4 ms·

"Negotiation" invokes visions of term sheets and boardrooms but what Matt actually meant by "negotiation" (as revealed in the interview) was emails in which he

"Negotiation" invokes visions of term sheets and boardrooms but what Matt actually meant by "negotiation" (as revealed in the interview) was emails in which he expressed displeasure at the lack of contribution from WP Engine, and only in the days before WordCamp did any sort of terms arrive at the table (the 8% demand). Matt has acknowledged he escalated things in the space of days, not years. The emails read out are birthday party invites, not term sheets. I agree that WP Engine cannot be characterised as "good guys" given it's a bottom-line driven machine that will chew up and spit out all in its path, and Matt has earned credibility through decades of community-minded WordPress stewardship, but let's not pretend this is some business deal that went sour, it's Matt using every inch of leverage he has to cause WP Engine pain because of his moral objections to the private-equity machine taking money away from his community-minded company. Obviously WP Engine were never going to pay Automattic tens of millions of dollars per year, Matt knows that, we know that, it's a side show. He was just saying things to ruin their day. Just like the millions of dollars per year in costs incurred running WordPress.org that Matt has wheeled out to justify causing WP Engine pain by cutting them off from plugin updates (Cloudflare have offered to host WordPress.org for free; Matt has not accepted the offer).

tptacek 2y ago
At 14:50 in the video they read a term sheet together. Prior to that, they read aloud an email complaint (not a birthday party invite) from this summer. He claims that they've been meeting in person about this; I don't disbelieve him. For what it's worth: I agree with you about what seems subtextually to be behind this whole thing. But then: if they've been on notice for many months about Mullenweg being upset about their use of the trademarks and lack of participation in the community (confirmed on camera, unless he forged emails), it feels to me like WPE --- a company with an 8-9 figure run rate --- should have been in a position to know what was coming with WordPress.org and how to mitigate that. I'm not casting Mullenweg as a hero; just making a case for it being a JABOG† situation, as I said above. And, of course, that the summary in the story we're reading is pretty one-sided. † gonna make this a thing
- Terretta 2y ago
  The trademarks argument seemed overblown, "JABOG" style. The new to me allegation in this is this alleged WPE swap out of WooCommerce Stripe affiliate account: WP Engine had been siphoning “tens of millions” of dollars away from Woo’s revenue share partnership with Stripe into its own coffers. It’s understood WP Engine has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce. Ripping out an OSS' revenue model would seem not great. There's a term for use of electronic communication systems to redirect money to oneself. But, not cut and dried, if the source code containing that model is fair game... To your point, this must be a one-sided take as well, since one would have expected an accusation of 8 figure wire fraud to escalate more clearly if it were that simple.
  - threeseed 2y ago
    You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce. It is their version of the project and they are permitted by the terms of the license that WooCommerce agreed to make whatever changes they like. Open source is a double edged sword. You can't leverage the benefits of the community and then deny the community the ability to benefit themselves.
    - Terretta 2y ago
      > You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce. That point is impossible to reconcile with this phrase: "...has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce." The verb tense "has been swapping" implies continuous repetition of the swap, not a one time fork, then "when a user installs WooCommerce" doubles down, implying it's the original code, with user install action being the time of the stealth edit. The article's sentence is constructed incompatibly with the point you're making. Note I'm not saying your point is incorrect.
      - threeseed 2y ago
        Not sure if you're a developer or not. But it's extremely common to fork a project and keep it up to date with the latest commits from the original repository. Pretty much the standard in fact since most people just want to make a few small changes.

tptacek 2y ago

At 14:50 in the video they read a term sheet together. Prior to that, they read aloud an email complaint (not a birthday party invite) from this summer. He claims that they've been meeting in person about this; I don't disbelieve him. For what it's worth: I agree with you about what seems subtextually to be behind this whole thing. But then: if they've been on notice for many months about Mullenweg being upset about their use of the trademarks and lack of participation in the community (confirmed on camera, unless he forged emails), it feels to me like WPE --- a company with an 8-9 figure run rate --- should have been in a position to know what was coming with WordPress.org and how to mitigate that. I'm not casting Mullenweg as a hero; just making a case for it being a JABOG† situation, as I said above. And, of course, that the summary in the story we're reading is pretty one-sided. † gonna make this a thing

Terretta 2y ago
The trademarks argument seemed overblown, "JABOG" style. The new to me allegation in this is this alleged WPE swap out of WooCommerce Stripe affiliate account: WP Engine had been siphoning “tens of millions” of dollars away from Woo’s revenue share partnership with Stripe into its own coffers. It’s understood WP Engine has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce. Ripping out an OSS' revenue model would seem not great. There's a term for use of electronic communication systems to redirect money to oneself. But, not cut and dried, if the source code containing that model is fair game... To your point, this must be a one-sided take as well, since one would have expected an accusation of 8 figure wire fraud to escalate more clearly if it were that simple.
- threeseed 2y ago
  You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce. It is their version of the project and they are permitted by the terms of the license that WooCommerce agreed to make whatever changes they like. Open source is a double edged sword. You can't leverage the benefits of the community and then deny the community the ability to benefit themselves.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    > You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce. That point is impossible to reconcile with this phrase: "...has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce." The verb tense "has been swapping" implies continuous repetition of the swap, not a one time fork, then "when a user installs WooCommerce" doubles down, implying it's the original code, with user install action being the time of the stealth edit. The article's sentence is constructed incompatibly with the point you're making. Note I'm not saying your point is incorrect.
    - threeseed 2y ago
      Not sure if you're a developer or not. But it's extremely common to fork a project and keep it up to date with the latest commits from the original repository. Pretty much the standard in fact since most people just want to make a few small changes.