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I haven’t followed this whole controversy closely but I don’t see a problem with this personally. It’s aggressive but this person spent most of their life build

I haven’t followed this whole controversy closely but I don’t see a problem with this personally. It’s aggressive but this person spent most of their life building Wordpress to what it is, giving it dedicated focus for a couple decades. Why should WPEngine or others get to suck up the money from that?

stonogo 2y ago
I didn't know someone who worked on a piece software for a long time was entitled to every dollar everywhere associated with it! I'll have to send some emails; I think I've got some money inbound. It's ironic he's so terrified of someone forking Wordpress, since Wordpress itself is a fork.
- mixdup 2y ago
  >I didn't know someone who worked on a piece software for a long time was entitled to every dollar everywhere associated with it! Parent comment OP must work for developer relations at Apple
slyall 2y ago
Suck up money from an open source project? Others making money from an open source project is kinda the point of open source. Also the people whose accounts are being deactivated have by definition contributed to the project in the past. It's not just one guy who created it all. This is a wordpress fork that will cost people to run and assuming WPEngine is supporting it it'll cost them money to support.
- echoangle 2y ago
  > Others making money from an open source project is kinda the point of open source. It’s always interesting when people become personally offended when someone dares to make money off of the project they personally open sourced before. Why would you license your stuff with a license that explicitly allows that if you’re salty about the consequences later? Maybe chose a license you actually stand behind and can live with.
  - satvikpendem 2y ago
    But how else will you be able to use other people's contributions for free and market yourself as open source otherwise?? That's really the crux of this OSS pushback, people want all the benefits of being open source, like free labor and marketing, without wanting the ostensible cons.
prmoustache 2y ago
> Why should WPEngine or others get to suck up the money from that? Because that person chose a license that allows that for a start?
- andrewmcwatters 2y ago
  Wordpress itself is a fork.
  - boredtofears 2y ago
    I didn’t know that. What did it fork from?
    - amiga386 2y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#History > b2/cafelog, more commonly known as b2 or catalog, was the precursor to WordPress
threatofrain 2y ago
There's a good argument to be made that entities like WPE actually make WP more popular and viable as a solution. WPE is no more "sucking" things up than any other business which relies on open source software. Open source software is about a specific kind of spirit, a way of relating to the community, and if you don't have that spirit then you shouldn't get the corresponding benefits of viral spread, contributions, increased credibility, or community goodwill.
saaaaaam 2y ago
Mullenweg is a cuckoo. He did not create Wordpress and yet has managed to closely associate the product with his own persona and ever since has spent most of his life wringing money out of Wordpress. He is now annoyed that someone else has been better at extracting profit from something that - going by what he says - he sees as his personal fiefdom. I really dislike WP Engine because they ruined Flywheel, one of the best companies I’ve ever dealt with (and to which I paid tens of thousands of dollars over my lifetime as a customer of Flywheel). But Mullenweg is coming off as completely unhinged.
- that_guy_iain 2y ago
  > Mullenweg is a cuckoo. He did not create Wordpress and yet has managed to closely associate the product with his own persona and ever since has spent most of his life wringing money out of Wordpress. The dude literally one of the top-ever contributors to WordPress. He's number 6 on the GitHub contributor graph with over 1000 commits. Him and Mark Little started WordPress. He's also the person who has funded most of the development either via his own private company or via Automattic. > He is now annoyed that someone else has been better at extracting profit from something that - going by what he says - he sees as his personal fiefdom. Another falsehood. Automattic makes more money than WP Engine. He's basically trying to force them to either contribute to WordPress to to pay Automattic. This latest move seems like a move to force WP Engine to fund a fork or help fund development of WordPress.
  - throw646577 2y ago
    Whatever the latest move is, it's clearly a dick move. He is in a bad place, if he wins anything it is going to be a pyrrhic victory, and he needs to stop. If he really does still have Neal Katyal working on whatever the merits of his actual case are, I am gobsmacked that he is being allowed to behave this way. Katyal is not an idiot or a troll, and this picture does not make sense to me. Some of his bullshit has already been smacked down by the court: I don't get why he is still doing this. Matt: stop.
    - saaaaaam 2y ago
adamtaylor_13 2y ago
If you haven’t read the details, you should probably educate yourself before making a statement like this. Matt’s behavior has been borderline sociopathic, and it’s actively harming people, to say nothing of the Wordpress brand itself. Mullenweg needs to step away from WP and spend a few months in therapy.
jazzyjackson 2y ago
Because of the GNU Public License he slapped on there. Matt was free to change the licensing model at any time in Wordpress’s history, so it’s really quite befuddling when people like these contributors encounter a bait and switch, that apparently forking a GPL’d project is against some terms of service. EDIT: was Wordpress GPL’d all along because it’s a fork of b2/cafelog?
- throw646577 2y ago
  IIRC yes.
jrhey 2y ago
This just in, the creator of UNIX wants to deactivate your MacBook. Just yours. Sorry, hope you understand.
- dylan604 2y ago
  Was UNIX open source?
  - graemep 2y ago
    No, but XNU (Apple's OS kenel) is based BSD which is open source. In fact XNU itself is open source even though its BSD licenced so does not have to be. https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu There even seems to be an open source variant of the OS https://www.puredarwin.org/ https://www.puredarwin.org/
    - dylan604 2y ago
      And that has to do with the price of tea in China how?
      - graemep 2y ago
        You asked whether Unix was open source in the context of a macbook. The Unix derivative used on a Macbook is, indeed, open source.
        dylan604 2y ago
        No, I asked if Unix was open source. The macOS kernel is a BSD derivative. BSD != Unix. If the comment was to hold true, they should have said BSD wants your MacBook.
        graemep 2y ago
        > The macOS kernel is a BSD derivative. BSD != Unix. BSD is derived from Unix source, so it is Unix. Most BSDs cannot be distributed using the Unix name because of lack of trademark permission. However, MacOS is an officially certified Unix: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/
jcranmer 2y ago
The original actions may have been motivated by a sincere desire to get a freeloading entity to contribute more to the project (although later events make me doubt that sincerity). But that is the cost of open source: all open source licenses let freeloaders use your products without contributing back; if you don't like that, you should have written your own license instead. What Matt has done, though, is far worse. In his legal filings, he has effectively asserted sole proprietorship of the entire WordPress ecosystem, access to which is gated solely on his whim. Furthermore, he has also argued that previous steps to create a non-profit foundation that is independent of any dictatorial powers were void from the start, and that anyone who thought such actions genuine are laughable idiots. His actions are anathema for an open source project, and even for a corporate product, quite life-threatening.

stonogo 2y ago

I didn't know someone who worked on a piece software for a long time was entitled to every dollar everywhere associated with it! I'll have to send some emails; I think I've got some money inbound. It's ironic he's so terrified of someone forking Wordpress, since Wordpress itself is a fork.

mixdup 2y ago
>I didn't know someone who worked on a piece software for a long time was entitled to every dollar everywhere associated with it! Parent comment OP must work for developer relations at Apple

slyall 2y ago

Suck up money from an open source project? Others making money from an open source project is kinda the point of open source. Also the people whose accounts are being deactivated have by definition contributed to the project in the past. It's not just one guy who created it all. This is a wordpress fork that will cost people to run and assuming WPEngine is supporting it it'll cost them money to support.

echoangle 2y ago
> Others making money from an open source project is kinda the point of open source. It’s always interesting when people become personally offended when someone dares to make money off of the project they personally open sourced before. Why would you license your stuff with a license that explicitly allows that if you’re salty about the consequences later? Maybe chose a license you actually stand behind and can live with.
- satvikpendem 2y ago
  But how else will you be able to use other people's contributions for free and market yourself as open source otherwise?? That's really the crux of this OSS pushback, people want all the benefits of being open source, like free labor and marketing, without wanting the ostensible cons.

prmoustache 2y ago

> Why should WPEngine or others get to suck up the money from that? Because that person chose a license that allows that for a start?

andrewmcwatters 2y ago
Wordpress itself is a fork.
- boredtofears 2y ago
  I didn’t know that. What did it fork from?
  - amiga386 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordPress#History > b2/cafelog, more commonly known as b2 or catalog, was the precursor to WordPress

threatofrain 2y ago

There's a good argument to be made that entities like WPE actually make WP more popular and viable as a solution. WPE is no more "sucking" things up than any other business which relies on open source software. Open source software is about a specific kind of spirit, a way of relating to the community, and if you don't have that spirit then you shouldn't get the corresponding benefits of viral spread, contributions, increased credibility, or community goodwill.

saaaaaam 2y ago

Mullenweg is a cuckoo. He did not create Wordpress and yet has managed to closely associate the product with his own persona and ever since has spent most of his life wringing money out of Wordpress. He is now annoyed that someone else has been better at extracting profit from something that - going by what he says - he sees as his personal fiefdom. I really dislike WP Engine because they ruined Flywheel, one of the best companies I’ve ever dealt with (and to which I paid tens of thousands of dollars over my lifetime as a customer of Flywheel). But Mullenweg is coming off as completely unhinged.

that_guy_iain 2y ago
> Mullenweg is a cuckoo. He did not create Wordpress and yet has managed to closely associate the product with his own persona and ever since has spent most of his life wringing money out of Wordpress. The dude literally one of the top-ever contributors to WordPress. He's number 6 on the GitHub contributor graph with over 1000 commits. Him and Mark Little started WordPress. He's also the person who has funded most of the development either via his own private company or via Automattic. > He is now annoyed that someone else has been better at extracting profit from something that - going by what he says - he sees as his personal fiefdom. Another falsehood. Automattic makes more money than WP Engine. He's basically trying to force them to either contribute to WordPress to to pay Automattic. This latest move seems like a move to force WP Engine to fund a fork or help fund development of WordPress.
- throw646577 2y ago
  Whatever the latest move is, it's clearly a dick move. He is in a bad place, if he wins anything it is going to be a pyrrhic victory, and he needs to stop. If he really does still have Neal Katyal working on whatever the merits of his actual case are, I am gobsmacked that he is being allowed to behave this way. Katyal is not an idiot or a troll, and this picture does not make sense to me. Some of his bullshit has already been smacked down by the court: I don't get why he is still doing this. Matt: stop.
  - saaaaaam 2y ago

adamtaylor_13 2y ago

If you haven’t read the details, you should probably educate yourself before making a statement like this. Matt’s behavior has been borderline sociopathic, and it’s actively harming people, to say nothing of the Wordpress brand itself. Mullenweg needs to step away from WP and spend a few months in therapy.

jazzyjackson 2y ago

Because of the GNU Public License he slapped on there. Matt was free to change the licensing model at any time in Wordpress’s history, so it’s really quite befuddling when people like these contributors encounter a bait and switch, that apparently forking a GPL’d project is against some terms of service. EDIT: was Wordpress GPL’d all along because it’s a fork of b2/cafelog?

throw646577 2y ago
IIRC yes.

jrhey 2y ago

This just in, the creator of UNIX wants to deactivate your MacBook. Just yours. Sorry, hope you understand.

dylan604 2y ago
Was UNIX open source?
- graemep 2y ago
  No, but XNU (Apple's OS kenel) is based BSD which is open source. In fact XNU itself is open source even though its BSD licenced so does not have to be. https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu https://github.com/apple-oss-distributions/xnu There even seems to be an open source variant of the OS https://www.puredarwin.org/ https://www.puredarwin.org/
  - dylan604 2y ago
    And that has to do with the price of tea in China how?
    - graemep 2y ago
      You asked whether Unix was open source in the context of a macbook. The Unix derivative used on a Macbook is, indeed, open source.
      - dylan604 2y ago
        No, I asked if Unix was open source. The macOS kernel is a BSD derivative. BSD != Unix. If the comment was to hold true, they should have said BSD wants your MacBook.
        graemep 2y ago
        > The macOS kernel is a BSD derivative. BSD != Unix. BSD is derived from Unix source, so it is Unix. Most BSDs cannot be distributed using the Unix name because of lack of trademark permission. However, MacOS is an officially certified Unix: https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/ https://www.opengroup.org/openbrand/register/

jcranmer 2y ago

The original actions may have been motivated by a sincere desire to get a freeloading entity to contribute more to the project (although later events make me doubt that sincerity). But that is the cost of open source: all open source licenses let freeloaders use your products without contributing back; if you don't like that, you should have written your own license instead. What Matt has done, though, is far worse. In his legal filings, he has effectively asserted sole proprietorship of the entire WordPress ecosystem, access to which is gated solely on his whim. Furthermore, he has also argued that previous steps to create a non-profit foundation that is independent of any dictatorial powers were void from the start, and that anyone who thought such actions genuine are laughable idiots. His actions are anathema for an open source project, and even for a corporate product, quite life-threatening.