This is just getting petty at this point. What kind of normal person or business operates this way - especially during an ongoing lawsuit.
I can't see how anybody who knows a bit about the situation would ever want to continue to be affiliated with Wordpress knowing this guy could go over the top at any moment.
I have no dog in this race, but the behavior does seem ill-advised even if you look at it through a pure legal lens. WP Engine's lawyers must be having a field day with this stuff.
Is he just totally ignoring his own lawyers? He has to be, because no lawyer who charges more than $20 an hour would tell him any of this is advisable.
He's appeared in several of related threads here on HN. He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
> He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
Even there he's inconsistent. He spent a day or so talking about how his lawyer said "If you're in the right, talk all you like!", then a few days after that made an announcement about how he'd retained a lawyer just that day.
I'm generally behind open source companies wanting to stop commercial freeloaders, but putting this fight in front of your users seems unhinged.
They need to take a step back. Again, I think they probably do have a trademark case, and they can set whatever rules they like for accessing their plugin repo, but this drama isn't something users appreciate.
Is there really nobody in the Wordpress.org organization who can provide a check on this kind of behavior? Or do they really collectively share this Matt character’s attitude toward professionalism?
I've been using WordPress non-stop since 2005. I even hoped to someday work for Automattic. I applied and got through the initial process, but with a young child and a full-time job, I couldn't make time for the laborious "trial" part of the interview, so my application was put on indefinite pause. It pains me to watch this unfolding series of unforced errors. I hope WordPress survives.
What's the risk? You own the code, and you aren't pre-committed to updating to any new versions in the future. You can just take it and use it on your own forever. Many people do. What's their risk?
What is going on here? I understand that open source companies have a free rider problem, and will naturally take steps to deal with that, but some of the recent activities seem… strange.
I’m thinking part of the problem is that the software itself is GPL and so is it’s ecosystem, which means that the standard next step of changing the license (followed by an inevitable fork) is infeasible.
It's not that at all. Matt wants money to flow to his commercial entity, or if they donate developers to the project, he still gets to see everything about their books. It's an invasive agreement designed to give his commercial entity a competitive advantage.
Fee. In exchange for the License Grant, WP Engine shall do one of the following:
(a) Pay Automattic a royalty fee equal to 8% of its Gross Revenue on a monthly basis, within fifteen days
of the end of each month. "Gross Revenue" means all revenue generated by WP Engine from the
sale of its services, calculated without deductions for taxes, refunds, or other costs. WP Engine will
also provide Automattic a detailed monthly report of its Gross Revenue within fifteen days of the
close of each calendar month, including a product line breakdown of all revenues generated.
Automattic will have full audit rights.
(b) Commit 8% of its revenue in the form of salaries of WP Engine employees working on WordPress
core features and functionality to be directed by WordPress.org. WP Engine will provide Automattic
a detailed monthly report demonstrating its fulfillment of this commitment. WordPress.org and
Automattic will have full audit rights, including access to employee records and time-tracking.
I don't even think this is about money anymore. Matt may have started this cruzade for money, but at this point is just pettiness and refusal to backpedal.
> It's an invasive agreement designed to give his commercial entity a competitive advantage.
Given how much they sunk into the boat anchor that is Tumblr, and how well Tumblr is doing right now, I'm not surprised they need any competitive advantage they can get.
There’s a thread on X here with screenshots of the WordPress Slack, where Mullenweg seems deliberately vague when people ask him what counts as “affiliated in any way”. It seems like he wants to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about what can get you banned. People who have been asking him awkward questions in the Slack have started to get banned from there as well.
This is shunning, which is literally one of the hallmarks of a cult. If you are associated in any way with a suppressive person (WP Engine), you now cannot be a member of the WordPress.org community. Members of the community have to decide whether to shun WP Engine or be excommunicated themselves. He’s trying to use the community as a weapon.
It also seems a fertile ground to claim tortious interference. He’s trying to sever relationships between WP Engine and everybody they interact with.
And from Javier's thread, Matt is gaslighting people by telling them to consult attorneys to decide the meaning of "affiliated" in a checkbox HE introduced.
Can we now agree that Matt has lost his marbles and his ego is leading him to burn the entire Wordpress ecosystem down? These are megalomaniacal and dictatorial actions.
Telling someone to "Please consult an attorney" when they ask if you can check the box if you pay for ACF Pro sure qualifies as inserting FUD into the ecosystem to my non-lawyer mind.
I mean he already made sure his entire company were entirely yes-men who agreed with his behaviour. It's not a stretch to say he'd like to do the same with the community, especially given his actions of basically begging WPEngine to create an alternate ecosystem he is removed from. Nuts.
Ridiculously petty. I genuinely wonder how the fuck Matt and Automattics lawyers are gonna argue him out of this shit, because this is pretty much just giving free arguments to your opposition when it comes to arguing that Automattic is self-dealing.
They've already made their argument: WordPress.org has nothing to do with WordPress, Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. It's owned and operated by Matt privately solely out of the kindness of his heart and his love for open-source.
They won't need to fork WP itself (though they're totally free to do that, WP started as a fork after all), but it sounds like they may need to quickly focus on creating their own plugin and theme marketplaces, and other services that WordPress.org provided to WordPress CMS users but is not denying to WPEngine.
Let this be a lesson to all of us - if you rely on a service provided by another organization external to your organization, get an SLA! Get a contract that guarantees you the provision of services you depend on.
It is mandatory, and one of the CSS classes used is "login-lawsuit." Incredibly unprofessional, I would be mortified to push something like that into production.
Matt really wants to dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole, huh?
There’s still something entertaining to this for sure, but it also hurts so much. Wordpress used to be a respectable project, Automattic a respectable company and Matt a respectable person. Maybe it was too good to last.
The only way any of this (already serve) damage can somewhat be undone is Matt stepping back (as a sudden change of mind seems unlikely). Please don’t keep making it worse.
There could be many legit reasons for doing this, and strangely a bunch of people are here panning the thing, seemingly without knowing any of the reasons behind it.
I find this odd on HN.
I can see many reasons to deploy such a thing, so it's not a surprise for me.
This is just getting petty at this point. What kind of normal person or business operates this way - especially during an ongoing lawsuit.
I can't see how anybody who knows a bit about the situation would ever want to continue to be affiliated with Wordpress knowing this guy could go over the top at any moment.
I have no dog in this race, but the behavior does seem ill-advised even if you look at it through a pure legal lens. WP Engine's lawyers must be having a field day with this stuff.
Is he just totally ignoring his own lawyers? He has to be, because no lawyer who charges more than $20 an hour would tell him any of this is advisable.
He's appeared in several of related threads here on HN. He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
Someone claiming to be his lawyer popped into one of the threads and then played dumb about a blog post he supposedly wrote.
Hilariously bad look all around.
> He is always asked about his lawyers, and he repeatedly claims that they're cool with his behavior.
Even there he's inconsistent. He spent a day or so talking about how his lawyer said "If you're in the right, talk all you like!", then a few days after that made an announcement about how he'd retained a lawyer just that day.
Yes, very odd, since the class name for that new checkbox is even, "login-lawsuit".
If I'm not mistaken both sides have hired some extremely prominent lawyers (Rachel Kassabian, Neal Katyal).
I'm generally behind open source companies wanting to stop commercial freeloaders, but putting this fight in front of your users seems unhinged.
They need to take a step back. Again, I think they probably do have a trademark case, and they can set whatever rules they like for accessing their plugin repo, but this drama isn't something users appreciate.
Is there really nobody in the Wordpress.org organization who can provide a check on this kind of behavior? Or do they really collectively share this Matt character’s attitude toward professionalism?
"Matt Mullenweg: 'WordPress.org just belongs to me'":
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-w...
It’s his personal website
Well, clearly there's someone who can provide a check box at least!
I've been using WordPress non-stop since 2005. I even hoped to someday work for Automattic. I applied and got through the initial process, but with a young child and a full-time job, I couldn't make time for the laborious "trial" part of the interview, so my application was put on indefinite pause. It pains me to watch this unfolding series of unforced errors. I hope WordPress survives.
This is incredibly troubling; I cannot see myself ever using Wordpress going forward. It is just too risky.
What's the risk? You own the code, and you aren't pre-committed to updating to any new versions in the future. You can just take it and use it on your own forever. Many people do. What's their risk?
> What's the risk? You own the code, and you aren't pre-committed to updating to any new versions in the future.
This isn't a static website we're talking about — WordPress is probably one of the most attacked web software in the world given its footprint.
WordPress doesn't do LTS releases or backports either.
What is going on here? I understand that open source companies have a free rider problem, and will naturally take steps to deal with that, but some of the recent activities seem… strange.
I’m thinking part of the problem is that the software itself is GPL and so is it’s ecosystem, which means that the standard next step of changing the license (followed by an inevitable fork) is infeasible.
It's not that at all. Matt wants money to flow to his commercial entity, or if they donate developers to the project, he still gets to see everything about their books. It's an invasive agreement designed to give his commercial entity a competitive advantage.
And work of the WP Engine developers would be directed by Wordpress.org, which is just Matt, not the foundation.
From https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-term-sheet.pdf:
Fee. In exchange for the License Grant, WP Engine shall do one of the following:
(a) Pay Automattic a royalty fee equal to 8% of its Gross Revenue on a monthly basis, within fifteen days of the end of each month. "Gross Revenue" means all revenue generated by WP Engine from the sale of its services, calculated without deductions for taxes, refunds, or other costs. WP Engine will also provide Automattic a detailed monthly report of its Gross Revenue within fifteen days of the close of each calendar month, including a product line breakdown of all revenues generated. Automattic will have full audit rights.
(b) Commit 8% of its revenue in the form of salaries of WP Engine employees working on WordPress core features and functionality to be directed by WordPress.org. WP Engine will provide Automattic a detailed monthly report demonstrating its fulfillment of this commitment. WordPress.org and Automattic will have full audit rights, including access to employee records and time-tracking.
(c) Some combination of the above two options.
Absolute madness.
I don't even think this is about money anymore. Matt may have started this cruzade for money, but at this point is just pettiness and refusal to backpedal.
> It's an invasive agreement designed to give his commercial entity a competitive advantage.
Given how much they sunk into the boat anchor that is Tumblr, and how well Tumblr is doing right now, I'm not surprised they need any competitive advantage they can get.
There’s a thread on X here with screenshots of the WordPress Slack, where Mullenweg seems deliberately vague when people ask him what counts as “affiliated in any way”. It seems like he wants to spread Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt about what can get you banned. People who have been asking him awkward questions in the Slack have started to get banned from there as well.
https://x.com/javiercasares/status/1843963052183433331
This is shunning, which is literally one of the hallmarks of a cult. If you are associated in any way with a suppressive person (WP Engine), you now cannot be a member of the WordPress.org community. Members of the community have to decide whether to shun WP Engine or be excommunicated themselves. He’s trying to use the community as a weapon.
It also seems a fertile ground to claim tortious interference. He’s trying to sever relationships between WP Engine and everybody they interact with.
He's not the only Wordpress contributor banned from Slack for asking questions about the checkbox:
* https://x.com/xwolf/status/1842548019289338346
* https://x.com/rmccue/status/1843967630585311595
* https://x.com/jonoalderson/status/1843985559745921046
* https://x.com/LinuxJedi/status/1843966957495939093
And from Javier's thread, Matt is gaslighting people by telling them to consult attorneys to decide the meaning of "affiliated" in a checkbox HE introduced.
Is paying for WPEngine hosting "affiliated"? https://x.com/LucP/status/1843926970763227255
Can we now agree that Matt has lost his marbles and his ego is leading him to burn the entire Wordpress ecosystem down? These are megalomaniacal and dictatorial actions.
A long-time WordPress pro friend got booted from the plugin team this morning.
Telling someone to "Please consult an attorney" when they ask if you can check the box if you pay for ACF Pro sure qualifies as inserting FUD into the ecosystem to my non-lawyer mind.
https://x.com/JavierCasares/status/1843963074904227945
I mean he already made sure his entire company were entirely yes-men who agreed with his behaviour. It's not a stretch to say he'd like to do the same with the community, especially given his actions of basically begging WPEngine to create an alternate ecosystem he is removed from. Nuts.
Hitherto unexplored realms of petty.
Ridiculously petty. I genuinely wonder how the fuck Matt and Automattics lawyers are gonna argue him out of this shit, because this is pretty much just giving free arguments to your opposition when it comes to arguing that Automattic is self-dealing.
They've already made their argument: WordPress.org has nothing to do with WordPress, Automattic or the WordPress Foundation. It's owned and operated by Matt privately solely out of the kindness of his heart and his love for open-source.
I fully expect a WPE-backed fork before anything is in court.
They won't need to fork WP itself (though they're totally free to do that, WP started as a fork after all), but it sounds like they may need to quickly focus on creating their own plugin and theme marketplaces, and other services that WordPress.org provided to WordPress CMS users but is not denying to WPEngine.
Let this be a lesson to all of us - if you rely on a service provided by another organization external to your organization, get an SLA! Get a contract that guarantees you the provision of services you depend on.
Entertaining. Tripling down on a bad decision. Mans mad.
Is it mandatory to check it to login? The default is unchecked. I doubt normal users would check it unless they are forced to.
It is mandatory, and one of the CSS classes used is "login-lawsuit." Incredibly unprofessional, I would be mortified to push something like that into production.
Matt really wants to dig himself into a deeper and deeper hole, huh?
There’s still something entertaining to this for sure, but it also hurts so much. Wordpress used to be a respectable project, Automattic a respectable company and Matt a respectable person. Maybe it was too good to last.
The only way any of this (already serve) damage can somewhat be undone is Matt stepping back (as a sudden change of mind seems unlikely). Please don’t keep making it worse.
This is top tier cringe from the automattic team.
Wow that's petty.
Hacker news is overloading the website. It now returns 429
Classic
Petulant.
cold.
There could be many legit reasons for doing this, and strangely a bunch of people are here panning the thing, seemingly without knowing any of the reasons behind it.
I find this odd on HN.
I can see many reasons to deploy such a thing, so it's not a surprise for me.
> I can see many reasons to deploy such a thing
Care to share?