10 ms·

It gets so much worse. Today, my sales guy was trying to register for WordCamp, a conference that we have been attending for years as an essential place to meet

by ttul 2y ago

It gets so much worse. Today, my sales guy was trying to register for WordCamp, a conference that we have been attending for years as an essential place to meet customers. And then he encountered the registration form for a WordPress.org login, which neatly specifies that you affirm you have no “affiliation with WP Engine, whether financial or otherwise.” [1] Of course, my company does have an affiliation with WP Engine. We use their service to host our website. Therefore, nobody on my team can register for a WordPress.org account. I wrote an open letter to Matt Mullenweg complaining about the requirement and stating that I believe it violates the Sherman Act and Section 3 of the Clayton Act by being an overly broad prohibition that is clearly anti-competitive and has no clear business justification (aside from limiting competition). Matt and the rest of the people backing Automattic should take note: Moves like this that destroy your community will eventually usher in a replacement. WordPress is pretty neat, but it only got that way because thousands of people put millions of hours into building add-ons and hosting services to make it blossom into what it is today. If their efforts are redirected in another direction, WordPress will wither away to nothing in a few years. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ksimpson_open-letter-to-matt-mullenweg-ceo-of-automattic-activity-7256742485203263488-2Jly?utm_source=combined_share_message&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_campaign=copy_link https://www.linkedin.com/posts/ksimpson_open-letter-to-matt-...

diggan 2y ago
> Of course, my company does have an affiliation with WP Engine. We use their service to host our website Does no one understand what "affiliation" means anymore? Just because I bought something from Amazon doesn't mean I'm now affiliated with Amazon. "Affiliation" (usually) means something like a formal association, partnership, or close connection, not that you're just a customer. Besides that, dump Wordpress regardless, clearly they've lost focus from the actual users and Matt seems to be fighting some war others can't even see the reason for.
- netsharc 2y ago
  Isn't that what lawyers end up doing, arguing which definition of the word applies? And since (as far as I can surmise) elonmusk.php hasn't clarified what that word means in his checkbox, won't it be safer to be cautious?
  - dylan604 2y ago
    This brings back the horrid memories of what the definition of is is type of sentences
    - netsharc 2y ago
      How about an argument for millions of dollars due to a missing punctuation mark: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-comma-just-changed-course-court-case-180962551/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-com...
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  > "Matt seems to be fighting some war others can't even see the reason for." We see the reason. That reason is money. The lies / gaslighting aren't for OSS, etc. It's about MM's bottom line.
- aksss 2y ago
  This is why any decent contract or agreement has a definitions section. Ambiguity in legal docs should always be minimized.
  - Terretta 2y ago
    On the contrary, it's why contracts use boilerplate. Boilerplate words have all been litigated. Boilerplate clauses are well understood. Affiliate, affiliated, affiliation, words like these are boilerplate, unless you go to the trouble of locally redefining.
    - aksss 2y ago
      Embrace the magic of “and”. Boilerplate is good but definitions are best, even with boilerplate words that have boilerplate definitions. Incorporating those definitions into the document at the time of execution benefits all parties. Again: minimize ambiguity, anticipate what will make dispute resolution easier. Source: have worked through a lot of contracts, license agreements, labor agreements, and disputes over the same.
- loeber 2y ago
  A lawyer would beg to differ.
  - bell-cot 2y ago
    But only after you'd committed to paying his standard hourly rate for begging-to-differ services.
- simlevesque 2y ago
  When Matt was asked to clarify what he means by "affiliation", he said: "ask your lawyer" and "I can't answer that for you"
  - OtomotO 2y ago
    If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      Agreed, and I think this isn't really about whether he personally knows legal jargon, but about whether he had a clear idea WTF he wanted before making brash demands and threats. (Or, much less charitably, the intentional use of vague language in bad faith.)
      - Roscius 2y ago
        contra proferentem - a rule in contract law that states any ambiguity in a contract should be interpreted against the party that drafted it
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask No? If my employer asks me to clarify my employment agreement, I don't have an obligation to be their armchair counsel.
      - Terr_ 2y ago
        That analogy is backwards: You'd be the one asking your employer to clarify the terms they chose and wrote themselves which they are trying to press upon you. It's totally reasonable to ask the party introducing "shall not associate with" into a contract exactly WTF "associating" is supposed to cover.
        JumpCrisscross 2y ago
- dustywusty 2y ago
  The language is intentionally vague, and leaves the determination on the person who has to check the box. I have a competing product and shouldn't get too far in the weeds on what I truly think here, but the predominant feeling across people that have to interact with this is that it's done on purpose. It's not so much that people don't understand what the word "affiliation" means, it's that you'd have to be completely certain that a lawyer, hired from what is clearly a litigious org, would have the same understanding.
  - dylan604 2y ago
    This isn't a legal document from the federal government. There's no perjury risk. Just click the box and get what you need. What, is Matt paying for deep background checks on everyone that does check that box? It's one of the most ridiculous checkboxes on the interwebs
    - llamaimperative 2y ago
      Nobody said perjury. Violating contracts is actually illegal though, FYI.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        maybe it's just me that always has that "under penalty of perjury" sarcastically running in my inner voice whenever I see these types of ridiculous EULA type of things. Somebody should really force the issue to "have standing" to fight the ridiculousness. I'm shocked WP Engine hasn't already
        llamaimperative 2y ago
        Companies are absolutely allowed to arbitrarily ban certain people or groups of people from using their services, and if you sign a contract attesting to you being allowed to use the service, you can absolutely be found guilty and/or liable of breach of contract.
      - 2y ago
- yifanl 2y ago
  I know what the words means to me, I don't know what it means to Matt, and his opinion seems to be the relevant one.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > "Affiliation" (usually) means something like a formal association, partnership, or close connection, not that you're just a customer In securities, yes. In general use, not necessarily.
  - brailsafe 2y ago
    "Not necessarily" can apply to almost any use of language, but I feel like this kind of thing can commonly be interpreted as non-affiliated. In an analogous case, if you work for an organization that performs public elections, at least in my country, you can't be affiliated with a party, but your personal business (voting for them) isn't included. Being publicly connected with or being compensated by another entity would seem to me to present an arguable affiliation
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Being publicly connected with or being compensated by another entity would seem to me to present an arguable affiliation It looks like it's a legitimate legal issue [1][2]. TL; DR It may make sense to explicitly clarify when you're using the term 'affiliate' as it is defined in 17 CFR § 230.601 / Rule 144 [3] versus "affiliate, including but not limited to []," or whatever. [1] https://www.sackrosendin.com/blog/2017/03/landlord-loses-over-definition-of-affiliates/ https://www.sackrosendin.com/blog/2017/03/landlord-loses-ove... [2] https://casetext.com/case/iqbal-v-ziadeh-2 https://casetext.com/case/iqbal-v-ziadeh-2 [3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=e78e8fda5d9bc78ce2bb85600b83350c&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:17:Chapter:II:Part:230:230.144 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&...
- bawolff 2y ago
  Regardless, its kind of like asking someone to declare they aren't a communist or other bullshit political tests. I would refuse out of principle.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  The language is, as described, intentionally vague and people with varying degrees of “affiliation” have been hit by the consequences. Matt also refuses to provide any elaboration on intent and instead says “you should talk to a lawyer”. This has the chilling effect he is looking for. No-one is “talking to a lawyer” to create or use a Wordpress.org account. Anyone who has sniffed the same air as WPE knows the intent.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- velcrovan 2y ago
  If you buy something from Amazon you've made a one-time exchange. If you use WP Engine, you have an ongoing agreement with them to provide and support a service on which your business depends. A reasonable and literate person could construe that to be an affiliation.
- gamblor956 2y ago
  The problem is that Matt/WordPress is not using the standard definition of affiliation. On social media, Matt suggested that being a customer or service provider to WP Engine was an "affiliation" for purposes of that checkbox.
- n3storm 2y ago
  What if I being a customer "help" this company translating a part of the software? I am more than a customer then? should or shouldn't suggest features? how charm may I interact with support so I can still be a customer and not something more? Can I wear T-shirts of this company?
- jchw 2y ago
  > Does no one understand what "affiliation" means anymore? I have neither a WordPress.com account (I mean, that I know of, anyway) nor an affiliation with WP Engine. However, can we back up for a minute? If a website is asking me to make an assertion that may have legal consequences, it should absolutely be spelling out the intention and meaning of the language it uses. If you ask me what "affiliation" means, I'll give you my best answer as to what I understand it means. If you ask me to sign a document that says I do or do not have affiliation with some entity, I will tell you to clarify what an affiliation is and refuse to sign without it.
Kwpolska 2y ago
Does merely hosting a website on WP Engine constitute an affiliation? I wouldn’t consider myself affiliated with Apple, Microsoft, or Volkswagen, just because I use their products and services.
- morgancollett 2y ago
  I would say, no. Matt Mullenweg says, ask your lawyer. If only he'd said no as well - not doing so seems petty.
- tejtm 2y ago
  Remember all those chapters of legal mumbo jumbo you had to click-thru just get on with your day? You may not consider yourself an affiliate but if the lawyers decide you are a teapot then you are either a teapot or were very rich.
- badrequest 2y ago
  The author (and myself, coincidentally) used to work at WP Engine. I still have friends there, I could still describe their infrastructure if I had to. How am I not to interpret myself as "affiliated?"
Fidelix 2y ago
What a silly notion. You're not affiliated to a company merely because you are their customer.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- kstrauser 2y ago
  You believe that. I believe that. I'm sure my lawyer believes that. I'm sure Matt's does, too. I'd prefer not to have to convince a judge or jury to see it our way. If I were in the author's shoes, I don't know if I'd expose my company to that much of a legal risk with someone who's been acting "interestingly" recently. I'm not involved in any of this except as a spectator. I don't even use Wordpress. Just saying, I could see why someone might not want to split legal hairs with their leadership right now, even where it's very likely you'd win such an argument in court.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > I'm sure Matt's does, too I wouldn't be so sure. He seems to have gone off the deep end. I know folks, including some successful ones, who legitimately believe that anything that commercially hurts them is illegal, and when a judge sides against them, it's due to bias and not the law. (I don't know if this type of auto-victimisation has a name. You see it parodied by South Park in "The Worldwide Privacy Tour." And, less hilariously, by public figures complaining about their free speech on talk shows and at press conferences they called.)
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      All I know about the recent Matt and WordPress kerfuffle is what I've read here on HN. Based solely on what I've seen of his own comments here on these stories, I think you're right. What I meant in that sentence was "Matt's lawyers do, too", even if Matt might not think so. One time a friend of mine was showing me a bunch of fancy camera gear he'd bought for his wife's ghost hunting business. I pulled him aside and asked him if he really believe in the spirits and apparitions she talked about. He replied, "oh, for tax purposes I completely believe this bullshit." By analogy, even if Matt's lawyers privately agreed that a lawsuit over the meaning of "affiliation" is silly and doomed to lose, I can imagine them replying "oh, for billable hours I completely believe it."
Molitor5901 2y ago
The fact he is using Wordpress.org would seem to be a clear violation of its 501(c)(3) IRS status. If someone has not filed a complaint by now with the IRS perhaps they should. The C3 must be very careful in sharing staff with the for profit entity, and it must be very careful in how they interact.
- robjwells 2y ago
  One of the revelations over the course of this saga was that WordPress.org != WordPress Foundation. It's under the personal control of Matt Mullenweg.
- phonon 2y ago
  Wordpress.org is not part of the 501(c)(3). They tried, but the IRS turned them down. It's Matt's personal toy (staffed by people from Automattic), as far as anyone knows.
  - throwup238 2y ago
    Which is another signal that Matt isn’t serious about the Wordpress Foundation. The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the foundation to run Wordpress.org since it’s an unrelated business activity. It’s a well trodden path used by tons of nonprofits like the Smithsonian, Mozilla, OpenAI, etc. when they need to operate something that the IRS won’t grant tax exemption.
    - phonon 2y ago
      Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss...not clear how that could work exactly...
      - throwup238 2y ago
        The Foundation gives its subsidiary money, just like any other parent company can. Whether or not Wordpress.org makes money is irrelevant to its for/non profit status. It’s a legal technicality due to IRS tax exemption rules for unrelated business activities. They have to put those operations into a separate subsidiary, even if it never makes any profit. If the nonprofit can’t afford to run Wordpress.org then the whole nonprofit was a farce anyway.
chiefalchemist 2y ago
I keep repeating this on X: He needs us. We don't need him. Unfortunately, anecdotally, there's a lot of group thinking in WordPress. It's one of the reasons "The WordPress way" is able to run counter to industry best practices. Most people don't know any better, and the handful who do don't speak up. It's a textbook case of toxic kindness. Given the collective actions / behaviors / culture, I've been saying this for close to 10 years: It's not a community. It's a cult.
- lioeters 2y ago
  The other day I was thinking how communities around a programming language or software framework sometimes become toxic subcultures, where its members dogfood the product too much to the point where they can't think outside the box. I guess corporations take advantage of this mechanism of brainwash feedback loop to foster loyal employees who believe in the mission, who can speak the lingo and think in the given conceptual framework, no matter how arbitrary or wrong. It also leads to "big fish in a small pond" syndrome, where people in the inner circle start to think highly of themselves, to look down on the "newbies" and users. They value thier expertise in this niche without realizing its relative poverty and low quality in the larger context. It's a mix of arrogance and ignorance that insulates their ego. I hope the collective disillusionment that WordPress is going through will be healthy for ecosystem in the long run. Let a hundred forks and alternatives bloom!
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    That middle paragraph describes exactly my experiences with WordPress and that community. It's mediocrity and blindspots run wild.
- nchmy 2y ago
  oh, indeed. The Wordpress community is overwhelmingly made up of half-wits
froh 2y ago
> Moves like this that destroy your community will eventually usher in a replacement. yes! bitkeeper tried licensing shenanigans and lost to git. smalltalk did licensing shenanigans and lost to Java. Qt almost died and motivated Gnome. In software, inacceptable licensing gives birth to your worst competitor. /s
- ValentineC 2y ago
  WordPress has a huge moat in terms of brand entrenchment. Most business people in companies know what "WordPress" is.
ankleturtle 2y ago
The part which did it in for me was learning that Matt personally owns Wordpress.org. It's not the Foundation. It's not Automattic. It's Matt, personally. Nope, that's a bus factor of one. I'm done.
itronitron 2y ago
If people stop using WordPress, then presumably that will negatively impact WP Engine, which might be the whole point.
1123581321 2y ago
That’s not what affiliation means. This checkbox is similar to T&C that “prevent” competitors from signing up. It’s more about having grounds to bring up WPEngine’s behavior in court if they check the box. It’s understandable you did not realize this, though, and perhaps that chilling effect was intended.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> I wrote an open letter to Matt Mullenweg complaining about the requirement and stating that I believe it violates the Sherman Act and Section 3 of the Clayton Act Send a copy to your state AG [1]. Copy your governor’s office [2] and state representatives if you have the time. [1] https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/ https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/ [2] https://www.usa.gov/state-governor https://www.usa.gov/state-governor
wmeredith 2y ago
"is pretty neat, but it only got that way because thousands of people put millions of hours into building add-ons and hosting services to make it blossom into what it is today." Insert Twitter, Reddit, Digg, MySpace, etc... at the beginning of that quote. The people who own the social networks rarely give a shit about the users once they hit critical mass. And the owners will eventually burn it down or enshitify it beyond recognition.
tony2016 2y ago
Just check No! What are they going to do? Check if you really do not have any kind of affiliation with WPEngine?

by ttul 2y ago

diggan 2y ago

> Of course, my company does have an affiliation with WP Engine. We use their service to host our website Does no one understand what "affiliation" means anymore? Just because I bought something from Amazon doesn't mean I'm now affiliated with Amazon. "Affiliation" (usually) means something like a formal association, partnership, or close connection, not that you're just a customer. Besides that, dump Wordpress regardless, clearly they've lost focus from the actual users and Matt seems to be fighting some war others can't even see the reason for.

netsharc 2y ago
Isn't that what lawyers end up doing, arguing which definition of the word applies? And since (as far as I can surmise) elonmusk.php hasn't clarified what that word means in his checkbox, won't it be safer to be cautious?
- dylan604 2y ago
  This brings back the horrid memories of what the definition of is is type of sentences
  - netsharc 2y ago
    How about an argument for millions of dollars due to a missing punctuation mark: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-comma-just-changed-course-court-case-180962551/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/missing-oxford-com...
chiefalchemist 2y ago
> "Matt seems to be fighting some war others can't even see the reason for." We see the reason. That reason is money. The lies / gaslighting aren't for OSS, etc. It's about MM's bottom line.
aksss 2y ago
This is why any decent contract or agreement has a definitions section. Ambiguity in legal docs should always be minimized.
- Terretta 2y ago
  On the contrary, it's why contracts use boilerplate. Boilerplate words have all been litigated. Boilerplate clauses are well understood. Affiliate, affiliated, affiliation, words like these are boilerplate, unless you go to the trouble of locally redefining.
  - aksss 2y ago
    Embrace the magic of “and”. Boilerplate is good but definitions are best, even with boilerplate words that have boilerplate definitions. Incorporating those definitions into the document at the time of execution benefits all parties. Again: minimize ambiguity, anticipate what will make dispute resolution easier. Source: have worked through a lot of contracts, license agreements, labor agreements, and disputes over the same.
loeber 2y ago
A lawyer would beg to differ.
- bell-cot 2y ago
  But only after you'd committed to paying his standard hourly rate for begging-to-differ services.
simlevesque 2y ago
When Matt was asked to clarify what he means by "affiliation", he said: "ask your lawyer" and "I can't answer that for you"
- OtomotO 2y ago
  If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask.
  - Terr_ 2y ago
    Agreed, and I think this isn't really about whether he personally knows legal jargon, but about whether he had a clear idea WTF he wanted before making brash demands and threats. (Or, much less charitably, the intentional use of vague language in bad faith.)
    - Roscius 2y ago
      contra proferentem - a rule in contract law that states any ambiguity in a contract should be interpreted against the party that drafted it
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > If he can't answer such a question, he shouldn't get to ask No? If my employer asks me to clarify my employment agreement, I don't have an obligation to be their armchair counsel.
    - Terr_ 2y ago
      That analogy is backwards: You'd be the one asking your employer to clarify the terms they chose and wrote themselves which they are trying to press upon you. It's totally reasonable to ask the party introducing "shall not associate with" into a contract exactly WTF "associating" is supposed to cover.
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
dustywusty 2y ago
The language is intentionally vague, and leaves the determination on the person who has to check the box. I have a competing product and shouldn't get too far in the weeds on what I truly think here, but the predominant feeling across people that have to interact with this is that it's done on purpose. It's not so much that people don't understand what the word "affiliation" means, it's that you'd have to be completely certain that a lawyer, hired from what is clearly a litigious org, would have the same understanding.
- dylan604 2y ago
  This isn't a legal document from the federal government. There's no perjury risk. Just click the box and get what you need. What, is Matt paying for deep background checks on everyone that does check that box? It's one of the most ridiculous checkboxes on the interwebs
  - llamaimperative 2y ago
    Nobody said perjury. Violating contracts is actually illegal though, FYI.
    - dylan604 2y ago
      maybe it's just me that always has that "under penalty of perjury" sarcastically running in my inner voice whenever I see these types of ridiculous EULA type of things. Somebody should really force the issue to "have standing" to fight the ridiculousness. I'm shocked WP Engine hasn't already
      - llamaimperative 2y ago
        Companies are absolutely allowed to arbitrarily ban certain people or groups of people from using their services, and if you sign a contract attesting to you being allowed to use the service, you can absolutely be found guilty and/or liable of breach of contract.
    - 2y ago
yifanl 2y ago
I know what the words means to me, I don't know what it means to Matt, and his opinion seems to be the relevant one.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> "Affiliation" (usually) means something like a formal association, partnership, or close connection, not that you're just a customer In securities, yes. In general use, not necessarily.
- brailsafe 2y ago
  "Not necessarily" can apply to almost any use of language, but I feel like this kind of thing can commonly be interpreted as non-affiliated. In an analogous case, if you work for an organization that performs public elections, at least in my country, you can't be affiliated with a party, but your personal business (voting for them) isn't included. Being publicly connected with or being compensated by another entity would seem to me to present an arguable affiliation
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > Being publicly connected with or being compensated by another entity would seem to me to present an arguable affiliation It looks like it's a legitimate legal issue [1][2]. TL; DR It may make sense to explicitly clarify when you're using the term 'affiliate' as it is defined in 17 CFR § 230.601 / Rule 144 [3] versus "affiliate, including but not limited to []," or whatever. [1] https://www.sackrosendin.com/blog/2017/03/landlord-loses-over-definition-of-affiliates/ https://www.sackrosendin.com/blog/2017/03/landlord-loses-ove... [2] https://casetext.com/case/iqbal-v-ziadeh-2 https://casetext.com/case/iqbal-v-ziadeh-2 [3] https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&height=800&iframe=true&def_id=e78e8fda5d9bc78ce2bb85600b83350c&term_occur=999&term_src=Title:17:Chapter:II:Part:230:230.144 https://www.law.cornell.edu/definitions/index.php?width=840&...
bawolff 2y ago
Regardless, its kind of like asking someone to declare they aren't a communist or other bullshit political tests. I would refuse out of principle.
FireBeyond 2y ago
The language is, as described, intentionally vague and people with varying degrees of “affiliation” have been hit by the consequences. Matt also refuses to provide any elaboration on intent and instead says “you should talk to a lawyer”. This has the chilling effect he is looking for. No-one is “talking to a lawyer” to create or use a Wordpress.org account. Anyone who has sniffed the same air as WPE knows the intent.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
velcrovan 2y ago
If you buy something from Amazon you've made a one-time exchange. If you use WP Engine, you have an ongoing agreement with them to provide and support a service on which your business depends. A reasonable and literate person could construe that to be an affiliation.
gamblor956 2y ago
The problem is that Matt/WordPress is not using the standard definition of affiliation. On social media, Matt suggested that being a customer or service provider to WP Engine was an "affiliation" for purposes of that checkbox.
n3storm 2y ago
What if I being a customer "help" this company translating a part of the software? I am more than a customer then? should or shouldn't suggest features? how charm may I interact with support so I can still be a customer and not something more? Can I wear T-shirts of this company?
jchw 2y ago
> Does no one understand what "affiliation" means anymore? I have neither a WordPress.com account (I mean, that I know of, anyway) nor an affiliation with WP Engine. However, can we back up for a minute? If a website is asking me to make an assertion that may have legal consequences, it should absolutely be spelling out the intention and meaning of the language it uses. If you ask me what "affiliation" means, I'll give you my best answer as to what I understand it means. If you ask me to sign a document that says I do or do not have affiliation with some entity, I will tell you to clarify what an affiliation is and refuse to sign without it.

Kwpolska 2y ago

Does merely hosting a website on WP Engine constitute an affiliation? I wouldn’t consider myself affiliated with Apple, Microsoft, or Volkswagen, just because I use their products and services.

morgancollett 2y ago
I would say, no. Matt Mullenweg says, ask your lawyer. If only he'd said no as well - not doing so seems petty.
tejtm 2y ago
Remember all those chapters of legal mumbo jumbo you had to click-thru just get on with your day? You may not consider yourself an affiliate but if the lawyers decide you are a teapot then you are either a teapot or were very rich.
badrequest 2y ago
The author (and myself, coincidentally) used to work at WP Engine. I still have friends there, I could still describe their infrastructure if I had to. How am I not to interpret myself as "affiliated?"

Fidelix 2y ago

What a silly notion. You're not affiliated to a company merely because you are their customer.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
kstrauser 2y ago
You believe that. I believe that. I'm sure my lawyer believes that. I'm sure Matt's does, too. I'd prefer not to have to convince a judge or jury to see it our way. If I were in the author's shoes, I don't know if I'd expose my company to that much of a legal risk with someone who's been acting "interestingly" recently. I'm not involved in any of this except as a spectator. I don't even use Wordpress. Just saying, I could see why someone might not want to split legal hairs with their leadership right now, even where it's very likely you'd win such an argument in court.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > I'm sure Matt's does, too I wouldn't be so sure. He seems to have gone off the deep end. I know folks, including some successful ones, who legitimately believe that anything that commercially hurts them is illegal, and when a judge sides against them, it's due to bias and not the law. (I don't know if this type of auto-victimisation has a name. You see it parodied by South Park in "The Worldwide Privacy Tour." And, less hilariously, by public figures complaining about their free speech on talk shows and at press conferences they called.)
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    All I know about the recent Matt and WordPress kerfuffle is what I've read here on HN. Based solely on what I've seen of his own comments here on these stories, I think you're right. What I meant in that sentence was "Matt's lawyers do, too", even if Matt might not think so. One time a friend of mine was showing me a bunch of fancy camera gear he'd bought for his wife's ghost hunting business. I pulled him aside and asked him if he really believe in the spirits and apparitions she talked about. He replied, "oh, for tax purposes I completely believe this bullshit." By analogy, even if Matt's lawyers privately agreed that a lawsuit over the meaning of "affiliation" is silly and doomed to lose, I can imagine them replying "oh, for billable hours I completely believe it."

Molitor5901 2y ago

The fact he is using Wordpress.org would seem to be a clear violation of its 501(c)(3) IRS status. If someone has not filed a complaint by now with the IRS perhaps they should. The C3 must be very careful in sharing staff with the for profit entity, and it must be very careful in how they interact.

robjwells 2y ago
One of the revelations over the course of this saga was that WordPress.org != WordPress Foundation. It's under the personal control of Matt Mullenweg.
phonon 2y ago
Wordpress.org is not part of the 501(c)(3). They tried, but the IRS turned them down. It's Matt's personal toy (staffed by people from Automattic), as far as anyone knows.
- throwup238 2y ago
  Which is another signal that Matt isn’t serious about the Wordpress Foundation. The correct move would have been to form a for profit subsidiary owned by the foundation to run Wordpress.org since it’s an unrelated business activity. It’s a well trodden path used by tons of nonprofits like the Smithsonian, Mozilla, OpenAI, etc. when they need to operate something that the IRS won’t grant tax exemption.
  - phonon 2y ago
    Well, wordpress.org runs at a large loss...not clear how that could work exactly...
    - throwup238 2y ago
      The Foundation gives its subsidiary money, just like any other parent company can. Whether or not Wordpress.org makes money is irrelevant to its for/non profit status. It’s a legal technicality due to IRS tax exemption rules for unrelated business activities. They have to put those operations into a separate subsidiary, even if it never makes any profit. If the nonprofit can’t afford to run Wordpress.org then the whole nonprofit was a farce anyway.

chiefalchemist 2y ago

I keep repeating this on X: He needs us. We don't need him. Unfortunately, anecdotally, there's a lot of group thinking in WordPress. It's one of the reasons "The WordPress way" is able to run counter to industry best practices. Most people don't know any better, and the handful who do don't speak up. It's a textbook case of toxic kindness. Given the collective actions / behaviors / culture, I've been saying this for close to 10 years: It's not a community. It's a cult.

lioeters 2y ago
The other day I was thinking how communities around a programming language or software framework sometimes become toxic subcultures, where its members dogfood the product too much to the point where they can't think outside the box. I guess corporations take advantage of this mechanism of brainwash feedback loop to foster loyal employees who believe in the mission, who can speak the lingo and think in the given conceptual framework, no matter how arbitrary or wrong. It also leads to "big fish in a small pond" syndrome, where people in the inner circle start to think highly of themselves, to look down on the "newbies" and users. They value thier expertise in this niche without realizing its relative poverty and low quality in the larger context. It's a mix of arrogance and ignorance that insulates their ego. I hope the collective disillusionment that WordPress is going through will be healthy for ecosystem in the long run. Let a hundred forks and alternatives bloom!
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  That middle paragraph describes exactly my experiences with WordPress and that community. It's mediocrity and blindspots run wild.
nchmy 2y ago
oh, indeed. The Wordpress community is overwhelmingly made up of half-wits

froh 2y ago

> Moves like this that destroy your community will eventually usher in a replacement. yes! bitkeeper tried licensing shenanigans and lost to git. smalltalk did licensing shenanigans and lost to Java. Qt almost died and motivated Gnome. In software, inacceptable licensing gives birth to your worst competitor. /s

ValentineC 2y ago
WordPress has a huge moat in terms of brand entrenchment. Most business people in companies know what "WordPress" is.

ankleturtle 2y ago

The part which did it in for me was learning that Matt personally owns Wordpress.org. It's not the Foundation. It's not Automattic. It's Matt, personally. Nope, that's a bus factor of one. I'm done.

itronitron 2y ago

If people stop using WordPress, then presumably that will negatively impact WP Engine, which might be the whole point.

1123581321 2y ago

That’s not what affiliation means. This checkbox is similar to T&C that “prevent” competitors from signing up. It’s more about having grounds to bring up WPEngine’s behavior in court if they check the box. It’s understandable you did not realize this, though, and perhaps that chilling effect was intended.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> I wrote an open letter to Matt Mullenweg complaining about the requirement and stating that I believe it violates the Sherman Act and Section 3 of the Clayton Act Send a copy to your state AG [1]. Copy your governor’s office [2] and state representatives if you have the time. [1] https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/ https://www.naag.org/find-my-ag/ [2] https://www.usa.gov/state-governor https://www.usa.gov/state-governor

wmeredith 2y ago

"is pretty neat, but it only got that way because thousands of people put millions of hours into building add-ons and hosting services to make it blossom into what it is today." Insert Twitter, Reddit, Digg, MySpace, etc... at the beginning of that quote. The people who own the social networks rarely give a shit about the users once they hit critical mass. And the owners will eventually burn it down or enshitify it beyond recognition.

tony2016 2y ago

Just check No! What are they going to do? Check if you really do not have any kind of affiliation with WPEngine?