12 ms·

Legal win

263 points by pentagrama 1y ago

gg-plz 1y ago
[dead]
meibo 1y ago
Maybe he might be winning in courts, but I will never depend on any WordPress.com service again. Don't play with your users and developers that have supported you for more than a decade this childishly. Your public image will not recover from this.
- kbarmettler 1y ago
  Don't worry, he's not winning in the courts as much as he seems to be trying to claim (I'm reading the legal doc, not his blog post, but going off of the context of his headline and the comments here). I wouldn't touch Wordpress.com, ever, although I still use wordpress the software and am happy to see movement in decentralizing the plugin and core repos.
- julienbourdeau 1y ago
  100% agree. I don't see how I could forget what happened.
chrisvenum 1y ago
I recently worked on a few client projects that used WP/Gutternberg. I was pleasenetly surprised by how good the dev/editing experience has been compared to when I tried using Gutternberg a few years ago, some amazing work has gone into it. Sadly I still have a lot of uneasiness around what has happened over the past year. For most greenfield projects we have been using Statamic CMS For those who still need word press, I recommend checking out the roots.io open source collective, they have done great work bringing modern PHP development practices into WP projects. Bedrock and Sage are a great starting point to any project.
stephenlf 1y ago
Matt’s behavior was atrocious. I’m with WP Engine on this, and I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic. I don’t pretend to know the law better than they do, but still.
- jkaplowitz 1y ago
  The court opinion doesn't mean what he is implying, although he isn't outright lying. See my explanation in this top-level comment I just made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
- kbarmettler 1y ago
  Agreed about Matt, completely. It should be remembered that although it's framed as a legal win, it's not THE legal win. I am not a lawyer, but I think the practice is generally to make as many arguments as the law will support up front– but not all of them were ever going to stick. And WP Engine can still remedy any deficiencies in their pleading to try to make them stick (I'll wait for legal minds to finish reading this and explain it to me, though).
- chuckadams 1y ago
  > I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic There are 11 claims in WPE's complaint, three were dismissed, and as I understand it, only one of them decisively. Matt wants to spin it as good news, good for him. He's still potentially getting taken to the cleaners if he doesn't settle.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
velcrovan 1y ago
Just ditched my last WordPress installation in July. Good for you Matt.
jkaplowitz 1y ago
Matt is in large part mischaracterizing, although not outright lying about, the court's ruling. If you follow the link he provided to the ruling itself, many of the dismissed claims were dismissed "with leave to amend" (basically WPEngine has to fix their allegations), and one was dismissed for the reason that it should instead be asserted "as an affirmative defense if appropriate later in this litigation." There were some claims dismissed in a way WPEngine can't fix, but not many, and others were upheld. I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion. In case Matt removes the link to the actual ruling from his post, and also simply for HN readers' convenience, here it is: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/169/wpengine-inc-v-automattic-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/169/wpengine-i...
- jalapenos 1y ago
  So basically "please sue him right"?
- 3np 1y ago
  Considering how obviously in the wrong he is, it might not be too off calling that a win for him.
- nofriend 1y ago
  Matt cites three claims that are dismissed (antitrust, monopolization, and extortion), which based on my skim are really two claims. The first, as you say, is dismissed with leave to amend. The second is dismissed without leave to amend. The first is given the opportunity to be amended, but the dismissal demonstrates serious flaws in the legal argument that they will have difficulty recovering from. I think it's fair for him to celebrate this as a win.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- gpm 1y ago
  Just the claims where dismissal was outright denied are also potentially (up to judge and jury at later stages) enough for some pretty devastating damages... I second that this was a loss for Matt. It wasn't even "a draw" where the plaintiffs have to try again with an amended complaint (not that they will necessarily not bother to amend). > I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion. Describes me as well.
bravetraveler 1y ago
http://archive.today/wfrKj http://archive.today/wfrKj Not for a paywall, of course: personal blog he hosts. Due to editing in the past. "Win" or, said another way, "The bullshit I started is seeing an end". Whatever works for you, buddy.
- kbarmettler 1y ago
  It ain't working for him, but it's all he's got.
  - bravetraveler 1y ago
    It ain't much and it's neither honest or work!
popalchemist 1y ago
This guy is unbearable.
- kbarmettler 1y ago
  As a wordpress dev, yeah. I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core. Off the top of my head, full screen editing by default, the stupid 'howdy' that crops up in several places, and the silent user content edit that he added to translate Wordpress into WordPress in the content of every single wp install (no, really, go try it. And then listen to the guy talk about how user content is sacred, lol.) And I say this as somebody who thinks that the block editor is... fine. I use it in a hybrid style, using ACF to create blocks that behave and perform natively but don't require directly using all the stupid build tool cruft.
  - simpaticoder 1y ago
    >I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core That's actually very cool. In most runtimes the "core" built-ins and standard libraries are immutable. You'd have to recompile them with your changes to get the same effect. Not so with PHP. A footgun, but in this case a useful one.
  - giveita 1y ago
    Why not share the diff so anyone can apply it :)
    - retlehs 1y ago
      WP offers a “no-content” packaged version https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.3.1-no-content.zip https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.3.1-no-c... There’s also a Composer package: https://github.com/roots/wordpress-no-content https://github.com/roots/wordpress-no-content
raincole 1y ago
The controversial topics around wordpress are surreal.
sgammon 1y ago
thats great matt. i still wont ever use wordpress because of your choices
mastazi 1y ago
Thanks to Matt's shenanigans I discovered ClassicPress a few months ago https://www.classicpress.net/ https://www.classicpress.net/ - I had such a good experience that I ended up migrating all of my self hosted blogs to it, as a form of insurance against further madness with the WP Foundation. Note that depending on what plugins or themes you are using, ClassicPress might not work as well for you. You can consider setting up a monthly donation to support development.
- frereubu 1y ago
  I run an agency that builds WordPress websites, and have been wondering about what to do about all of this. I'm concerned about the future of wordpress.org and have been looking around at alternatives. This seemed sort-of interesting initially but, without wishing to be uncharitable, this looks like a nostalgia project because the Gutenberg editor, while initially quite tricky to wrangle for developers due to breaking changes, has been a real step forward for content editors. It's mostly stable now, so the decision to remove it from this makes it a non-starter for me.
edm0nd 1y ago
[flagged]
- giveita 1y ago
  Outside of cryptocurrency yeah
- tomhow 1y ago
  You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter who or what it's about. Please take care to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
eclipticplane 1y ago
Matt had a golden goose and he decided it wasn't golden enough. I removed/converted my last Wordpress site (commercial and otherwise) last month.
- acomjean 1y ago
  I wonder sometimes what is going on over there. WordPress had a great community , nice people, seemingly successful open source with a business attached. Maybe it wasn't enough? I know talking to some of the shops that use it that their clients were asking about this turn of events. If you have an infrastructure, stability is a good selling point.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
- zipzapzip 1y ago
  Converted to what if you don't mind me asking?
- giveita 1y ago
  Im still using wp org, is that risky. I do like the platform.
iambateman 1y ago
Perhaps it’s a legal win but the PR disaster remains. As our company thinks about a new website vendor, WordPress is off the table because of the nonsense.
- sixothree 1y ago
  I can't imagine the professional reputational damage I'd incur if I were to recommended wordpress, or worse, wordpress.com after all of this.
  - cyberpunk 1y ago
    Genuinely, why? What kind of visions of reputational damage does having your marketing website on wordpress.com conjure up to you? How would anyone even know where it’s hosted? I get the guy pissed off some php devs but I’m sure as hell not hosting that shit myself, marketing team content can be their problem.
    - alphager 1y ago
      Matt cut off wpengine and could cut off any other commercial hoster tomorrow if he wished to do so. Why would you risk that?
larsiusprime 1y ago
Can someone provide some context for those of us who are utterly out of the loop?
- ValentineC 1y ago
  I remember this to be a pretty good recap of the whole fiasco: https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
- wonger_ 1y ago
  IIRC: guy made a CMS, built a successful company and organization and trademarks around it, decided last year that another company was using it unfairly, created lots of drama, lost his marbles One of his first posts on the topic: https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ A collection of crazy quotes and events, biased towards the other perspective: https://mullenweg.wtf/ https://mullenweg.wtf/ Edit: and HN commentary: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=false&query=Wordpress&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
chatmasta 1y ago
Oh man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone lose an internet drama, only to revive it a few months later when everyone had forgotten about it.
- yepitwas 1y ago
  If we’re lucky he’s still not paying attention to either expert advice or common sense, and will show up to post in this very thread.
  - photomatt 1y ago
    Howdy!
    - kstrauser 1y ago
      Dude! Don’t do this, for real! Scram and pretend you’ve never heard of HN if asked. No courtroom good can come of you commenting here.
    - qingcharles 1y ago
      https://giphy.com/explore/oh-boy-here-we-go https://giphy.com/explore/oh-boy-here-we-go
ookblah 1y ago
matt relies on the passage of time and the fact that nobody really cares too much about wordpress drama. it's best that people do not forget what type of person he actually is behind the public facade when he inevitably pulls this kind of shit again later. from literally back in 2011 when someone predicted exactly what would happen and got crucified for it: https://web.archive.org/web/20110117190122/http://wpblogger.com/matt-should-resign.php https://web.archive.org/web/20110117190122/http://wpblogger.... https://web.archive.org/web/20110117192124/http://wpblogger.com/mullenweg-the-coward.php https://web.archive.org/web/20110117192124/http://wpblogger.... one of his responses to DHH when the WPE thing went down: https://archive.md/UZZit https://archive.md/UZZit
- nchmy 1y ago
  you didnt even link to the right version of the DHH post! The original had this gem of a paragraph: > David, perhaps it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach why you keep having these great ideas but cannot scale them beyond a handful of niche customers. I will give full credit and respect. 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small? https://archive.md/4yLNR https://archive.md/4yLNR
- ksec 1y ago
  I wrote to DHH at the time hoping the Hey World part could be open sourced or ONCE as a blogging platform. But he wasn't interested in the idea.
  - tasuki 1y ago
    The guy already created immense value by his open source work. It's fine for him not to open source everything.
    - nchmy 1y ago
      And he continues to churn out popular open source projects - m9st recently related to moving off-cloud, using Linux etc... And ruby on rails continues to evolve immensely whereas WordPress is stuck in 2005
pessimizer 1y ago
[flagged]
- nchmy 1y ago
  you could just read the legal document, as others in this thread have, rather than rely on an "unreliable narrator"... Surely no sane person is on WPE's side. They're just vehemently against Matt, who has proven to be a complete psychopath
- blinding-streak 1y ago
  As someone who is not very familiar with this whole saga, it sounds like both sides lost their marbles? Which is the lesser of two evils?
  - nchmy 1y ago
    i dont recommend WPE to anyone, but they have done nothing wrong. If you care, you could learn plenty here https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
Sophistifunk 1y ago
[flagged]
viadm_co 1y ago
[flagged]
liviux 1y ago
The mad lad won his case, but lost his reputation.
- nchmy 1y ago
  he hasnt come even slightly close to winning his case
- ocdtrekkie 1y ago
  He didn't win. He won in the way Apple won over Epic. (Apple lost.) People seem not to understand that in a lawsuit like this the lawyers throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. WPEngine surely didn't expect all of this to fly... but some of it did.
chuckadams 1y ago
The effort at https://fair.pm https://fair.pm is well underway to cut out Matt and wordpress.org as a single point of failure and control in the community. It's a Linux Foundation project, being run by former WordPress community leaders (people who provided years of volunteer labor that directly benefited Automattic), and there's been interest from several large hosting providers, including some that are even larger than WPE. Matt is likely to find that by the time the trial actually starts, that he's already lost.
- ajb 1y ago
  Looks interesting, but I don't see any mention of a reputation system - what's their plan for warning people about packages that should not be installed, such as hacked, covert adware/spyware, etc?
  - pacifika 1y ago
    > Since each package has a fully unique ID, services can be "layered on top" to provide additional functionality. A moderation service can block users from installing known-dangerous packages, or highlight recommended packages - or even integrate with commercial services like vulnerability scanners.
  - chuckadams 1y ago
    Package advisories are seen as a content moderation issue: repositories and clients will be able to subscribe to one or more streams of digitally signed "labels" that can be interpreted by a policy mechanism that can render a verdict anywhere from "show this warning" to "do not install" to "remove immediately". The architecture is based on the system used by BlueSky: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture. It's also not implemented yet: the initial release of the FAIR package manager is aimed at the package distribution parts, both mirroring the themes/plugins on wordpress.org and using W3C DIDs on BlueSky's PLC server as an indirection in front of raw URLs for hand-curated packages not hosted on .org, such as the FAIR client and server plugins themselves. My own role in FAIR is a lot simpler, and it's maintaining AspireCloud, the project from AspirePress (now a working group of FAIR) that implements enough of api.wordpress.org to enable a searchable mirror of all its downloadable assets. AC is usable on its own without the FAIR ecosystem, but also makes up a good chunk of it while things are getting bootstrapped. So while I have a pretty good grasp of the planned architecture, I'm still not the best person to give the details. There's a public Slack server on https://chat.fair.pm https://chat.fair.pm which is still the best place to go for answers, and discussion boards on Github for less synchronous discussion (though the problem with GH is there's so many repos it's hard to find the right one).
photomatt 1y ago
Happy to answer any questions from HN folks, to the extent I can. I love this community and have been here since 2007.
- jalapenos 1y ago
  What in your opinion is the nature of your personality?
  - photomatt 1y ago
    I’d describe my personality as curious, open-minded, and calm under pressure — I like exploring ideas deeply and listening before I speak. But I do get worked up when fighting for open source principles.
    - jalapenos 1y ago
      So all positives, except one quasi negative (that's a positive). Are you familiar with what narcissism is?
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- minimaxir 1y ago
  Do you have a response to the top comment (among others) which assert that you are mischaracterizing the ruling? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
  - photomatt 1y ago
    My blog post is my genuine expression of happiness and joy at the ruling. The legal process is slow, and the court date is not until 2027! Reflecting on the strength of the WordPress community, we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. The case is still happening. I attended the settlement conference, but their CEO did not. There are still many things that need to be worked out through the legal system, and that will take time, but this was a nice moment.
systemswizard 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter who or what you're replying to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
toasted-subs 1y ago
[flagged]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
the_real_cher 1y ago
It's not clear to me that he's in the wrong. https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/
- tsimionescu 1y ago
  It's not clear to you that trying to use trademark law to prevent a company selling WordPress software from saying they offer WordPress software is "being in the wrong"?
  - the_real_cher 1y ago
    isn't that what trademark law is for?
    - pests 1y ago
      No.
    - tsimionescu 1y ago
      Trademark law exists to protect consumers from counterfeit goods. Basically, it exists to allow consumers to recognize the goods of someone they have established trust with. If I know I like Coca Cola, I can just buy any bottle that has the Coca Cola trademark and know what I'm getting, instead of worrying I'll get a completely different beverage. This gets more complicated when multiple companies are selling services for the same open source software, because you want all of them to be able to say what their services are for, but you don't want one of them to tarnish the reputation of the software itself. But as long as all the companies are actually selling services for the same software, like in the case of WPEngine and the other company here, consumers are better served and informed if both call it WordPress.
jaza 1y ago
WordPress is dying as ungraciously as free-to-air TV is.
- bdcravens 1y ago
  The company, or the software? It's held pretty steady for 4 years, powering some 43% of the web. https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all/y https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_ma...
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

263 points by pentagrama 1y ago

[dead]

Maybe he might be winning in courts, but I will never depend on any WordPress.com service again. Don't play with your users and developers that have supported you for more than a decade this childishly. Your public image will not recover from this.

kbarmettler 1y ago
Don't worry, he's not winning in the courts as much as he seems to be trying to claim (I'm reading the legal doc, not his blog post, but going off of the context of his headline and the comments here). I wouldn't touch Wordpress.com, ever, although I still use wordpress the software and am happy to see movement in decentralizing the plugin and core repos.
julienbourdeau 1y ago
100% agree. I don't see how I could forget what happened.

chrisvenum 1y ago

I recently worked on a few client projects that used WP/Gutternberg. I was pleasenetly surprised by how good the dev/editing experience has been compared to when I tried using Gutternberg a few years ago, some amazing work has gone into it. Sadly I still have a lot of uneasiness around what has happened over the past year. For most greenfield projects we have been using Statamic CMS For those who still need word press, I recommend checking out the roots.io open source collective, they have done great work bringing modern PHP development practices into WP projects. Bedrock and Sage are a great starting point to any project.

stephenlf 1y ago

Matt’s behavior was atrocious. I’m with WP Engine on this, and I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic. I don’t pretend to know the law better than they do, but still.

jkaplowitz 1y ago
The court opinion doesn't mean what he is implying, although he isn't outright lying. See my explanation in this top-level comment I just made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
kbarmettler 1y ago
Agreed about Matt, completely. It should be remembered that although it's framed as a legal win, it's not THE legal win. I am not a lawyer, but I think the practice is generally to make as many arguments as the law will support up front– but not all of them were ever going to stick. And WP Engine can still remedy any deficiencies in their pleading to try to make them stick (I'll wait for legal minds to finish reading this and explain it to me, though).
chuckadams 1y ago
> I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic There are 11 claims in WPE's complaint, three were dismissed, and as I understand it, only one of them decisively. Matt wants to spin it as good news, good for him. He's still potentially getting taken to the cleaners if he doesn't settle.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

velcrovan 1y ago

Just ditched my last WordPress installation in July. Good for you Matt.

jkaplowitz 1y ago

Matt is in large part mischaracterizing, although not outright lying about, the court's ruling. If you follow the link he provided to the ruling itself, many of the dismissed claims were dismissed "with leave to amend" (basically WPEngine has to fix their allegations), and one was dismissed for the reason that it should instead be asserted "as an affirmative defense if appropriate later in this litigation." There were some claims dismissed in a way WPEngine can't fix, but not many, and others were upheld. I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion. In case Matt removes the link to the actual ruling from his post, and also simply for HN readers' convenience, here it is: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/169/wpengine-inc-v-automattic-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/169/wpengine-i...

jalapenos 1y ago
So basically "please sue him right"?
3np 1y ago
Considering how obviously in the wrong he is, it might not be too off calling that a win for him.
nofriend 1y ago
Matt cites three claims that are dismissed (antitrust, monopolization, and extortion), which based on my skim are really two claims. The first, as you say, is dismissed with leave to amend. The second is dismissed without leave to amend. The first is given the opportunity to be amended, but the dismissal demonstrates serious flaws in the legal argument that they will have difficulty recovering from. I think it's fair for him to celebrate this as a win.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
gpm 1y ago
Just the claims where dismissal was outright denied are also potentially (up to judge and jury at later stages) enough for some pretty devastating damages... I second that this was a loss for Matt. It wasn't even "a draw" where the plaintiffs have to try again with an amended complaint (not that they will necessarily not bother to amend). > I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion. Describes me as well.

bravetraveler 1y ago

http://archive.today/wfrKj http://archive.today/wfrKj Not for a paywall, of course: personal blog he hosts. Due to editing in the past. "Win" or, said another way, "The bullshit I started is seeing an end". Whatever works for you, buddy.

kbarmettler 1y ago
It ain't working for him, but it's all he's got.
- bravetraveler 1y ago
  It ain't much and it's neither honest or work!

popalchemist 1y ago

This guy is unbearable.

kbarmettler 1y ago
As a wordpress dev, yeah. I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core. Off the top of my head, full screen editing by default, the stupid 'howdy' that crops up in several places, and the silent user content edit that he added to translate Wordpress into WordPress in the content of every single wp install (no, really, go try it. And then listen to the guy talk about how user content is sacred, lol.) And I say this as somebody who thinks that the block editor is... fine. I use it in a hybrid style, using ACF to create blocks that behave and perform natively but don't require directly using all the stupid build tool cruft.
- simpaticoder 1y ago
  >I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core That's actually very cool. In most runtimes the "core" built-ins and standard libraries are immutable. You'd have to recompile them with your changes to get the same effect. Not so with PHP. A footgun, but in this case a useful one.
- giveita 1y ago
  Why not share the diff so anyone can apply it :)
  - retlehs 1y ago
    WP offers a “no-content” packaged version https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.3.1-no-content.zip https://downloads.wordpress.org/release/wordpress-6.3.1-no-c... There’s also a Composer package: https://github.com/roots/wordpress-no-content https://github.com/roots/wordpress-no-content

raincole 1y ago

The controversial topics around wordpress are surreal.

sgammon 1y ago

thats great matt. i still wont ever use wordpress because of your choices

mastazi 1y ago

Thanks to Matt's shenanigans I discovered ClassicPress a few months ago https://www.classicpress.net/ https://www.classicpress.net/ - I had such a good experience that I ended up migrating all of my self hosted blogs to it, as a form of insurance against further madness with the WP Foundation. Note that depending on what plugins or themes you are using, ClassicPress might not work as well for you. You can consider setting up a monthly donation to support development.

frereubu 1y ago
I run an agency that builds WordPress websites, and have been wondering about what to do about all of this. I'm concerned about the future of wordpress.org and have been looking around at alternatives. This seemed sort-of interesting initially but, without wishing to be uncharitable, this looks like a nostalgia project because the Gutenberg editor, while initially quite tricky to wrangle for developers due to breaking changes, has been a real step forward for content editors. It's mostly stable now, so the decision to remove it from this makes it a non-starter for me.

edm0nd 1y ago

[flagged]

giveita 1y ago
Outside of cryptocurrency yeah
tomhow 1y ago
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter who or what it's about. Please take care to observe the guidelines if you want to participate here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

eclipticplane 1y ago

Matt had a golden goose and he decided it wasn't golden enough. I removed/converted my last Wordpress site (commercial and otherwise) last month.

acomjean 1y ago
I wonder sometimes what is going on over there. WordPress had a great community , nice people, seemingly successful open source with a business attached. Maybe it wasn't enough? I know talking to some of the shops that use it that their clients were asking about this turn of events. If you have an infrastructure, stability is a good selling point.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
zipzapzip 1y ago
Converted to what if you don't mind me asking?
giveita 1y ago
Im still using wp org, is that risky. I do like the platform.

iambateman 1y ago

Perhaps it’s a legal win but the PR disaster remains. As our company thinks about a new website vendor, WordPress is off the table because of the nonsense.

sixothree 1y ago
I can't imagine the professional reputational damage I'd incur if I were to recommended wordpress, or worse, wordpress.com after all of this.
- cyberpunk 1y ago
  Genuinely, why? What kind of visions of reputational damage does having your marketing website on wordpress.com conjure up to you? How would anyone even know where it’s hosted? I get the guy pissed off some php devs but I’m sure as hell not hosting that shit myself, marketing team content can be their problem.
  - alphager 1y ago
    Matt cut off wpengine and could cut off any other commercial hoster tomorrow if he wished to do so. Why would you risk that?

larsiusprime 1y ago

Can someone provide some context for those of us who are utterly out of the loop?

ValentineC 1y ago
I remember this to be a pretty good recap of the whole fiasco: https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
wonger_ 1y ago
IIRC: guy made a CMS, built a successful company and organization and trademarks around it, decided last year that another company was using it unfairly, created lots of drama, lost his marbles One of his first posts on the topic: https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ A collection of crazy quotes and events, biased towards the other perspective: https://mullenweg.wtf/ https://mullenweg.wtf/ Edit: and HN commentary: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=false&query=Wordpress&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...

chatmasta 1y ago

Oh man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone lose an internet drama, only to revive it a few months later when everyone had forgotten about it.

yepitwas 1y ago
If we’re lucky he’s still not paying attention to either expert advice or common sense, and will show up to post in this very thread.
- photomatt 1y ago
  Howdy!
  - kstrauser 1y ago
    Dude! Don’t do this, for real! Scram and pretend you’ve never heard of HN if asked. No courtroom good can come of you commenting here.
  - qingcharles 1y ago
    https://giphy.com/explore/oh-boy-here-we-go https://giphy.com/explore/oh-boy-here-we-go

ookblah 1y ago

matt relies on the passage of time and the fact that nobody really cares too much about wordpress drama. it's best that people do not forget what type of person he actually is behind the public facade when he inevitably pulls this kind of shit again later. from literally back in 2011 when someone predicted exactly what would happen and got crucified for it: https://web.archive.org/web/20110117190122/http://wpblogger.com/matt-should-resign.php https://web.archive.org/web/20110117190122/http://wpblogger.... https://web.archive.org/web/20110117192124/http://wpblogger.com/mullenweg-the-coward.php https://web.archive.org/web/20110117192124/http://wpblogger.... one of his responses to DHH when the WPE thing went down: https://archive.md/UZZit https://archive.md/UZZit

nchmy 1y ago
you didnt even link to the right version of the DHH post! The original had this gem of a paragraph: > David, perhaps it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach why you keep having these great ideas but cannot scale them beyond a handful of niche customers. I will give full credit and respect. 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small? https://archive.md/4yLNR https://archive.md/4yLNR
ksec 1y ago
I wrote to DHH at the time hoping the Hey World part could be open sourced or ONCE as a blogging platform. But he wasn't interested in the idea.
- tasuki 1y ago
  The guy already created immense value by his open source work. It's fine for him not to open source everything.
  - nchmy 1y ago
    And he continues to churn out popular open source projects - m9st recently related to moving off-cloud, using Linux etc... And ruby on rails continues to evolve immensely whereas WordPress is stuck in 2005

pessimizer 1y ago

[flagged]

nchmy 1y ago
you could just read the legal document, as others in this thread have, rather than rely on an "unreliable narrator"... Surely no sane person is on WPE's side. They're just vehemently against Matt, who has proven to be a complete psychopath
blinding-streak 1y ago
As someone who is not very familiar with this whole saga, it sounds like both sides lost their marbles? Which is the lesser of two evils?
- nchmy 1y ago
  i dont recommend WPE to anyone, but they have done nothing wrong. If you care, you could learn plenty here https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...

Sophistifunk 1y ago

[flagged]

viadm_co 1y ago

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liviux 1y ago

The mad lad won his case, but lost his reputation.

nchmy 1y ago
he hasnt come even slightly close to winning his case
ocdtrekkie 1y ago
He didn't win. He won in the way Apple won over Epic. (Apple lost.) People seem not to understand that in a lawsuit like this the lawyers throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. WPEngine surely didn't expect all of this to fly... but some of it did.

chuckadams 1y ago

The effort at https://fair.pm https://fair.pm is well underway to cut out Matt and wordpress.org as a single point of failure and control in the community. It's a Linux Foundation project, being run by former WordPress community leaders (people who provided years of volunteer labor that directly benefited Automattic), and there's been interest from several large hosting providers, including some that are even larger than WPE. Matt is likely to find that by the time the trial actually starts, that he's already lost.

ajb 1y ago
Looks interesting, but I don't see any mention of a reputation system - what's their plan for warning people about packages that should not be installed, such as hacked, covert adware/spyware, etc?
- pacifika 1y ago
  > Since each package has a fully unique ID, services can be "layered on top" to provide additional functionality. A moderation service can block users from installing known-dangerous packages, or highlight recommended packages - or even integrate with commercial services like vulnerability scanners.
- chuckadams 1y ago
  Package advisories are seen as a content moderation issue: repositories and clients will be able to subscribe to one or more streams of digitally signed "labels" that can be interpreted by a policy mechanism that can render a verdict anywhere from "show this warning" to "do not install" to "remove immediately". The architecture is based on the system used by BlueSky: https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture https://docs.bsky.app/blog/blueskys-moderation-architecture. It's also not implemented yet: the initial release of the FAIR package manager is aimed at the package distribution parts, both mirroring the themes/plugins on wordpress.org and using W3C DIDs on BlueSky's PLC server as an indirection in front of raw URLs for hand-curated packages not hosted on .org, such as the FAIR client and server plugins themselves. My own role in FAIR is a lot simpler, and it's maintaining AspireCloud, the project from AspirePress (now a working group of FAIR) that implements enough of api.wordpress.org to enable a searchable mirror of all its downloadable assets. AC is usable on its own without the FAIR ecosystem, but also makes up a good chunk of it while things are getting bootstrapped. So while I have a pretty good grasp of the planned architecture, I'm still not the best person to give the details. There's a public Slack server on https://chat.fair.pm https://chat.fair.pm which is still the best place to go for answers, and discussion boards on Github for less synchronous discussion (though the problem with GH is there's so many repos it's hard to find the right one).

photomatt 1y ago

Happy to answer any questions from HN folks, to the extent I can. I love this community and have been here since 2007.

jalapenos 1y ago
What in your opinion is the nature of your personality?
- photomatt 1y ago
  I’d describe my personality as curious, open-minded, and calm under pressure — I like exploring ideas deeply and listening before I speak. But I do get worked up when fighting for open source principles.
  - jalapenos 1y ago
    So all positives, except one quasi negative (that's a positive). Are you familiar with what narcissism is?
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minimaxir 1y ago
Do you have a response to the top comment (among others) which assert that you are mischaracterizing the ruling? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
- photomatt 1y ago
  My blog post is my genuine expression of happiness and joy at the ruling. The legal process is slow, and the court date is not until 2027! Reflecting on the strength of the WordPress community, we recently had a great WordCamp US in Portland a few weeks ago. The case is still happening. I attended the settlement conference, but their CEO did not. There are still many things that need to be worked out through the legal system, and that will take time, but this was a nice moment.

systemswizard 1y ago

[flagged]

tomhow 1y ago
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter who or what you're replying to. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

toasted-subs 1y ago

[flagged]

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the_real_cher 1y ago

It's not clear to me that he's in the wrong. https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/

tsimionescu 1y ago
It's not clear to you that trying to use trademark law to prevent a company selling WordPress software from saying they offer WordPress software is "being in the wrong"?
- the_real_cher 1y ago
  isn't that what trademark law is for?
  - pests 1y ago
    No.
  - tsimionescu 1y ago
    Trademark law exists to protect consumers from counterfeit goods. Basically, it exists to allow consumers to recognize the goods of someone they have established trust with. If I know I like Coca Cola, I can just buy any bottle that has the Coca Cola trademark and know what I'm getting, instead of worrying I'll get a completely different beverage. This gets more complicated when multiple companies are selling services for the same open source software, because you want all of them to be able to say what their services are for, but you don't want one of them to tarnish the reputation of the software itself. But as long as all the companies are actually selling services for the same software, like in the case of WPEngine and the other company here, consumers are better served and informed if both call it WordPress.

jaza 1y ago

WordPress is dying as ungraciously as free-to-air TV is.

bdcravens 1y ago
The company, or the software? It's held pretty steady for 4 years, powering some 43% of the web. https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_management/all/y https://w3techs.com/technologies/history_overview/content_ma...

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