this presentation. To be fair to commentators, part of the trickiness surrounding this dispute is an old issue regarding open source projects: do the open source software licenses imply a trademark license? The answer is generally understood to be: no. Having a license to software does not grant you a license to a trademark. For more on this I found illuminating the 2009 article in the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review by Tiki Dare JD (Director of Trademarks at Sun Microsystems, Inc.) and Harvey Anderson JD (General Counsel of the Mozilla Corporation) titled "Passport Without A Visa: Open Source Software Licensing and Trademarks": https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/11/37 https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/11/37 As one is not given a license to the trademark, a common understanding is that one can: – limit one's use of the trademark to nominative or descriptive fair use (A) – use the mark under supplemental guidelines from the trademark owner (B) – acquire a dedicated license to the trademark (C) At https://wpengine.com/plans https://wpengine.com/plans (take your screenshots now) they have titled services they offer simply "Core WordPress", "Essential WordPress", and "Enterprise WordPress". It could be claimed this branding exceeds nominative use. It is far beyond the mentioned descriptive use of a "managed WordPress hosting company". If this branding exceeds fair use, it needs to comply with justifications (B) or (C). It very clearly does not comply with the published guidelines, both before and after recent modifications, that read "All other WordPress-related businesses or projects can use the WordPress name and logo to refer to and explain their services, but they cannot use them as part of a product, project, service, domain name, or company name…". You can also see examples of use (current/cached and perhaps somewhat inadvertent) of "WordPress Engine" itself at https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awpengine.com+%22wordpress+engine%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awpengine.com+%22wordp... Many commentators seem hung up on the fact that using the letters 'WP' was and remains an allowed practice according to (B). However, with regard to any trademark guidelines it could safely be assumed that a mark owner is not suggesting that one may use protected marks in ways that cause confusion as this is counter to the purpose of trademarks. Commentators are likewise hung up on the idea that the guidelines were subject to change or are despairing about the recent edits that clarified that the use of 'WP' under (B) must avoid uses that could imply the product or service were synonymous with WordPress itself. For similar open source software trademark guidelines and as a useful point of comparison, I think commentators should take a look at Red Hat's public guidelines, which explicitly remind users that guidelines like these can be changed: https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-policies https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-pol... Other commentators are focusing on the length WP Engine had 'WP' in their name. With use since 2010, some have implied that a statute of limitations has passed but the Lanham Act has no such time limit. These commentators don't seem to be considering Automattic's confusion claim. WP Engine has claimed in their materials that they are "The most trusted WordPress platform" and "The Most Trusted WordPress Tech Company". 'Trusted' can be read with the meaning 'seen as trustworthy' rather than the meaning 'utilized' which could be found to be creating confusion. The most [seen as trustworthy] platform would presumably be the project itself (in an expansive understanding of 'platform' that a non-technical user might perceive). If CNET started calling itself "The Most Trusted Firefox Source" I would expect The Mozilla Foundation to ask them to stop. Many commentators appear to be suggesting there should be no enforcement of the WordPress mark, which seems an unusual position, or otherwise seem to take issue with Automattic's original trademark registration in the first place. Regardless, if WP Engine's uses of the marks exceeded rationales (A) and (B), they needed a license. This is what Matt was seeking, even allowing such a license to be paid in kind. At this point, a court will likely decide if their use exceeded (A) and (B). Calling for Matt to have a role change is one thing but to likely libel Matt with the term extortion, a criminal offense, especially after only moments before admitting "maybe there's validity there" (regarding infringement of Automattic's WooCommerce mark) is absolutely reckless and it's disappointing to see this unserious blog post promoted here. To see uncareful defamation coming from someone who made their living for many years off the software their target of ire created is especially bleak.
brailsafe 2y ago
Hmm. Maybe this is a bit of an outlandish take, but although his decisions do seem at least superficially sus, I have a hard time agreeing with Josh's take. He chooses to make a lot of highly agreeable comparisons, but to me it seems more like a city (or some level) of government severely turning up the temperature on a particularly egregious contingent of landlords, landlord, or demographic, who've been abusing the system we've all been chill with until it's just not cool anymore. You could crank up property tax by double or triple the next year, and not offer the ability to vote on the issue of zoning anymore, or you could do the thing that no politician has the balls or the power to do and fundamentally change the system in a way that takes those issues off the table entirely, making the whole system more equitable in the future. The repercussions could be dire for some people, but it is what it would take to give a giant fuck you to the people who hold the reins. If the landlords can always hold the poor vulnerable freelancers that live in their basement suite over the heads of anyone who could otherwise theoretically change the rules, nothing will ever really change, and the people who've been along for the profitable ride won't want it to. But if you don't do it, you might risk your future hypothetical economy. Now, I know that's all a bit of a reach, but it's hard for me to not think asking for Matt to be removed for this reason is just like all those people who ostensibly would want public transit to be funded for all those other people who can't afford cars, until they finally got around to ripping up the street you use to drive to work every day and jacked up your taxes by $50. But, all that said, I've also never liked WordPress at all and don't have a dog in the fight, this is just a thought experiment. However, if I had to move because my landlord eventually got screwed for not reporting my rent on their income tax, I'd be like "well sometimes that happens, was nice while it lasted but my place was a shithole, they weren't competing fairly, and they were constantly showing up to city council meetings trying to block a mid-rise from going up while I was at work paying their mortgage".
sublinear 2y ago
If wordpress is to survive it needs to not be wordpress
r721 2y ago
@photomatt answers to some questions in this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676411
hackerbeat 2y ago
This guy clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
- fortyseven 2y ago
  Well, you've certainly convinced me with your well reasoned argument.
  - hackerbeat 2y ago
    You're welcome.
sierra1011 2y ago
Lightly off-topic, but: >Five for the Future asks that if you benefit from WordPress, you give back 5% of your time directly to that open-source project As someone that semifrequently has to support WP installs, I would definitely make a case for it not being a benefit in my life
AStonesThrow 2y ago
Is that why it's named "Automattic", because the founder's name is "Matt"? Cute. EDIT: Yep - https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-origin/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-origin/
akagusu 2y ago
Matt is just using WordPress and the WordPress foundation to justify his personal vendetta, the same way Musk uses Twitter against people he doesn't like. And this is not the first time he does it, so this is nothing new and he is not the only one. Rich people and big companies do this all the time, but Matt is doing in public.
nikolay 2y ago
I've had some personal issues with Matt and Automattic and I would say there's nothing new in his attitude. But he's not so much different than DHH, Linus Torvalds, and Stallman - he's done a lot, a lot more than most of us, so, he's entitled to strong opinions. And all this looks worse than it is because he's a public figure. We all do stuff like this in our lives, it's just not getting public, but this doesn't mean any of us is so much better and smarter than Matt! And he is right that WP Engine is NOT WordPress.
Log_out_ 2y ago
In this thread nervous freeloaders trying to calm their nerves about shaky foundations by panicking in choir.
nixosbestos 2y ago
The fact that he invoked Primeagen, even without the appalling context of the conversation, tells me everything I need to know. And already suspected.

307 points by graeme 2y ago

Given the age and ubiquity of Wordpress, I am shocked at the relative immaturity of Matt's communication skills. He thinks the world has all the historical understanding and nuance of the situation. Why would they? This looks like a world record speedrun attempt (any%) at destroying a legacy. It's worth noting that WPEngine looked like this all the way back in 2011: https://web.archive.org/web/20110112043959/http://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20110112043959/http://wpengine.c... They have never pretended to be anything else. Why now, Matt?

atonse 2y ago
Exactly. This comes off as a totally unhinged and immature rant, unbecoming of the CEO of a company that likely has a 8 or 9 figure revenue. I didn’t know (or really care) about this battle, but I’ve always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful grandfathers of the blogging era, having insights from the observations from his perch. This blog post erased that.
- moralestapia 2y ago
  >I’ve always passively seen Matt as one of the insightful grandfathers of the blogging era. I've always felt he was an asshole but could never ground that to a concrete observation. Now I'm certain of it.
  - mvkel 2y ago
    He's not an asshole, he's just "post-economic"
    - BlueTemplar 2y ago
      What does this mean ? That he doesn't have to care about earning a living any more, and so he's acting like... an asshole ?
      - mvkel 2y ago
        In a Slack channel, "post-economic" was the term he used to describe his financial situation as a justification for his actions. So, yes? https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432?s=46 https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432?s=46
        moralestapia 2y ago
        Dang, what an ass.
      - killingtime74 2y ago
        People don't have to make a living and now show who they really are
- dawnerd 2y ago
  Something about these CEOs becoming or at least showing in public how unhinged they are. We’ve had quite a few in the last couple years. Almost like they think it’s cool.
- hackerbeat 2y ago
  > I didn’t know (or really care) about this battle Then why comment on it?
  - atonse 2y ago
    I mentioned it’s because I have held Matt Mullenweg in higher regard as someone who’s been insightful about the evolution of the web.
pilgrim0 2y ago
According to his recent interview on Primeagen, he argues that WPEngine operations incur high costs to his company, due to the millions of installations consuming resources from Wordpress.org. And despite being a very large player, they contribute nothing back to the ecosystem. He argues that they even illegally modified code attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from Automattic. The fact that it took, apparently, so long for him to take some action can be interpreted in his favor, because he tolerated a lot along the years. Add the fact that they had somewhat good relations before WPEngine being taken over by private equity. So this is not about trademark, trademark is the best weapon he has to fight back against a very bad neighbor. And being the sole trademark holder, Automattic can enforce it arbitrarily, as it sees fit. Taking side with WPEngine I think is not only rationally baseless, but also immoral, since they put nothing and only take, which is in the very opposite of what Matt represents, whether or not you like Wordpress.
- karmajunkie 2y ago
  i think the point of TFA was that those allegations are a gross distortion of the record, and MM’s ultimate actions are grossly inappropriate and harm the community he is pretending to stand up for.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  > He argues that they even illegally modified code attributions (stripe plugin) which diverts millions from Automattic. Which turned out to be blatantly false, quelle surprise I'm currently asking @photomatt elsewhere what his plans are to help others lift the load from wp.org by way of supporting alternate plugin/theme repositories. I'll keep you posted.
  - ydlr 2y ago
    Maybe banning wpengine customers from the official repo is exactly the push the community needs to create alternatives.
- sjs382 2y ago
  > he argues that WPEngine operations incur high costs to his company To the foundation? Ok, then work with them to create a mirror and share the load. Even publicly shamed them into doing so. Do what's good for the community and product rather than engaging in this embarrassing spat.
_acco 2y ago
That 2011 snapshot actually makes the opposite point: the WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP Engine" title on the screenshot! It does look like they fixed just a few months later, though: https://web.archive.org/web/20111001085943/http://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20111001085943/http://wpengine.c... (How fun to see the selling point "Digg-Proof Scalability")
- interestica 2y ago
  > Digg-proof What's the modern soon-to-be-obsolete equivalent?
  - snowwrestler 2y ago
    Shitty-AI-crawler-proof
  - philistine 2y ago
    Your blog will be compatible with the blockchain!
  - inhumantsar 2y ago
    reddit-proof
- rafark 2y ago
  > the WordPress logo is prominently displayed next to the "WP Engine" title Pretty sure that Wordpress logo is just the stock logo that came with every Wordpress installation. The name wp engine was the website name of that Wordpress installation.
underseacables 2y ago
It really does feel like Matt is saying "how dare you question me"
Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
Giving Matt the benefit of the doubt, the answer to “Why now?” is that enough is enough. Why does Matt deserve the benefit of the doubt? Because his companies have been contributing to WordPress while WP Engine has not. Matt claims he has been privately discussing with WP Engine for ~18 months about their level of contribution. Automatic contributes the equivalent of 75 full time employees to WordPress and WP Engine contributes 1, despite the companies being comparable in size. Matt’s actions may have been bad for optics, but I do not fault him for using the resources at his disposal to correct what he sees as injustice.
- wslh 2y ago
  I really wonder what that mean contributing to WordPress... from the cybersecurity point of view in 2024, there is/were no contributions: it is common to be hacked when you use Wordpress (e.g. [1]). [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/comments/1cv15mt/would_malware_even_be_an_issue_on_a_wordpress_site/ https://www.reddit.com/r/ProWordPress/comments/1cv15mt/would...
  - dns_snek 2y ago
    That discussion is largely about themes and plugins. Severe vulnerabilities in WP Core are quite rare.
    - wslh 2y ago
      I believe WP Core and plugins should not be viewed separately in terms of security. Plugins are omnipresent. Integrating security measures across both could create a more robust system overall.
    - yencabulator 2y ago
      Themes and plugins are the severe vulnerability of WP Core.
  - claudiulodro 2y ago
    WordPress is secure enough that whitehouse.gov runs on it and zero-day vendors pay $100,000+ if you have an exploit for the core WordPress software. It's not "magically secure" though -- you wouldn't say that AWS is insecure because some people set it up wrong or use bad integrations.
chmod775 2y ago
Unrelated, but that site is so much better than their current one. Now I finally know what they do and offer!
adfm 2y ago
Consider that there are other hosting providers out there giving back to the community and he's not going after them. Reciprocity seems to be an issue along with proprietary jank that screws interoperability. Say what you want, but I'd question investing in anything that's built on a foundation that relies on reciprocity that doesn't put in their share. Healthy relationships involve creating more value than you capture. That's something that should resonate with the thickest of fountainheads. And if it doesn't, you can always turn off the tap, which seems to be the case.
- talldayo 2y ago
  > but I'd question investing in anything that's built on a foundation that relies on reciprocity that doesn't put in their share. Look - I agree. However, there is not a single person that thinks twice about buying an Android or iPhone handset because it might not be contributing fully to upstream Linux or BSD. People don't care. They don't question it because this is the norm, and frankly neither should Matt if he's going to disagree with the terms of a license he's not qualified to change. Even the Open Source community doesn't really care that much. Selling modified versions of a program is not inherently a violation of GPL, or even the intent of free software. Matt's disproportionately vocal uproar kinda proves that the only people who care in this instance are the ones trying to profit off Free Software. He's not being righteously cavalier, here - he's being courageously wrong.
  - adfm 2y ago
    There's a difference between picking up your ball and walking off the field and not dealing a hand to the empty seat at the table. Silverlake can buy the DVD.

throwaway984393 2y ago

Please, for the love of god, let it die. WordPress's horrible security, annoying maintenance, and cookie cutter sites have filled the internet with malware and garbage content. It's so annoying to maintain that we have to find these managed hosting places that provide very little value. And despite them, you still need to add a bunch of extra stuff to make a reliable site. Time to create something modern.

Dalewyn 2y ago
>Time to create something modern. The track record of "modern" would suggest Wordpress is the second coming of Jesus, so no thanks. Wordpress is fine compared to "modern" software.
1over137 2y ago
Let me guess, you are a web programmer? Because for those of us that are not, WordPress is a pretty easy and pretty capable way to self host something. Without it, lots more stuff would be centralized with Big Tech.
- wmf 2y ago
  If WordPress didn't exist there would be other blogging software.
- bdcravens 2y ago
  WP has emerged as a de facto standard, but there were alternatives before, and there will be alternatives to come.
- leonidasv 2y ago
  If you can self-host something, you can run a SSG*-based blog platform (Hugo, Jekyll, etc). And static webpages are even simpler to self-host. If you are willing to bend a little bit for big tech, you can just host them dropping generated files in any S3-like object storage. *Static Site Generator
  - 2y ago

cynicalsecurity 2y ago

WordPress will survive all of us.

c0brac0bra 2y ago
And that's a shame
minimaxir 2y ago
.org or .com?

privacymatters4 2y ago

I watched the video/stream he did, and have very little good to say about it. while he may be right about it, cool; trademark infringement, yeah, they didn't give back, there's a feud; I'm sure it goes deep. He disabled millions of wordpress sites from being able to update/access things. Plugins.. functionality.. Sure, they don't deserve to get free API access and all that; none of that matters. What about non-profits for animal shelters, programs like st judes, things where livelihoods depend on it and they don't even know what an API or domain name is let alone what all this stuff is about and their whole stream of operations comes crumbling down because they paid somebody to set it all up for them and all they know to do is long in to wp-admin and press 'update' and make blog posts and check their 'payments' etc and modify/add things like their woo commerce plugins? We're smart, we know what all this means, a lot of people I come across in the real world can utilize wordpress because it's easy for them, but if I explain in depth how things work they look at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. He doesn't care. I don't need that question answered. I already know. I don't have an opinion on it, but when 75% of the internet is running wordpress, have some tact.

aphroz 2y ago
If they don't know, now they know
- edm0nd 2y ago
  The Notorious B.I.G. and all his homies hate WordPress
  - xwowsersx 2y ago
    WordPress, HTML, CSS, When I was dead broke, man, I couldn't picture this
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
timeon 2y ago
As far as I know any WP instance is able to upload plugins/themes.

minimaxir 2y ago

Many techies hate it when CEOs are boring and only say comms that are vetted by their companies PR and legal teams... But this whole debacle is what happens when a CEO doesn't do that. There can be unexpected, company-ending results.

groby_b 2y ago
There's... a bit of a spectrum from completely blandified corporate comms to what Matt's doing there. It is perfectly possible to have a distinct voice without setting the house on fire. There is a middle ground.
- Aerroon 2y ago
  I don't really think so. CEOs are still people. Eventually they're going to mess up and since they are constantly scrutinized it will be blown up.
  - deathanatos 2y ago
    There are plenty of people who have their own voice that is between "soulless corporation" and "watch it all burn"…
  - Crosseye_Jack 2y ago
    There are mitigating techniques to work around that. Another set of eyes, not to rewrite it into safe corporate speech, but just as a safety guard to say “hold up there bud… Stop and count to 10” Talking about “counting to 10”, you don’t hit the publish button right away, save it as a draft and leave it a few hours/over night and come back to it when your not as fired up. Hitting publish when your fired up is rarely a good thing. If you want to vent, swear and shout. Write that angry post, but then select all and delete it, take a breath, and start again. 9 times out of 10 you are going to be a lot less fired up the second time around. Granted the last two require some self control, but that’s what the first one is for. As you said, CEOs are human too, and as humans we all need a helping hand every once and awhile, nothing wrong about that.

cm2012 2y ago

Very informative article. Matt is definitely in the wrong here. I also loved how this was formatted, it was quite long but easy to read with a nice font.

troad 2y ago

I realise it's high drama o'clock, and therefore time for everyone to jump in and try to get in on that sweet drama traffic, but this is the epitome of an article that really could just have been a Tweet. There's not really any new information here, nor does the article offer some unique third-party take that hadn't been explored before. It's a lot of armchair psychology, third-hand anecdotes, and unfounded sweeping generalisations. TMZ: Tech Bros.

Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago

This reads like part of the smear campaign predicted by Matt in his interview with Michael Paulson. Also note that the author doesn’t disclaim any financial stake in the company he used to work for, WP Engine, after his company was acquired. He merely claims that he isn’t a “fan of either party”, so we should value his opinion and trust that it is impartial. As for myself, I’ve never used WordPress or any CMS, I’m a lowly embedded software engineer. If Matt, the progenitor and steward of one of the most successful open source products in the world, asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech, I’m inclined to believe him.

mvkel 2y ago
> asserts that an entity in the ecosystem is a leech By that definition, TinyMCE should be able to disable all textareas in Wordpress, since the product has used it freely for years without contributing anything. And Lodash should be able to disable TinyMCE. And QUnit should be able to disable Lodash. It's open source. Should every Linux user be -required- to contribute? I'd bet the OS quality would degrade if that were so. I am left with the question: why, after 13 years of WP Engine doing the exact same thing, is Matt now willing to burn down the house?
- mitjafelicijan 2y ago
  I partially agree with you that this could be a slippery slope, but there is a difference here. TinyMCE is not burning through API and CDN resources of the dependencies it is using. Matt mentioned it's costing them millions per year to provide them with automatic updates and other services they provide. And he also mentioned that they can host these services on their own, since the code is GPL2. They don't do this because they don't want to pay these costs themselves.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - mvkel 2y ago
    Perfectly acceptable to make that claim, which would be a ToS violation. Why couch it as something else? if WP Engine contributed to source, would they suddenly be allowed to rack up API and CDN bills?

synergy20 2y ago

“So this post might be a lot of things, but I can assure you it’s not me defending my old company just because I used to work for them. I’ve got literally no reason to do that.” by all means this guy is not the best one to call removal of Matt. this also reminds me those VC that got rid of the founders because founders have some flaws, and VC forgot that,without those flawed founders there will be nothing to start with.

pilgrim0 2y ago
Yeah. The author starts by giving all the reasons he is biased. And still expects us to take their argument at face value? Come on…
- slyall 2y ago
  I think the author is being open with their conflicts of interest. Which is a bit of a contrast to what Matt is doing.
  - pilgrim0 2y ago
    There’s a difference between being awkward and being wrong; being persuasive and being right.
- aithrowawaycomm 2y ago
  > I haven’t really been involved in WordPress for about five years now....Yes, I used to work for WP Engine. I even kinda liked them, for a while (mostly while they just kinda left us alone for the first year or so). But I wouldn’t say my time at the company left a good taste in my mouth. > We don’t need to dredge up a bunch of old and buried stuff that isn’t really important anyway, but suffice to say: I really don’t have any reason to be a WP Engine cheerleader. Most of the people I knew there have left, and I’ve watched from the sidelines as the company has implemented a bunch of scummy policies and shady sales tactics to squeeze money from their customers and make it harder to leave. If this isn't good enough for you then you're not being honest, you are just desperately looking for any excuse to defend Mullenweg.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

cachedthing0 2y ago

The word 'press' in wordpress suddenly got another meaning, what a mattfia....

halfjoking 2y ago
Own the community hate, and change the name to WorstPress?

breck 2y ago

Matt just needs to let copyright and license go. A long walk could cure him of his blindless. Then Wordpress will be fine. In general, anyone who doesn't wake up to E=T/A! will go extinct. Copyrights are for cons. Patents are for parasites. Licenses are for losers. You can only ignore nature for so long.

paulryanrogers 2y ago
What about this situation is the undeniable force of nature?
- breck 2y ago
  There are 2 groups of businesses: those like in this Wordpress battle that are fighting over copyrights, patents, and trademarks & those that have realized these things are retarded and make them innovate at <1% the speed of those who embrace the public domain. Empirically we have been seeing this for a while (look at the dominance of open source programming languages, for example. Even Microsoft open sourced C# b/c they saw it was dead otherwise), but now we have a simple undeniable formula which explains this which is roughly E = T/A! [0] You can keep your head in the sand and pretend that things aren't going to change, but the bottom line is if you stick to (c) and patents you retard your own development and will be driven to extinction by your competitors. [0] https://breckyunits.com/eta.html https://breckyunits.com/eta.html

daft_pink 2y ago

You would think that a company as invested in WordPress as WP engine is would invest more in the community and contribute to the software and also want to contribute to get features that would help it save money.

bastawhiz 2y ago
Do all the WordPress plugins that they maintain not count?
- youngtaff 2y ago
  Or the sponsorships of WordCamp?

iambateman 2y ago

I hope, for the good of the community, that Matt will choose either nonprofit leader or tech CEO. It’s become clear that both roles cannot live within one person. If he were just the leader of the WordPress foundation, this whole thing would just be an embarrassing PR failure. As it is, I wonder if his actions will rise to the level of criminal. After watching his interview with The Primeagen, it seems like he is mentally wearing the clothes of a righteous prophet…the misunderstood advocate of a disrespected organization. Unfortunately, he’s ignoring the fact that he invested in WPE years ago, is CEO of a direct competitor, has publicly said he hopes WPE loses billions of dollars as a result, apparently has no proof in writing, and is pulling thousands of innocent developers into his petulant crusade.

blinded 2y ago
"apparently has no proof in writing" sounds like there are emails and what not. But those should come out as the lawsuit progresses. Just because he didn't make any public now doesn't mean they don't exist.
- iambateman 2y ago
  We will see. He was asked in the interview twice and he _did_ respond and it wasn’t good. He pulled his calendar out and read out dates he met with their CEO.
  - blinded 2y ago
    Something for discovery imo (if it gets that far). He seemed put off that wp engine would release his texts, would be unfair of him to do the same? I'm not sure.

neom 2y ago

I like Matt, he's both a caring guy and a sensitive guy. As a sensitive and caring guy myself who tried the CEO thing, I think sadly, those are not particularly useful "top qualities" for that job.

threeseed 2y ago
There are plenty of caring and sensitive CEOs. In fact good leadership demands high amounts of empathy, sensitivity and emotional intelligence. Either way he is not demonstrating those qualities now.
- neom 2y ago
  I very specifically used the words "top qualities" - I'm not disputing they are quite important, but being overly caring about certain things or overly sensitive about certain things are not what should be number 1 or 2. In all the CEO's I've invested in over the years, I find when they get in sticky situations, it tends to be they're over expressing these two qualities in a situation, they are caring tooo much about something or being overly sensitive about something. I think right now, he is caring too much about something about being too sensitive about others, and having seen matt thru the years and dealing with Automattic at DigitalOcean, can't say I'm surprised. Like I said, I like matt, he's just not always the most.. level headed dude in my experience.

underseacables 2y ago

This was a really good article, something that jumped out at me was that there might be a serious legal issue with the IRS. WordPress, the for-profit company, may be too intertwined with WordPress the 501c3 foundation. I'm not a lawyer, but a nonprofit is supposed to be very careful about how it operates. Matt's post on wordpress.org is clearly crossing the line by blending the for-profit company, with the nonprofit foundation. Perhaps it's not illegal, but it is certainly unethical.

salesynerd 2y ago

The general consensus of commentators seems to be that Matt is wrong in the way he approached this matter. Going by the wisdom of the crowds, maybe that's true. However, my question is this: has WPE given a factual rebuttal to Matt's claims? Especially, considering that their entire business is dependent on WordPress? I am concerned that in the eagerness to judge Matt's conflict of interest, we should not throw out the baby with the bath water.

_fjg8 2y ago
Matt hasn’t made any claims that need a rebuttal. Matt’s claims are factually correct. The issue is that they’re immaterial. Matt has demanded that WPEngine pay 8% of their revenue to Matt’s company (Automattic). Matt has retroactively changed the terms of use of the WordPress trademark to create a violation by WPEngine. Matt has engineered the situation, we can’t separate the claims from the conduct because they’re one and the same. Matt’s position is (ostensibly) based on his hard line views about the moral obligation to contribute created through the use of open-source. The trademark sideshow is based on Matt’s understanding that a moral argument isn’t going to convince a private equity backed company to spend money they don’t need to spend. Matt believes WPEngine has a moral obligation to contribute and the trademark licensing fee is the easiest tool he has to force action. Matt is making a moral argument. WPEngine don’t care because they’re driven by money not morals.
- Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
  I think those final 8% demands we’ve heard about have been after months of stalled conversations with WP Engine. Given the lack of reliable information right now, I’m going to believe the individual that has a decades-long track record indicating that they care about open source over the private company that is legally obligated to pursue profit as its only objective.
  - aimazon 2y ago
    What are you choosing to believe? The 8% isn’t disputed. Matt has acknowledged it is true. Matt has acknowledged his actions are because he believes WPEngine are not fulfilling their moral obligation. The facts are settled, the question is whether you side with Matt’s belief about WPEngine’s obligations and how you feel about Matt’s actions (in the context of Matt operating a competitor).

hk1337 2y ago

Let it die.

b0ner_t0ner 2y ago
All the cool PHP kids use Laravel anyway.
- hk1337 2y ago
  I use Laravel at work. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be. I like Symfony better. It’s also just about a Rails clone for PHP.

_bent 2y ago

From Mullenwegs personal website (https://ma.tt https://ma.tt) > Afterward, I also privately shared with [ThePrimeagen] the cell phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on or debate these points. As far as I’ve heard she hasn’t responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists live? this is not normal.

Mistletoe 2y ago
The thing is that none of this matters. This is what happens when you get too zoomed in on the tiny little island you live on and make a total ass of yourself.
- QuantumGood 2y ago
  A sad but seemingly near-perfect example of the elitism / privilege that comes from living in a bubble and not knowing it.
talldayo 2y ago
This one really rubbed me the wrong way: https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/ > I have kept my personal philanthropy private until now. > This is something I’ve tried to keep quiet, because true philanthropy isn’t about recognition. ... > If Lee Wittlinger, who controls Silver Lake’s investments in the WordPress ecosystem, or Heather Brunner, the CEO of WP Engine, would like to publish their charitable contributions over the past 12 years, they are welcome to do so. Is he trying to avoid turning charity into a pissing contest, or is he trying to use his affluence to shame a competitor? This guy literally can't keep his story straight over the course of a single blog post.
- patmcc 2y ago
  I'm also very curious, given his other statements and how he seems to conflate actions of the foundation, automattic, his own person, and wordpress.org, whether these contributions are his or one of theirs. And to what causes, at that; can you give to your own foundation, I wonder?

blinded 2y ago

Author assumes contribution data from wp engine is distorted simply because they don't agree with Matt's communication / response from the trademark dispute. That doesn't seem to fair? If they worked there for that long perhaps they can provide insight into the upstreaming of issues strategy or if it was an org focus or an afterthought?

ipaddr 2y ago
Distorted because both companies are very different and putting resources in helps Automaticc in different ways. Having 47 people working on specific things is a strategic thing where the other company is just hosting.
- blinded 2y ago
  Fair point.

ChrisNorstrom 2y ago

"WordPress powers 43.5% of all websites as their CMS. Around 478 million websites are built on WordPress" Thanks to Matt Mullenweg's leadership and now you want him removed because he has flaws? Let me guess you want another Mark Zuckerberg in there? What's wrong with you people? He needs a stern talking to, not complete removal. This is another re-occuring case of "create hero, destroy hero" where the public likes to build someone up, find a flaw with them, act like they are irredemable, act like you're so distraught and hurt by their behavior, cry your tears, and destroy the hero you once celebrated.

minimaxir 2y ago
> He needs a stern talking to, not complete removal. He's getting one from his customers.
ipaddr 2y ago
A CEO who takes 43.5% and reduces it to 25% should be asked to leave. He may have gotten to 75% (now down to 43.5%) but even Jobs was fired.
wlonkly 2y ago
You could just as easily say that that is true _despite_ his leadership, instead of _because_ of it.

blinded 2y ago

In the Prime interview it sounded like there were attempts in the past to ensure the trademark was not violated and he expressed the feeling like they were stringing him along. If he had only hired lawyers, not made that talk with his accusations, and let the lawyers handle it would more people be on his side?

glenstein 2y ago
I think that was a major take away from this article. There was a right way to navigate it, but by navigating it in a harmful way you also become an actor capable of, and accountable for, the way you've chosen to respond.
Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
I think it probably would have been quieter, but people would be accusing him of not being transparent instead. I think it’s kind of nuts to not give Matt the benefit of the doubt while more information comes out. He is the party with a past that demonstrates good behavior and intentions.
- philistine 2y ago
  He obliterated his past when he fired the Death Star (blocking access to the repository for all WP Engine sites). That's the whole point of the article!
  - Zamiel_Snawley 2y ago
    WP Engine, a for profit company, should be providing what their customers need, not relying on free services from a foundation for required functionality. Especially if they have a fraught relationship with the provider of those free services. System76 provides the PopOS repos that are based on Ubuntu. They don’t freeload. Canonical provides the Ubuntu repos that are based on Debian. They don’t freeload. WP Engine is freeloading, no doubt about it.
    - 2y ago

tolerance 2y ago

This man is having a breakdown disguised as a legal battle.

deepfriedchokes 2y ago
This definitely screams mental health.

PedroBatista 2y ago

While Matt comes looking "not good" and his apparent impulsiveness and "less than optimal" communication skills are doing more damage than good, I find it "interesting" most of the people attacking him either choose to ignore of gloss over the absolute trash WPEngine management people are. It's rich coming from people demanding a high standard for Matt but not for the WPEngine people. In the end all of it will get "solved" because there's way too much money in this to go any other way. As Danny Glover famously said: "I'm too old for this shit"

chenmike 2y ago
Honest question: what am I supposed to be demanding from WPEngine? They’re not the ones out there posting unhinged rants.
- PedroBatista 2y ago
  That's not an honest question. If you are completely fine with WPEngine's commercial practices, trademark violations in their marketing materials ( like it or not ) and moral OK for them not picking up part of the bill of what they consume ( talking about infra resources, not even talking about code ), then.. why the f** are you so bothered by an unhinged rant from some guy? It's GPL after all.. Don't you see the irony? or you just want to see it because Matt is kind of an unlikable dbag? Is that the level of depth we are at when cheerleading for this stuff?
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  - chenmike 2y ago
    How are you allowed to tell me if that's an honest question or not? Do I have some hidden WP Engine shill comments in my history or something? Can you read my mind? I don't have a strong opinion on WP Engine's behavior, because I'm not convinced by Matt's arguments. I do have an opinion on Matt's behavior though. I think it's unhinged. Feel free to respond but I'm done with this conversation, given how unpleasant I feel it's going to be given the incredibly uncharitable tone in your response. I recommend taking a walk or something.

ergonaught 2y ago

Matt has effectively threatened the businesses of companies whose web presence is hosted via WPE/FW. He’s got to go.

keane 2y ago

On this issue, there's been a lot of discussion along the lines of "the trademark for an open-source project should work the way I prefer which is…" or "if I was in a decision making position I would simply…" or "in a perfect world…". Others, like this post, unwisely include appeal to motive. It would be better for us to stick to discussion that is able to limit itself to the substance of both parties' claims. The first thing I think cannot be neglected to be mentioned in posts about the dispute is that (1) Matt created the project (yes, a fork counts), (2) his friend coined the name, (3) Matt's company originally registered the trademark. Then (4) Matt's company donated the mark to a foundation to make it widely available for noncommercial use while they retained the exclusive commercial license to the mark. No mention of this in this presentation. To be fair to commentators, part of the trickiness surrounding this dispute is an old issue regarding open source projects: do the open source software licenses imply a trademark license? The answer is generally understood to be: no. Having a license to software does not grant you a license to a trademark. For more on this I found illuminating the 2009 article in the International Free and Open Source Software Law Review by Tiki Dare JD (Director of Trademarks at Sun Microsystems, Inc.) and Harvey Anderson JD (General Counsel of the Mozilla Corporation) titled "Passport Without A Visa: Open Source Software Licensing and Trademarks": https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/11/37 https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/11/37 As one is not given a license to the trademark, a common understanding is that one can: – limit one's use of the trademark to nominative or descriptive fair use (A) – use the mark under supplemental guidelines from the trademark owner (B) – acquire a dedicated license to the trademark (C) At https://wpengine.com/plans https://wpengine.com/plans (take your screenshots now) they have titled services they offer simply "Core WordPress", "Essential WordPress", and "Enterprise WordPress". It could be claimed this branding exceeds nominative use. It is far beyond the mentioned descriptive use of a "managed WordPress hosting company". If this branding exceeds fair use, it needs to comply with justifications (B) or (C). It very clearly does not comply with the published guidelines, both before and after recent modifications, that read "All other WordPress-related businesses or projects can use the WordPress name and logo to refer to and explain their services, but they cannot use them as part of a product, project, service, domain name, or company name…". You can also see examples of use (current/cached and perhaps somewhat inadvertent) of "WordPress Engine" itself at https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awpengine.com+%22wordpress+engine%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Awpengine.com+%22wordp... Many commentators seem hung up on the fact that using the letters 'WP' was and remains an allowed practice according to (B). However, with regard to any trademark guidelines it could safely be assumed that a mark owner is not suggesting that one may use protected marks in ways that cause confusion as this is counter to the purpose of trademarks. Commentators are likewise hung up on the idea that the guidelines were subject to change or are despairing about the recent edits that clarified that the use of 'WP' under (B) must avoid uses that could imply the product or service were synonymous with WordPress itself. For similar open source software trademark guidelines and as a useful point of comparison, I think commentators should take a look at Red Hat's public guidelines, which explicitly remind users that guidelines like these can be changed: https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-policies https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-pol... Other commentators are focusing on the length WP Engine had 'WP' in their name. With use since 2010, some have implied that a statute of limitations has passed but the Lanham Act has no such time limit. These commentators don't seem to be considering Automattic's confusion claim. WP Engine has claimed in their materials that they are "The most trusted WordPress platform" and "The Most Trusted WordPress Tech Company". 'Trusted' can be read with the meaning 'seen as trustworthy' rather than the meaning 'utilized' which could be found to be creating confusion. The most [seen as trustworthy] platform would presumably be the project itself (in an expansive understanding of 'platform' that a non-technical user might perceive). If CNET started calling itself "The Most Trusted Firefox Source" I would expect The Mozilla Foundation to ask them to stop. Many commentators appear to be suggesting there should be no enforcement of the WordPress mark, which seems an unusual position, or otherwise seem to take issue with Automattic's original trademark registration in the first place. Regardless, if WP Engine's uses of the marks exceeded rationales (A) and (B), they needed a license. This is what Matt was seeking, even allowing such a license to be paid in kind. At this point, a court will likely decide if their use exceeded (A) and (B). Calling for Matt to have a role change is one thing but to likely libel Matt with the term extortion, a criminal offense, especially after only moments before admitting "maybe there's validity there" (regarding infringement of Automattic's WooCommerce mark) is absolutely reckless and it's disappointing to see this unserious blog post promoted here. To see uncareful defamation coming from someone who made their living for many years off the software their target of ire created is especially bleak.

brailsafe 2y ago

Hmm. Maybe this is a bit of an outlandish take, but although his decisions do seem at least superficially sus, I have a hard time agreeing with Josh's take. He chooses to make a lot of highly agreeable comparisons, but to me it seems more like a city (or some level) of government severely turning up the temperature on a particularly egregious contingent of landlords, landlord, or demographic, who've been abusing the system we've all been chill with until it's just not cool anymore. You could crank up property tax by double or triple the next year, and not offer the ability to vote on the issue of zoning anymore, or you could do the thing that no politician has the balls or the power to do and fundamentally change the system in a way that takes those issues off the table entirely, making the whole system more equitable in the future. The repercussions could be dire for some people, but it is what it would take to give a giant fuck you to the people who hold the reins. If the landlords can always hold the poor vulnerable freelancers that live in their basement suite over the heads of anyone who could otherwise theoretically change the rules, nothing will ever really change, and the people who've been along for the profitable ride won't want it to. But if you don't do it, you might risk your future hypothetical economy. Now, I know that's all a bit of a reach, but it's hard for me to not think asking for Matt to be removed for this reason is just like all those people who ostensibly would want public transit to be funded for all those other people who can't afford cars, until they finally got around to ripping up the street you use to drive to work every day and jacked up your taxes by $50. But, all that said, I've also never liked WordPress at all and don't have a dog in the fight, this is just a thought experiment. However, if I had to move because my landlord eventually got screwed for not reporting my rent on their income tax, I'd be like "well sometimes that happens, was nice while it lasted but my place was a shithole, they weren't competing fairly, and they were constantly showing up to city council meetings trying to block a mid-rise from going up while I was at work paying their mortgage".

sublinear 2y ago

If wordpress is to survive it needs to not be wordpress

r721 2y ago

@photomatt answers to some questions in this subthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676411

hackerbeat 2y ago

This guy clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about.

fortyseven 2y ago
Well, you've certainly convinced me with your well reasoned argument.
- hackerbeat 2y ago
  You're welcome.

sierra1011 2y ago

Lightly off-topic, but: >Five for the Future asks that if you benefit from WordPress, you give back 5% of your time directly to that open-source project As someone that semifrequently has to support WP installs, I would definitely make a case for it not being a benefit in my life

AStonesThrow 2y ago

Is that why it's named "Automattic", because the founder's name is "Matt"? Cute. EDIT: Yep - https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-origin/ https://techcrunch.com/2021/10/19/automattic-tc1-origin/

akagusu 2y ago

Matt is just using WordPress and the WordPress foundation to justify his personal vendetta, the same way Musk uses Twitter against people he doesn't like. And this is not the first time he does it, so this is nothing new and he is not the only one. Rich people and big companies do this all the time, but Matt is doing in public.

nikolay 2y ago

I've had some personal issues with Matt and Automattic and I would say there's nothing new in his attitude. But he's not so much different than DHH, Linus Torvalds, and Stallman - he's done a lot, a lot more than most of us, so, he's entitled to strong opinions. And all this looks worse than it is because he's a public figure. We all do stuff like this in our lives, it's just not getting public, but this doesn't mean any of us is so much better and smarter than Matt! And he is right that WP Engine is NOT WordPress.

Log_out_ 2y ago

In this thread nervous freeloaders trying to calm their nerves about shaky foundations by panicking in choir.

nixosbestos 2y ago

The fact that he invoked Primeagen, even without the appalling context of the conversation, tells me everything I need to know. And already suspected.