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Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about. Had they known they 100% would have e

Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about. Had they known they 100% would have ensured that customers didn't lose service. Matt chose to surprise them. It's a very nuanced thing. The world could be very different today. There would have been very little pushback against Matt's crusade if he'd just thought about making sure service to users was uninterrupted. Instead he dragged 1.5 million sites into the middle of this in a way that made him look like the bad guy. I hope that WordPress will continue to be open and Matt will continue to lead it, but he just cost himself a lot mindshare. That's why I asked him to explain why he made the choice he did. Hopefully he has a PR person who is advising him on how to handle this situation. Were it me, I would say something like: "My passion for keeping WordPress open source got the better of me and I made a hasty decision which caused problems for end users. I've learned from this and it's not a mistake I will ever repeat. Going forward if there are changes to how we administer WPorg's services we will discuss them with the community and announce them well in advance because we want them to be rock solid and reliable for all of the millions of websites which depend on them." This type of statement would go over well with a lot of people including the big enterprise customers who are depending on WP, who Matt really wants and who are constantly being courted by WP's competitors. In followup messaging you can reiterate all the strengths of open source e.g. how it reduces vendor lock-in. But what do I know, I've only sold a couple million dollars worth of WP contracts, meanwhile Matt is worth 400 of those big M's. :)

mike_d 2y ago
> Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. Your anger should be with WPEngine for taking your money while knowing full well their service depended on servers ran by a company they were on (best case) shaky terms with. Up until about 8 months ago, Bluehost (another big paid hoster of WordPress sites) ran its own plugin mirror with no issues: https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror
- nicce 2y ago
  > According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. They could have give a warning 20 months ago that this may happen and then this would not be a thing.
  - GlacierFox 2y ago
    Yea, WPE should have done that.
    - jantissler 2y ago
      Matt's behavior is inexcusable and shows that WordPress needs a complete restructuring without him. Too many sites rely on WordPress to endanger them because of one man's temper tantrum. I don't understand how you can defend this reckless behavior by him. Who cares what WPE could have should have done. He needs to step down immediately.
- mort96 2y ago
  Did Automattic tell WPEngine that they'd cut off plug-in updates 20 motnhs ago? Or is the 20 months thing just completely irrelevant to the point that Automattic should've given a heads up before cutting off plug-in updates
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- mthoms 2y ago
  "WPEngine should have foreseen something that has never happened in the 20 years of the software's history". I mean yeah, companies should have contingency plans for things that are extraordinarily rare but let's be reasonable about it. No one, including you, saw this coming. I challenge you to find a single blog post, tweet or HN/Reddit comment that suggests Matt could one day shut off wp.org access to a single company running 1.5 million sites without any notice to that company, or the community members who will be affected. It's unconscionable. Or at least it was. Be reasonable.
chuckadams 2y ago
Even without dragging the wordpress.org infrastructure into the mess, MM's blackmail campaign wouldn't have played well with the community. But it would have blown over as just more #wpdrama, whereas this ... I think we're likely to see the WordPress trademark invalidated. Even if it isn't, this case winning means every last WP host can just line up and cite it, making the trademark as good as generic anyway.

mike_d 2y ago

> Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. Your anger should be with WPEngine for taking your money while knowing full well their service depended on servers ran by a company they were on (best case) shaky terms with. Up until about 8 months ago, Bluehost (another big paid hoster of WordPress sites) ran its own plugin mirror with no issues: https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror

nicce 2y ago
> According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. They could have give a warning 20 months ago that this may happen and then this would not be a thing.
- GlacierFox 2y ago
  Yea, WPE should have done that.
  - jantissler 2y ago
    Matt's behavior is inexcusable and shows that WordPress needs a complete restructuring without him. Too many sites rely on WordPress to endanger them because of one man's temper tantrum. I don't understand how you can defend this reckless behavior by him. Who cares what WPE could have should have done. He needs to step down immediately.
mort96 2y ago
Did Automattic tell WPEngine that they'd cut off plug-in updates 20 motnhs ago? Or is the 20 months thing just completely irrelevant to the point that Automattic should've given a heads up before cutting off plug-in updates
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mthoms 2y ago
"WPEngine should have foreseen something that has never happened in the 20 years of the software's history". I mean yeah, companies should have contingency plans for things that are extraordinarily rare but let's be reasonable about it. No one, including you, saw this coming. I challenge you to find a single blog post, tweet or HN/Reddit comment that suggests Matt could one day shut off wp.org access to a single company running 1.5 million sites without any notice to that company, or the community members who will be affected. It's unconscionable. Or at least it was. Be reasonable.

chuckadams 2y ago

Even without dragging the wordpress.org infrastructure into the mess, MM's blackmail campaign wouldn't have played well with the community. But it would have blown over as just more #wpdrama, whereas this ... I think we're likely to see the WordPress trademark invalidated. Even if it isn't, this case winning means every last WP host can just line up and cite it, making the trademark as good as generic anyway.