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> WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers. This all kicked off when he publicly accused WP E

> WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers. This all kicked off when he publicly accused WP Engine of “butchering” WordPress for disabling revisions: > What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress, it’s something that they’ve chopped up, hacked, butchered to look like WordPress, but actually they’re giving you a cheap knock-off and charging you more for it. — https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/ Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Making WordPress contact something other than api.wordpress.org requires altering the codebase. Making this configurable is something he has explicitly rejected: > Why would I build that? The built-in source works great, for tens of millions of servers. — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41676885 So according to Mullenweg: - If WP Engine alters WordPress, even just to alter its configuration, they are “butchering” it. - If WP Engine doesn’t alter WordPress and leaves it pointing at api.wordpress.org, they are unfairly using community resources. – Huge numbers of people using api.wordpress.org is actually “great” and scales to tens of millions of servers. As far as I can see, he doesn’t have a consistent position. He’s just grabbing hold of the nearest accusation that he thinks will harm WP Engine in the heat of the moment, regardless of what he has previously claimed or who else it hurts.

jamespo 2y ago
I don't understand why wp engine don't just maintain a fork
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- shabgzer 2y ago
  Have a look at the WordPress core. ;-) Here's a nice example: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/92d9e70f849c337c2fd51bbfb1b6028e5c47c305/wp-includes/rewrite.php#L381 https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/92d9e70f849c337c...
  - spyke112 2y ago
    So in your opinion what's wrong with that code? To me it seems to be nicely documented and everything.
    - shabgzer 2y ago
      That it is - it better be. It's an example of the kind of backwards compatibility WordPress needs to deal with the myriad of crazy content generated by people (and plugins!) over the years. Often this gets very chatty and very inefficient. Besides backwards compatibility, this codebase grew like a jungle, with people just piling code on, not always with much forethought. Part of it's due to the limitations of PHP in the old days, and of course it's inherent with projects of this size, but there are varying degrees of messiness. WordPress is an example of a project that started out too messy and only became more messy over time. Just to pile on: the WPDB class is another example of continued messiness. The first thing I do whenever I write a plugin, is to add a little database wrapper that just uses PHP PDO instead. Anything better than to deal with the hopeless, inefficient, inflexible mess that is WPDB. (To whoever wrote it: sorry mate!) Edit: this guy said it better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729827
  - darkwater 2y ago
    So even better, WP engine could rewrite it from scratch in a better way. Maybe even use another language. Or maybe it is just fine for their use case and they are making already enough money with it...
safety1st 2y ago
> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Actually this is wrong. Yes the constant WP_POST_REVISIONS exists. But WP Engine has disabled this constant. They do in fact "butcher" WordPress in the sense that they remove a feature, you can't turn it back on by yourself, and you need to talk to their support to get a limited version of it re-enabled by them. Add to that, revisions are a big deal for a certain type of customer. Say, an enterprise scale publisher for example who has built an extensive publishing workflow around WP. (Hacker News consistently underestimates how massive some WordPress installs are; the scale of the world's biggest publishers, many of whom rely on WordPress, blows your nice little startup out of the water.) So I am aware of a case or two where this actually became a negotiating point in an enterprise contract. The customer was entirely unaware that revisions were just a free thing built into WP, and it influenced the resulting contract and cost. Dirty dirty on WPE's side, really. BTW this is documented at https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ and you can see on that page that they limit their environment in many other ways. In the abstract this may not be a huge problem, hosts have costs and security and various limitations to think about. In my personal experience there are limitations which are not listed on that page and those are more frustrating.
- dncornholio 2y ago
  The revision system is terrible though. Even we limit it for our clients. It doubles or triples the amount of queries your site and admin needs to run. Have some multi language plugin on top and your site will be eating memory and cpu. If WordPress would have made an actual usuable revision system, this wouldnt have been an issue at all
  - safety1st 2y ago
    I think this is where Matt's perspective actually makes sense: "So, you guys built a $400M/yr business on our open source project, and when you had problems with the revision system, instead of contributing improvements, you just turned it off (and maybe converted it into an enterprise upsell some people are paying extra for!)?" Intel, Google, even Microsoft etc. develop improvements to Linux knowing full well that their competitors will also get access to those improvements. For sure it's disappointing that WP Engine contributes almost no time to Core.
austhrow743 2y ago
"A third party will complain" is not a valid reason to provide poor service to your customers.
- JimDabell 2y ago
  I’m not really focusing on WP Engine’s service here. I’m pointing out that the constraints Mullenweg has voiced appear to be self-contradictory and unsatisfiable by any WordPress host.
deleted 2y ago
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bzmrgonz 2y ago
I'm sorry but WP-ENGINE lost my vote when they started quoting evangelizing and ambassadorship events as "contributions". Everyone knows that's a 50/50 self-marketing and brand outreach. I don't understand why people are taking WP ENGINE's side, in the past 5 years, the evils and exploits of VC investments have been widely documented. This is a clear and present danger/example of what is wrong with VC in America. Look at VC in other parts of the world, they are heavily regulated for this particular reason. This industry has taken the premise of the movie "pretty woman" and escalated to new hights of corporate GREED.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]

jamespo 2y ago

I don't understand why wp engine don't just maintain a fork

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
shabgzer 2y ago
Have a look at the WordPress core. ;-) Here's a nice example: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/92d9e70f849c337c2fd51bbfb1b6028e5c47c305/wp-includes/rewrite.php#L381 https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/92d9e70f849c337c...
- spyke112 2y ago
  So in your opinion what's wrong with that code? To me it seems to be nicely documented and everything.
  - shabgzer 2y ago
    That it is - it better be. It's an example of the kind of backwards compatibility WordPress needs to deal with the myriad of crazy content generated by people (and plugins!) over the years. Often this gets very chatty and very inefficient. Besides backwards compatibility, this codebase grew like a jungle, with people just piling code on, not always with much forethought. Part of it's due to the limitations of PHP in the old days, and of course it's inherent with projects of this size, but there are varying degrees of messiness. WordPress is an example of a project that started out too messy and only became more messy over time. Just to pile on: the WPDB class is another example of continued messiness. The first thing I do whenever I write a plugin, is to add a little database wrapper that just uses PHP PDO instead. Anything better than to deal with the hopeless, inefficient, inflexible mess that is WPDB. (To whoever wrote it: sorry mate!) Edit: this guy said it better: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729827 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41729827
- darkwater 2y ago
  So even better, WP engine could rewrite it from scratch in a better way. Maybe even use another language. Or maybe it is just fine for their use case and they are making already enough money with it...

safety1st 2y ago

> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Actually this is wrong. Yes the constant WP_POST_REVISIONS exists. But WP Engine has disabled this constant. They do in fact "butcher" WordPress in the sense that they remove a feature, you can't turn it back on by yourself, and you need to talk to their support to get a limited version of it re-enabled by them. Add to that, revisions are a big deal for a certain type of customer. Say, an enterprise scale publisher for example who has built an extensive publishing workflow around WP. (Hacker News consistently underestimates how massive some WordPress installs are; the scale of the world's biggest publishers, many of whom rely on WordPress, blows your nice little startup out of the water.) So I am aware of a case or two where this actually became a negotiating point in an enterprise contract. The customer was entirely unaware that revisions were just a free thing built into WP, and it influenced the resulting contract and cost. Dirty dirty on WPE's side, really. BTW this is documented at https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/ and you can see on that page that they limit their environment in many other ways. In the abstract this may not be a huge problem, hosts have costs and security and various limitations to think about. In my personal experience there are limitations which are not listed on that page and those are more frustrating.

dncornholio 2y ago
The revision system is terrible though. Even we limit it for our clients. It doubles or triples the amount of queries your site and admin needs to run. Have some multi language plugin on top and your site will be eating memory and cpu. If WordPress would have made an actual usuable revision system, this wouldnt have been an issue at all
- safety1st 2y ago
  I think this is where Matt's perspective actually makes sense: "So, you guys built a $400M/yr business on our open source project, and when you had problems with the revision system, instead of contributing improvements, you just turned it off (and maybe converted it into an enterprise upsell some people are paying extra for!)?" Intel, Google, even Microsoft etc. develop improvements to Linux knowing full well that their competitors will also get access to those improvements. For sure it's disappointing that WP Engine contributes almost no time to Core.

austhrow743 2y ago

"A third party will complain" is not a valid reason to provide poor service to your customers.

JimDabell 2y ago
I’m not really focusing on WP Engine’s service here. I’m pointing out that the constraints Mullenweg has voiced appear to be self-contradictory and unsatisfiable by any WordPress host.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

bzmrgonz 2y ago

I'm sorry but WP-ENGINE lost my vote when they started quoting evangelizing and ambassadorship events as "contributions". Everyone knows that's a 50/50 self-marketing and brand outreach. I don't understand why people are taking WP ENGINE's side, in the past 5 years, the evils and exploits of VC investments have been widely documented. This is a clear and present danger/example of what is wrong with VC in America. Look at VC in other parts of the world, they are heavily regulated for this particular reason. This industry has taken the premise of the movie "pretty woman" and escalated to new hights of corporate GREED.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]