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Secure Custom Fields by WordPress.org
- stefanos82 2y agoThe URL though says "advanced-custom-fields"; Matt...I can't find the words to comment; I just shake my head -_-
- unsnap_biceps 2y agoIf you look at the reviews, they took over the advanced-custom-fields plugin and modified the owner to be Wordpress.org and renamed it to Secure Custom Fields. What a terrible look They also modified it by ripping out the pro features, so if people update their ACF Plugin and they had pro features enabled, it'll just break their install https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3167679/advanced-custom-fields/tags/6.3.6.2/includes/admin/admin-internal-post-type-list.php https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset/3167679/advance...
- jorams 2y agoThe pro version of the plugin is a separate install, this just rips out the upgrade notices.
- joe_hills 2y agoWhat a choice, and what poor timing. Companies that make breaking changes on holiday weekends aren’t going to earn much goodwill from developers.
- photomatt 2y agoNothing has broken. Perhaps WP Engine should have consider that before suing us.
- clessg 2y agoI'd normally never say something like this, but: seek therapy, man. Seriously. This is not normal. It will end badly for so many people, including yourself. It may not be too late.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sccxy 2y ago[flagged]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- NeonNautilus 2y agoI don't think punishing people for suing you typically plays well in court. Especially not if you, you know, publicly announce that's what you're doing.
- everforward 2y agoThis was my reaction as well. This sounded like tortious interference before, but to blatantly announce that he’s trying to kill someone else’s business, for exercising their legal rights no less, sounds like a summary judgement waiting to happen. There is no dispute over the facts here if Matt is just going to announce his intents. I cannot imagine his rage when not only does WPE not have to pay him, but now he’s paying them.
- throw16180339 2y agoThere won't be a Wordpress community left if you continue as you have. What does the board think of your actions?
- maxbond 2y agoI've vouched this comment. I don't think we should be flagging this comment; it's not particularly out of line, and there's a significant interest in the community seeing Mullenweg's comments.
- Kye 2y agoGuy who started a fight tells target to stop hitting themselves
- wongogue 2y agoPlease proceed, governor.
- navigate8310 2y ago[flagged]
- taikahessu 2y agoBusiness is war, I get it. But you chose to make innocent bystanders (your users) life difficult and you crossed a line by stealing code with an excuse that everyone sees through. This looks now more and more of a personal vendetta.
- mmsnowsniff 2y agoCan't wait for Matt to read this in a deposition. At this point, the dude seems to be intent on running up the highest tab possible.
- bombcar 2y agoThese are clearly the actions of someone who is sure they'll win the lawsuit. (not)
- grodriguez100 2y agoTrust is what has been broken. Childish.
- yard2010 2y agoThere must be a timeline in which this is de-escalated, compromises are being made and everyone's happy. In your perspective - what does it look like? What could be done to go the opposite way and keep going? Also, I'm surprised to see people only siding with WP Engine here. Usually the discussions here are much more balanced.. What do you think could be the reason for it?
- skhr0680 2y agoAFAIK the free version never included “pro features” in the first place
- Scaevolus 2y agoSo they forked some open source software and "hacked it up" to remove notices from the original creators? Fascinating.
- cyral 2y agoYup, removing post revisions which I think is single line change is hacking it up when WP Engine does it, but this is totally okay apparently.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoLink to the delta from the latest code revision where they replaced “ACF” with “SCF”. https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph_mail=&reponame=&new=3167679%40advanced-custom-fields&old=3164480%40advanced-custom-fields&sfp_email=&sfph_mail= https://plugins.trac.wordpress.org/changeset?sfp_email=&sfph... Not a lawyer, but since WPE sells ACF services, can WP redirect users away? That is directly impacting a competitor’s bottom line.
- everforward 2y agoI think tortious interference would be the relevant allegation, but I have no idea what the likelihood of it sticking is.
- discostrings 2y agoBlog post on wordpress.org concerning this: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/secure-custom-fields/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/secure-custom-fields/
- righthand 2y ago> There is separate, but not directly related news that Jason Bahl has left WP Engine to work for Automattic and will be making WPGraphQL a canonical community plugin. We expect others will follow as well. Anything to prop up their position and throw the company they are attacking under the bus. What a jerk.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y agoThis is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins. Yeah, that is not how trust works.
- smarx007 2y ago> This update is as minimal as possible to fix the security issue. What is the actual issue? CVE number?
- kristofferR 2y agoI think they mean that it's developed by WP Engine and that's the security issue.
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- bullenweg 2y agoIf anyone from Automattic is reading this and would like to confidentially leak any internal information about this behaviour from Matt, please email admin@bullenweg.com and I will publish it on bullenweg.com.
- ivanmontillam 2y agoThis is excellent! Is there a repo of this website? It would be good to have for preservation purposes.
- bullenweg 2y agohttps://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io https://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io
- photomatt 2y agoIt actually is an excellent website, and the repo is here: https://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io https://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io
- bullenweg 2y agoI have been unable to convince Jason Bahl to share the ~threats~ ~coercion~ terms you used to convince him to join Automattic. Your contribution via GitHub of the terms that you used to ~coerce~ persuade him into defecting would be appreciated.
- onnimonni 2y agoMatt you propably don't remember me but we met briefly on WordCamp Vienna 8 years ago. I was hugely inspired by you for many years and still was until few weeks ago. It's not too late to stop this madness.
- mthoms 2y agoPeople are concerned about you, my dude. Very concerned. From one human being to another - please consider taking a step back to get some perspective.
- RobotToaster 2y agoWordpress banned forks from the plugin directory a while ago, so they're doing what they ban everyone else from doing. https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2021/02/16/reminder-forked-premium-plugins-are-not-permitted/ https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2021/02/16/reminder-forke...
- sureIy 2y agoRules are for thee, not for me
- batuhanicoz 2y agoACF isn’t a premium plugin (linked post only concerns those). The linked post also might not reflect the current policies. This update was a security update and was done due to the unique circumstances around the original publisher.
- Sebguer 2y agoThe mental gymnastics you keep doing to defend your boss are impressive, and I'm sure will reflect well on your next perf cycle!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- throw16180339 2y agoThere are a lot of other employers that won't make you lie for them.
- batuhanicoz 2y agoIf you point to any lies told by me, I would love to correct them. No one has told me to come here and defend anyone. I work at a part of Automattic that is isolated from anything WordPress — I don’t have to be here. I am defending values I believe in. I am trying to make sure correct information is out there. You are free to not believe that of course.
- wkirby 2y agoWe no longer do custom WordPress work --- it turned out to never be worth the hassle --- but when we did, our company used ACF extensively. High quality plugin with responsive support and very fair licensing terms. This --- to me --- smacks of complete bullshit.
- xenago 2y agoForking it is whatever, but to take over their namespace and thus break trust across the ecosystem is a dealbreaker. All devs will have to move.
- luckylion 2y agoIt is complete bullshit, but calling ACF high quality is also pretty out there. It's one of those giants in WP that is stuck in the past, arguably much like a lot of core.
- wkirby 2y agoTo be fair we haven’t worked with WP in 4 years; our experience with ACF was always positive.
- rasso 2y ago4 years ago it was still great. I had one contact with WPE support since they bought the plugin last year or so and it was the most frustrating support interaction I ever had. It felt like I was writing with an AI that was prompted to drive me crazy so that I would leave them alone.
- bigiain 2y agoIt's certainly "high quality" in the sense of "it solves a huge number of requirements that WP core doesn't, in a way that's better that alternative plugins". It's a high quality WP Admin user experience. Just don't try looking too deeply into the database mess it creates. For WordPress _users_, as in the people who log into the WordPress dashboard to run their website, 'stuck in the past' is often an advantage and not a bad thing. You'll be able to find blog posts and tutorials and youtube showing you how to use in, unlike the "new shiny" where there's no easily found example or support for.
- partiallypro 2y agoThis is one of the sleaziest things I've ever seen. I fear a hard fork of WordPress is now inevitable and unfortunately, it's possibly going to kill the platform, all over one man's ego. How can I now sell my clients on using WordPress for mission critical things if on a whim the owner of WordPress can break my site or lock out my security updates, just because I chose the "wrong" host or plugin? I don't see how the Board can sit by and let this all unfold like this, it's practically business suicide.
- mnau 2y agoTBF WordPress was also created by two men and one of them was Matt. Of course it only achieved it's success through efforts of countless others, but it's not just some person. Shame, it came to this. We had hard forks of very popular systems before, e.g. xfree86 turned into x.org, LibreOffice vs OpenOffice.org, Hudson to Jenkins and others and basically everyone switched (nearly) overnight. Fork will likely have a much better direction structure to avoid precisely this problem, at least it seems to be the pattern.
- notamy 2y agoGood lord, why?? That’s such a petty move and is just doing further damage to the WordPress ecosystem.
- dylan604 2y agoscorched earth is always so successful
- sgdfhijfgsdfgds 2y agoOK so: 1) WordPress clearly lacks functionality like ACF that belongs in core 2) Many developers clearly like ACF 3) Many do not (it's messy in the DB, if you ask me) 4) Core functionality that was if not API-compatible, at least API-familiar with ACF would be welcomed by many 5) Creating a new plugin that did this, that was transitioned into core (like other functionality has been), would be a good plan 6) Commandeering the slug for a decade-old commercial plugin like this, to replace it with a fork, is so obviously fucking bad form that it's still hard to believe it is happening even given all the other whatthefuckery that has been happening. ETA: 7) "Secure Custom Fields"? Really? The difference is what? What the fuck, Matt? ETA: personally I understand many of the frustrations with WP Engine's positioning. I have experienced exactly the trademark confusion issues that the lawsuit has been about, where clients have assumed WP Engine is WordPress itself. I don't use them after some iffy customer service and technical issues early on. But this is absurd behaviour.
- Sebguer 2y agoThe fucked thing is that per the article, they're not even dedicating any resources to maintain it going forward, they've just made this one fix and are throwing it to other people to maintain if they want: > Going forward, Secure Custom Fields is now a non-commercial plugin, and if any developers want to get involved in maintaining and improving it, please get in touch.
- photomatt 2y agoWe have taken on stewardship of this code going forward, and will dedicate engineers to it. Probably more than Silver Lake does.
- ceejayoz 2y agoSo, the ACF plugin is a useful contribution to the WordPress ecosystem? Significant enough to warrant bringing it in-house now? Is work on it included in your assessment of what WPE contributes?
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- delichon 2y agoAs a builder of a small specialized CMS for which WordPress is a large generalized competitor, thanks Matt. Refugees welcome.
- ivanmontillam 2y agoI'm rooting for this to happen. Best of luck to the new king of the market.
- DonnieBurger 2y agoI'm interested. Please do share.
- delichon 2y agoThanks but I'm going for pseudonymity on this account. Just a few dozen clients.
- DonnieBurger 2y agoPerhaps you should edit out "refugees welcome" then.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- CharlesW 2y agoSo WordPress-the-org — which is effectively Matt, as far as I can tell — just Sherlocked a developer's plug-in using the developer's own code, ostensibly as retribution for a security issue that the developer had already fixed. https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-6-3-8-security-release/ https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-6-3-8-security... What am I missing?
- windsurfer 2y agoThat ACF security update was not made available on WordPress.org due to ACF maintainers being blocked from accessing WordPress.org, according to WordPress.org's blog https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
- photomatt 2y agoThis release fixes a separate security vulnerability from the original update.
- NeonNautilus 2y agoCan anyone else prove this security vulnerability actually existed?
- mirzap 2y agoIt doesn't matter. Matt didn't have the right to hijack ACF.
- righthand 2y agoIf anyone is interested in the extended controversy surrounding Wordpress, there is a site that has been tracking everything.[0] [0] https://bullenweg.com https://bullenweg.com
- kristofferR 2y agoWow, I hadn't heard about the nosebleed incident. Absurd, even if he ain't snorting coke, it's deeply weird to continue an interview while profusely bleeding as if nothing is happening.
- shermantanktop 2y agoI have no stake in any of this but some people have nosebleeds without anything nefarious or bad going on. This guy doesn’t need any help looking bad, suggesting that his nosebleed is important is stupid.
- kristofferR 2y agoIt's not the nosebleed in itself, it's the ignoration of the blood streaming down the face during a video interview that is the most curious. And it wouldn't be as relevant if the subject hadn't acted increasingly erratic and self-destructive at the same time period. It's not "important", it's just deeply weird, because it tracks.
- leoedin 2y agoI sometimes get nosebleeds. There's no pain involved - it just feels like a slightly runny nose until either you wipe it or blood starts dripping into your frame of view. I get them a lot in low humidity. I haven't watched the video, but if it's a small amount of blood it's perfectly possible he just didn't notice.
- corobo 2y agoHim being in the middle of a mad coke bender would explain so much. I'm accepting this as canon until we find out WP Engine slept with his wife or something
- butz 2y agoI wonder what will happen to old websites I built with ACF and did not touch for years? Are they vulnerable now, as owners cannot get updates for ACF?
- martin_a 2y agoI had to login to several sites and make sure that the plugins would not auto-update. This is pretty much like a rogue actor taking over a plugin.
- johnchristopher 2y agoThe slug hasn't changed so it will receive updates (from SCF repository, now under the control of Automattic). If you used ACF pro then the plug-in is downloaded from ACF website. But. The obvious next move is to put code in the core that would degrade ACF pro.
- akira2501 2y ago> This update is as minimal as possible to fix the security issue. > This is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins. So.. is this fixing a security issue.. or is this because of WP Engine? > and are forking Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) into a new plugin And stealing their place in the plugin store. A fork generally implies that you are going to set off on your own, and not inhabit the dead flesh of the project you just killed. Matt Mullenweg is the biggest child I have ever seen in operation.
- claudiulodro 2y ago> So.. is this fixing a security issue.. or is this because of WP Engine? It's fixing a security issue WP Engine cannot fix because they are banned from wordpress.org.
- Sebguer 2y ago*Has fixed, but can't post the fixed version to wordpress.org, to be clear
- throw16180339 2y ago> So.. is this fixing a security issue.. or is this because of WP Engine? AFAIK, here's the timeline. 1. Automattic announced that there was a security issue in ACF. 2. WP Engine fixes it immediately. 3. Automattic bans the WP Engine developers from Wordpress.org, so they can't deploy the fix. This places millions of users at risk, but that's how they roll. 4. Automattic forks ACF, removes the commercial upgrade, and renames it.
- claudiulodro 2y agoYour timeline is rearranging some things around[1]. WP Engine was banned before the security issue. [1] https://duerrenberger.dev/blog/2024/10/08/timeline-of-the-wordpress-drama/ https://duerrenberger.dev/blog/2024/10/08/timeline-of-the-wo...
- mirzap 2y agoPathetic. Matt banned one of the most popular WordPress plugins. Then, he forked the code and hosted it on WP.org, which is against the Terms of Service. He also hosted it in the plugin directory on the same path as ACF, stealing its SEO traffic. Wow! Matt's state of mind is clearly not good. If I were an investor in WordPress, I would start thinking about cutting my losses. WordPress will not recover from this self-inflicted destruction *Update* Oh, it's worse than that. He just renamed the ACF to SCF and claimed all the installations and reviews from ACF. I still can't believe this happened. This can't be legal!
- photomatt 2y agoHave you read the GPL?
- DonnieBurger 2y agoParent does not mention GPL, nor is this a GPL issue. It's about the takeover of an existing plugin and it's reviews/installs.
- ankleturtle 2y agoI am not a lawyer, but I am really curious if this would amount to tortious interference.
- Sebguer 2y agoEventually you are going to have to confront that the distance between 'technical correctness' and 'moral correctness' is vaster than you apparently think it is.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- curiousgal 2y ago[flagged]
- kristofferR 2y ago
- mattbee 2y agoI can't even follow what's going on here, and I used to be an expert in software licensing drama. All I see is a bunch of unilateral actions driven by Matt Mullenweg that breaks so many implicit promises of how a free software steward should behave. Wordpress sites quite often seen to be a hodge-podge of plugins, each with their own UI and conventions, and (as a host) I'm never an expert in anye one of them. Has one of the site designers used a plugin that has offended Matt? Or that might offend him in the near future? How do I even audit for that? I don't need much of a push to move my position on this. Before: "eh, use Wordpress if it's cheaper" Now: "please don't, that decision will probably cost me".
- Scaevolus 2y agoTheoretically WPE might be a bad actor-- perhaps even more than any commercial competitor naturally is-- but they're smart enough to not smear it around with absurd moves like this that radiate a lack of professionalism or ability to predict reactions.
- xenago 2y agoSo, wordpress is being burnt to the ground by Matt. Just great. :/
- butz 2y agoProcessWire CMS (https://processwire.com/ https://processwire.com/) is a neat alternative if one requires quite complex set of custom fields on a website.
- sureIy 2y agoThis gets better by the day. I'm so rooting for WPE and I hope the judge will lay it heavy.
- martin_a 2y agoJust stealing plugins right now? Or is this some kind of "eye for an eye" situation? I'm really turned down from the whole ecosystem by this total shitshow. Seems like everything could be pulled from under running sites if some clown decides he doesn't like it anymore. At this point I just hope that WP Engine wins whatever lawsuit happens and Matt Mullenweg (and everybody who was involved besides him) has to pack his things and leave everything WP-related forever.
- _cenw 2y agoI thought there weren't any hinges left for Matt to unhinge. He dug for that minior vulnerability to be to able to justify that takeover. Who can ever trust this guy and his company, ever again?
- Kye 2y agoRelated: the main developer on the Fields API proposal is calling it quits on involvement with WordPress. https://github.com/sc0ttkclark/wordpress-fields-api https://github.com/sc0ttkclark/wordpress-fields-api I'm not entirely sure what it is but it has over 350 stars and quite a few forks so it's probably important.
- taikahessu 2y agoNow resigned maintainer Scott is also lead dev of Pods, awesome ACF-like plugin. Lines have been crossed when stealing other people's code, what happened in the case of ACF to SCF, IMHO.
- cendyne 2y agoIt is as if Wordpress [1] is asserting that the original author is a danger to public safety. Their terms read: ... To that end, we reserve the following rights: ... to make changes to a plugin, without developer consent, in the interest of public safety. [1]: https://x.com/WordPress/status/1845179613783142426 https://x.com/WordPress/status/1845179613783142426
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- trog 2y agoIf you were an insider deliberately trying to tank WordPress, it is hard for me to imagine anything you could do that would be more effective than this.
- JBiserkov 2y agoPerhaps he shorted the Automattic stock... no, wait, Automattic is privately held... make it make sense!
- jrflowers 2y agoThis whole saga is surreal because I thought myself to be constitutionally incapable of rooting for a private equity firm to win a fight, but this is like watching a guy violently strain to shit his pants while yelling “Look what they made me do!” Also the guy is in a hot tub with all of his friends and employees
- chx 2y agoAccording to https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2021/02/16/reminder-forked-premium-plugins-are-not-permitted/ https://make.wordpress.org/plugins/2021/02/16/reminder-forke... this is piracy. Let's look at newer documentation: https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detailed-plugin-guidelines/ https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/detail... > The use of trademarks or other projects as the sole or initial term of a plugin slug is prohibited unless proof of legal ownership/representation can be confirmed The plugin is at https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields and advanced custom fields filed for trademark last December https://trademarks.justia.com/983/21/advanced-custom-98321164.html https://trademarks.justia.com/983/21/advanced-custom-9832116... Also https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/plugin-developer-faq/ https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/plugin... > We also don’t accept 100% copies of other people’s work There's a clause which looks applicable https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/plugin-developer-faq/#what-happens-to-a-plugin-if-the-plugin-owner-gets-blocked https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/wordpress-org/plugin... > What happens to a plugin if the plugin owner gets blocked? however the page says "Last Updated: 12 October 2024" and https://github.com/WordPress/developer-plugins-handbook/blob/75d06a1d9c8572e2ee20667c6f8e4364647221d6/wordpress-org/plugin-developer-faq/index.md https://github.com/WordPress/developer-plugins-handbook/blob... (permalink at the time of writing this) doesn't have this section. So it really looks someone manually edited the page on wordpress.org without editing the source. Now, who has such permissions and has the motive to do this?
- mthoms 2y agoGood catches. Also note that "ACF" is trademarked by WPEngine and is used throughout the source code and reviews.
- geerlingguy 2y agoI feel so bad for all the Wordpress devs and shops right now. This is not the kind of community turmoil I'd want to deal with leading up to holidays/new years! It makes Drupal 8/Backdrop seem like a pleasant and wonderful experience, in comparison.
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- getcrunk 2y agoPosted this in the other thread: A lot of the comments seem to call out Matt (right or wrong). But that’s the easy thing to do. No one dares address the systemic issue of for profit corporations exploitatively (ab)using open source software. There is a social contract that people should contribute back, and while it’s largely unenforceable, as it should be, when it’s happening on a systemic level something has to be done. And we are all complicit if we don’t at least say that much and spare some good will towards the guy actively in that fight at least superficially *Following is a response to some replies on the other thread, that clarifies my points * Matt being a poor steward of gpl is by definition not a systemic issue … unless ur claim is that many people in positions like him do what he does which is in turn caused by invariant factors? The systemic issue is companies the world over not giving their fair share back in terms of contributing to foss. I might agree with most of your points, I’m just trying to get people to realize there’s the local issue of Matt/wp and then there’s this global issue of companies building businesses off foss and not giving back.
- mmsnowsniff 2y agoI don't know how much goodwill we owe somebody currently being sued for extortion and who lied to a community about ownership of a trademark for over a decade in an attempt to take a whole community hostage when he feels like it's time to cash in. The writing was on the wall when he sold user intellectual property from WordPress.com and Tumblr to OpenAi. Was that fighting for open source?
- geerlingguy 2y agoA number of people have dealt with the maker/taker issue, for example Dries, the founder and BDFL of the Drupal project: https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem I think we're pretty far removed from the original issue of WP Engine and WordPress and people are just trying to deal with the fallout from Matt's nuke-the-entire-ecosystem approach he's elected to take.
- getcrunk 2y agoHey Jeff! :))))) That was a great article from drupal. It’s a great idea and really goes along way to help, but we still need more. This only addresses foss projects that are hosted as an offering. It wouldn’t address how for example the pgp guy basically went broke or just the general amount of pressure maintainers of “critical” foss packages are under and are spread so thin, that it’s always a triage fire and there’s never any room to “level up” with rewrites or full code base audits. And a lot of it comes at a huge personal cost but it just so happens the people often times in those shoes end up being super noble. Maybe this is a cynical take but year after year it really does seem the software we rely on for modern life is just a house of cards where most cards are solo devs or a handful each doing the task of atlas cus the worlds corporations just don’t give back! My words will ring true in 10-20 years when most of these people kick the bucket or retire and all we have left will be google’s next android| fuchsia and windows server.
- johnchristopher 2y agoSo, is the next step to capture wp-migrate (or another prominent WPEngine plugin) or to update the core to degrade ACF pro ?
- yard2010 2y agoThis is a human being, making a mistake, only to be bullied by literally the whole internet? Never have I ever witnessed a lynch with any positive consequence whats so ever in my entire life. Empathy all the way. We all make mistakes. Stay kind and positive.
- jeltz 2y agoActively running a harassment campaign against a competitor is not "making a mistake".
- everforward 2y agoI don’t think anyone wants to lynch him in the sense of harming him for the sake of it, or even retributive justice. People want him removed from Wordpress leadership to protect Wordpress. The harm to him is really orthogonal to the greater goal of not destroying the software that runs 40% of the internet or whatever, triggering man-centuries of pointless labor to replace it across all those installs. Given the options of letting Matt tear the ecosystem apart or letting the ecosystem tear Matt apart (figuratively, not literally), the ecosystem should win. It sucks for Matt, but wasting cumulative lifetimes of human effort to migrate all these installs is stupid and not worth saving one man’s ego over.
- throw16180339 2y agoMost of the world's 8+ billion people managed to go through the last months without shaking down a competitor, preventing users for receiving security updates, conducting a harassment campaign, or destroying an ecosystem because they feel like it. That's not just a mistake. He deserves contempt, firing, and a substantial fine at the very least.