In the wordpress.org login form you now have to check a box saying “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” There are instances of people unable to login unless they choose to lie https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cant-log-in-to-org-due-t...
Note that wordpress.org was supposed to be the community site, not the for-profit one
> I am unable to check that box. I’ve previously purchased services from them. I also know people who work there.
Doesn't "affiliated" imply a formal relationship/connection between two entities, rather than just being a subscriber/buyer of something? Like you'd need to have some sort of influence or stake in the other entity for it to be a "affiliation".
For example, I wouldn't say I'm "financially affiliated" with GitHub/Microsoft just because I've paid for the Pro plan in the past.
But maybe the word is used differently in this specific context.
> For example, I wouldn't say I'm "financially affiliated" with GitHub/Microsoft
it says "financially or otherwise". I'd say the wise thing to do is to delete your account if you have one (I just deleted mine). The only people who are going to benefit from this farce are the lawyers, users are irrelevant right now.
Edit: when I say "users are irrelevant" I mean specifically the .org ones. At least some of the .com ones are paying customers so I think that's a different situation.
> I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.
So "affiliated" is used for "any way", "financially" and "otherwise". Not "financially affiliated, or otherwise".
It seems pretty clear to me that it's for people that have an actual two-way relationship somehow to WP Engine, not customers, as you don't say you're "affiliated" with someone just because you're a user/customer.
"I am not affiliated in any way, financially or otherwise" expands to "I am not affiliated in any way financially or affiliated in any way otherwise [than financially].
Such an general affiliation could include having a friend who works at WPEngine, being a customer of WPEngine, and many other possibilities.
Several wordpress community members have asked for clarity here, and been banned for asking. Matt refuses to provide clarity, apparently because he prefers people to be afraid of having any connection at all to WPEngine.
That is why the article mentions a lawyer: Matt's response to questions is that the questioners should hire a lawyer to figure out what Matt's own wording means. That sounds like a bad faith response to me.
> you don't say you're "affiliated" with someone just because you're a user/customer
A customer affiliation is included in "affiliated in any way", and constitutes a financial affiliation, too. If Matt didn't want people to interpret the checkbox in this way, he should have picked more specific wording and/or answered questions with something better than 'hire a lawyer'.
> Matt's response to questions is that the questioners should hire a lawyer to figure out what Matt's own wording means.
Isn't the general rule that uncertainty in a contract is construed against the drafter? If you're deliberately refusing to clarify your own contract that seems like it could jeopardize the ability to enforce it at all.
I mentioned it in another comment but worth repeating, I have no bones in this fight, so I don't really care either way and I disagree with the approach Matt is taking regardless.
But, the person you linked to don't seem to be discussing the whole thing in good faith, as exemplified with this comment:
> "ANY way means that if I visit the WPE website I cannot click that checkbox. That's not a speculation"
I'm pretty sure that no legal interpretation of that checkbox label would reach the same conclusion (but, I'm not a lawyer, and yadda yadda), and it is quite literally speculation unless that person actually investigated if it's true, which don't seem to have done.
So again, not disagreeing or agreeing with anything here, but there is a lot of baseless arguing back-and-forth between everyone, and people (including Matt) seem to more willing to stir the pot some more, rather than finding something that moves to solve the situation.
I'm pretty sure, given Matt's history of acting erratically and in a way that harms innocent people, that the questions asked were in good faith.
If no legal interpretation of that checkbox would reach that same conclusion, Matt would have just said that, rather than banning the questioner and leaving the question unanswered except for 'contact a lawyer'.
The best way to "solve" the situation would be Matt acknowledging he was in the wrong to harm innocent people, and simply remove the unnecessary checkbox. The only reason it exists is his personal crusade against WPEngine and anyone and anything associated with it "in any way".
Every step of the way Matt/Wordpress has really made the wrong decision in the worst way possible. He wants to have his cake (distribute free and open source software) and eat it to (force some companies to pay him money) which is completely incompatible.
I think that's not really taking into consideration the situation from Matt's side. I have no bone in this fight, and I agree it looks childish to act in this manner, but on the other hand, Matt seems convinced (for better or worse) that WP Engine tried to mislead Wordpress users, and tried to damage Wordpress in other ways.
I don't agree/disagree with it, but I don't read Matt's motivation as "I want more money" but more like "I want to defend this thing I've built that I feel like is being abused right now", even if I personally might not be able to see it in that light, or agree with the approach Matt is taking.
I think Matt is very clearly in the wrong here. He's trying to impose additional restrictions on GPL-licensed software. His incorrect perspective is of little value to me.
> Matt seems convinced (for better or worse) that WP Engine tried to mislead Wordpress users, and tried to damage Wordpress in other ways.
He's not.
> The analogy I made is they got Al Capone for taxes,” Mullenweg says. [...] Mullenweg argues one of the reasons for its success is the use of “WordPress” across its site. “That’s why we’re using that legal avenue to really, yeah, pressure them. That’s true: we are pressuring them.”
He wants WP Engine to pay/contribute (while requiring audits to ensure they're properly contributing), and is just using trademark claims as the instrument to force them to pay up.
Frankly, he and his mother[1] are the only people I know who confused WP Engine for what it’s. Also, if confusing hosting services and WordPress FOSS project were a real concern for him, the first step should be change the name of his own WordPress.com…
But none of his actions are sensible if he just wants to defend it. He's done more damage than WP Engine ever did.
The argument that WP Engine is trying to mislead people is weak at best. We're seriously saying that talking about WordPress hosting was misleading? To whom? What about every other host that does this?
Also considering the current deliberately misleading state of .com/.org/Automattic/Matt/the foundation etc, I really think they could do a lot to lead by example there before going this unnecessarily nuclear to others. I don't believe it because the reaction is totally out of line with the issue.
> But none of his actions are sensible if he just wants to defend it. He's done more damage than WP Engine ever did.
Trying to see things from Matts perspective, it totally makes sense to go nuclear in order to defend what you see as your baby being under attack from a hostile for-profit entity.
I don't necessarily agree that the situation actually is "WP Engine is attacking Wordpress", but clearly Matt sees it like that, no matter if it's real or not, and it does make his actions understandable, even if I disagree with them, or how weak the argument is.
> Trying to see things from Matts perspective, it totally makes sense to go nuclear in order to defend what you see as your baby being under attack from a hostile for-profit entity.
Trying to see things from the perspective of the wordpress community, and not just 1 dude: wordpress is not his baby, it is the community's baby, and he is the hostile for-profit entity attacking it with things like this checkbox, cutting off over a million community members from security updates, etc.
tl;dr: nobody is saying Matt doesn't think he's always in the right (obviously he does), we're just pointing out that he isn't, and his actions hurt wordpress and the community.
There's a fine distinction to be made between "he thinks he's right" and "he thinks he can get away with it", which both would lead to the actions we now see
I think there is a historical pattern of same thing happening with PHP, when things like cake-php and other foo-php started gaining enough popularity to irk PHP core folks about it. Though I don't remember PHP doing an outright war against them like Matt/WP, I think they did alter their license and mention specifically to not use their name in the project in a way that associates them to PHP.
It's crazy how much this drama has seeped into every aspect of the WordPress ecosystem, and how Matt/Automattic have tried to make it everyone's concern by tying it into the .org site as well.
Should raise some serious worries about how 'independent' the foundation and open source project are compared to Automattic and WordPress.com. Wouldn't be surprised if people tried to fork the project at this rate.
well the foundation gave extensive trademark licensing to Automattic for free, so "independent" sounds like an awfully misplaced adjective in this case
Ironically, it's the second Google hit for "wpengine." Appears to be self written, but nonetheless, describes WP Engine as having "played an integral role in supporting the WordPress project." I would think at this point both sides would have wanted it removed.
I might be wrong, but I think that it might even be illegal in some countries like France.
Except for banks, business are not allowed to discriminate customers and refuse to serve equally everyone. Imagine like saying you are not allowed to take gas in a shell gas station if you are an employee of Exxon or something like that...
I dont fully understand this but it seems fucked. It sounds like a real job with all the real job issues and none of the pay. Actually antipay as it is an expensive hobby ... might as well snowboard.
Edit: some of that team seem sponsored so maybe I am wrong?
Real job in terms of stress rather than time. 5h hacking on your.own thing != 5h contriburing to a big repo and doing something called "incident response"
Yeah, I understand what you mean. I guess I'd define "real job" as "Trade your time for my/our money", and if you're not getting paid (now or in the future), you're in one way or another "volunteering", no matter how stressful it is, what area the work involves, or the size of the thing you're contributing to.
The reference is to this, where Matt has replied to a query about what constitutes "affiliation" by saying he could not answer that and the person should consult an attorney.
Read that whole thread from the earlier tweets too. People are getting banned from the Slack channel for asking what the checkbox means. This isn't just drama from OP.
I mean yeah, something like this was bound to happen.
It'll be interesting to see what becomes of the WordPress ecosystem after the current crises is 'resolved'.
From my view, WordPress usage was definitely already in decline, but its status as an entrenched juggernaut kept it relevant. Perhaps bringing attention to everyone that quietly used WordPress means those people will start to look for alternatives?
Speaking as a user of wordpress (hosted on my own infrastructure, not theirs), this is an entertaining - if pathetic - fight between two entities that doesn’t really involve me.
What would change that, and make me more likely to abandon Wordpress (taking the money my business spends in that ecosystem with it), is if things start to happen, such as a login checkbox with potential legal implications, that gets in my way of using the thing that Wordpress wants me to use.
Whether or not that sentiment is shared across a larger subset of wordpress users I do not know, but I have a pretty strong spidey sense that this crusade is burning down the countryside it’s supposedly trying to save.
If I were a WP plugin developer / hosting provider I would be scared out of my buttocks and look for more reliable environments. If they do it to WP Engine, what stops them from doing it to me? Seems to me that it's just "Automattic doesn't have a problem with me" which might change at any time.
My gut says there are sharks circling this issue waiting to pounce once this storm passes.
They want to see it gutted so they can strip the carcass to the bone and try to extract rent from half the internet.
Enshittification comes for everything, eventually.
For context, when the OP speaks about the "new checkbox" and related legal implications, I believe they are talking about this one https://mastodon.social/@nixCraft/113282425644840219
In the wordpress.org login form you now have to check a box saying “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” There are instances of people unable to login unless they choose to lie https://wordpress.org/support/topic/cant-log-in-to-org-due-t...
Note that wordpress.org was supposed to be the community site, not the for-profit one
Wow, someone (Matt?) had to make an effort to explicitly add this new checkbox...
...wait until you inspect checkbox's class name with your devtools or view the HTML source code LOL!
(Spolier alert): The class name is "login-lawsuit"
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From that thread:
> I am unable to check that box. I’ve previously purchased services from them. I also know people who work there.
Doesn't "affiliated" imply a formal relationship/connection between two entities, rather than just being a subscriber/buyer of something? Like you'd need to have some sort of influence or stake in the other entity for it to be a "affiliation".
For example, I wouldn't say I'm "financially affiliated" with GitHub/Microsoft just because I've paid for the Pro plan in the past.
But maybe the word is used differently in this specific context.
> For example, I wouldn't say I'm "financially affiliated" with GitHub/Microsoft
it says "financially or otherwise". I'd say the wise thing to do is to delete your account if you have one (I just deleted mine). The only people who are going to benefit from this farce are the lawyers, users are irrelevant right now.
Edit: when I say "users are irrelevant" I mean specifically the .org ones. At least some of the .com ones are paying customers so I think that's a different situation.
> it says "financially or otherwise".
So to be 100% clear, it says this (verbatim):
> I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.
So "affiliated" is used for "any way", "financially" and "otherwise". Not "financially affiliated, or otherwise".
It seems pretty clear to me that it's for people that have an actual two-way relationship somehow to WP Engine, not customers, as you don't say you're "affiliated" with someone just because you're a user/customer.
"I am not affiliated in any way, financially or otherwise" expands to "I am not affiliated in any way financially or affiliated in any way otherwise [than financially].
Such an general affiliation could include having a friend who works at WPEngine, being a customer of WPEngine, and many other possibilities.
Several wordpress community members have asked for clarity here, and been banned for asking. Matt refuses to provide clarity, apparently because he prefers people to be afraid of having any connection at all to WPEngine.
That is why the article mentions a lawyer: Matt's response to questions is that the questioners should hire a lawyer to figure out what Matt's own wording means. That sounds like a bad faith response to me.
> you don't say you're "affiliated" with someone just because you're a user/customer
A customer affiliation is included in "affiliated in any way", and constitutes a financial affiliation, too. If Matt didn't want people to interpret the checkbox in this way, he should have picked more specific wording and/or answered questions with something better than 'hire a lawyer'.
> Matt's response to questions is that the questioners should hire a lawyer to figure out what Matt's own wording means.
Isn't the general rule that uncertainty in a contract is construed against the drafter? If you're deliberately refusing to clarify your own contract that seems like it could jeopardize the ability to enforce it at all.
Don't ask what that checkbox means. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788704
I mentioned it in another comment but worth repeating, I have no bones in this fight, so I don't really care either way and I disagree with the approach Matt is taking regardless.
But, the person you linked to don't seem to be discussing the whole thing in good faith, as exemplified with this comment:
> "ANY way means that if I visit the WPE website I cannot click that checkbox. That's not a speculation"
I'm pretty sure that no legal interpretation of that checkbox label would reach the same conclusion (but, I'm not a lawyer, and yadda yadda), and it is quite literally speculation unless that person actually investigated if it's true, which don't seem to have done.
So again, not disagreeing or agreeing with anything here, but there is a lot of baseless arguing back-and-forth between everyone, and people (including Matt) seem to more willing to stir the pot some more, rather than finding something that moves to solve the situation.
I'm pretty sure, given Matt's history of acting erratically and in a way that harms innocent people, that the questions asked were in good faith.
If no legal interpretation of that checkbox would reach that same conclusion, Matt would have just said that, rather than banning the questioner and leaving the question unanswered except for 'contact a lawyer'.
The best way to "solve" the situation would be Matt acknowledging he was in the wrong to harm innocent people, and simply remove the unnecessary checkbox. The only reason it exists is his personal crusade against WPEngine and anyone and anything associated with it "in any way".
Seeing the login window reminds me I have an unused wordpress.com account with 2 blogs... Well, "had", I just deleted them due to Matt's behavior.
Every step of the way Matt/Wordpress has really made the wrong decision in the worst way possible. He wants to have his cake (distribute free and open source software) and eat it to (force some companies to pay him money) which is completely incompatible.
I think that's not really taking into consideration the situation from Matt's side. I have no bone in this fight, and I agree it looks childish to act in this manner, but on the other hand, Matt seems convinced (for better or worse) that WP Engine tried to mislead Wordpress users, and tried to damage Wordpress in other ways.
I don't agree/disagree with it, but I don't read Matt's motivation as "I want more money" but more like "I want to defend this thing I've built that I feel like is being abused right now", even if I personally might not be able to see it in that light, or agree with the approach Matt is taking.
I think Matt is very clearly in the wrong here. He's trying to impose additional restrictions on GPL-licensed software. His incorrect perspective is of little value to me.
> Matt seems convinced (for better or worse) that WP Engine tried to mislead Wordpress users, and tried to damage Wordpress in other ways.
He's not.
> The analogy I made is they got Al Capone for taxes,” Mullenweg says. [...] Mullenweg argues one of the reasons for its success is the use of “WordPress” across its site. “That’s why we’re using that legal avenue to really, yeah, pressure them. That’s true: we are pressuring them.”
He wants WP Engine to pay/contribute (while requiring audits to ensure they're properly contributing), and is just using trademark claims as the instrument to force them to pay up.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-w...
Frankly, he and his mother[1] are the only people I know who confused WP Engine for what it’s. Also, if confusing hosting services and WordPress FOSS project were a real concern for him, the first step should be change the name of his own WordPress.com…
[1] https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/
But none of his actions are sensible if he just wants to defend it. He's done more damage than WP Engine ever did.
The argument that WP Engine is trying to mislead people is weak at best. We're seriously saying that talking about WordPress hosting was misleading? To whom? What about every other host that does this?
Also considering the current deliberately misleading state of .com/.org/Automattic/Matt/the foundation etc, I really think they could do a lot to lead by example there before going this unnecessarily nuclear to others. I don't believe it because the reaction is totally out of line with the issue.
> But none of his actions are sensible if he just wants to defend it. He's done more damage than WP Engine ever did.
Trying to see things from Matts perspective, it totally makes sense to go nuclear in order to defend what you see as your baby being under attack from a hostile for-profit entity.
I don't necessarily agree that the situation actually is "WP Engine is attacking Wordpress", but clearly Matt sees it like that, no matter if it's real or not, and it does make his actions understandable, even if I disagree with them, or how weak the argument is.
> Trying to see things from Matts perspective, it totally makes sense to go nuclear in order to defend what you see as your baby being under attack from a hostile for-profit entity.
Trying to see things from the perspective of the wordpress community, and not just 1 dude: wordpress is not his baby, it is the community's baby, and he is the hostile for-profit entity attacking it with things like this checkbox, cutting off over a million community members from security updates, etc.
tl;dr: nobody is saying Matt doesn't think he's always in the right (obviously he does), we're just pointing out that he isn't, and his actions hurt wordpress and the community.
There's a fine distinction to be made between "he thinks he's right" and "he thinks he can get away with it", which both would lead to the actions we now see
I think there is a historical pattern of same thing happening with PHP, when things like cake-php and other foo-php started gaining enough popularity to irk PHP core folks about it. Though I don't remember PHP doing an outright war against them like Matt/WP, I think they did alter their license and mention specifically to not use their name in the project in a way that associates them to PHP.
> I don’t want to pay an attorney hundreds of dollars an hour to determine if the new required login checkbox applies to me.
Seems like the right choice if not for now in the future, at this rate the petty childish behavior is looking to escalate further.
It's crazy how much this drama has seeped into every aspect of the WordPress ecosystem, and how Matt/Automattic have tried to make it everyone's concern by tying it into the .org site as well.
Should raise some serious worries about how 'independent' the foundation and open source project are compared to Automattic and WordPress.com. Wouldn't be surprised if people tried to fork the project at this rate.
well the foundation gave extensive trademark licensing to Automattic for free, so "independent" sounds like an awfully misplaced adjective in this case
This page is still up: https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/
Ironically, it's the second Google hit for "wpengine." Appears to be self written, but nonetheless, describes WP Engine as having "played an integral role in supporting the WordPress project." I would think at this point both sides would have wanted it removed.
looks like they increased their pledge from 40 to 45 hours!
The new checkbox that's required to log into WordPress.org:
> [ ] I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.
From the article I expected a link to very long terms, but this feels very on-brand for the pettiness of the whole drama so far.
I might be wrong, but I think that it might even be illegal in some countries like France.
Except for banks, business are not allowed to discriminate customers and refuse to serve equally everyone. Imagine like saying you are not allowed to take gas in a shell gas station if you are an employee of Exxon or something like that...
The legal disclaimer at the bottom is gold.
I dont fully understand this but it seems fucked. It sounds like a real job with all the real job issues and none of the pay. Actually antipay as it is an expensive hobby ... might as well snowboard.
Edit: some of that team seem sponsored so maybe I am wrong?
> It sounds like a real job with all the real job issues and none of the pay
I dunno, 5 hours per week without pay sounds like volunteering to me, not like a "real job".
Real job in terms of stress rather than time. 5h hacking on your.own thing != 5h contriburing to a big repo and doing something called "incident response"
But technically it is volunteering.
Yeah, I understand what you mean. I guess I'd define "real job" as "Trade your time for my/our money", and if you're not getting paid (now or in the future), you're in one way or another "volunteering", no matter how stressful it is, what area the work involves, or the size of the thing you're contributing to.
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> because I don’t want to pay an attorney hundreds of dollars an hour to determine if the new required login checkbox applies to me
Why would you need to do that? Just use your own judgment, what's the downside of getting this one wrong?
The reference is to this, where Matt has replied to a query about what constitutes "affiliation" by saying he could not answer that and the person should consult an attorney.
https://x.com/JavierCasares/status/1843963074904227945
Read that whole thread from the earlier tweets too. People are getting banned from the Slack channel for asking what the checkbox means. This isn't just drama from OP.
It's just over-the-top statements causing pointless drama.
No, it's not. Please see the tweets I linked from this comment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41790976
What's the downside? Who knows. Maybe a lawsuit. Don't ask. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41788704
I mean yeah, something like this was bound to happen. It'll be interesting to see what becomes of the WordPress ecosystem after the current crises is 'resolved'.
From my view, WordPress usage was definitely already in decline, but its status as an entrenched juggernaut kept it relevant. Perhaps bringing attention to everyone that quietly used WordPress means those people will start to look for alternatives?
Personally don't feel like it's going to shift much.
For devs who make a living off hosting/plugins/themes they might keep an eye on things but why move if the money is still coming in?
For users, I doubt much of them will ever know or care -- unless you're on WP engine.
Wordpress is still the most widely available, cheapest and easiest (for non-tech user) to customise software to make a website with.
Speaking as a user of wordpress (hosted on my own infrastructure, not theirs), this is an entertaining - if pathetic - fight between two entities that doesn’t really involve me.
What would change that, and make me more likely to abandon Wordpress (taking the money my business spends in that ecosystem with it), is if things start to happen, such as a login checkbox with potential legal implications, that gets in my way of using the thing that Wordpress wants me to use.
Whether or not that sentiment is shared across a larger subset of wordpress users I do not know, but I have a pretty strong spidey sense that this crusade is burning down the countryside it’s supposedly trying to save.
If I were a WP plugin developer / hosting provider I would be scared out of my buttocks and look for more reliable environments. If they do it to WP Engine, what stops them from doing it to me? Seems to me that it's just "Automattic doesn't have a problem with me" which might change at any time.
Good luck, which more reliable environments should that be? Every other system is too small, or has too much fractions.
My gut says there are sharks circling this issue waiting to pounce once this storm passes. They want to see it gutted so they can strip the carcass to the bone and try to extract rent from half the internet.
Enshittification comes for everything, eventually.
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> so many completely unnecessary small compatibility issues
All of the breaking changes were deprecated for years. More than enough time for people to get their shit together.
there's perefectly working stuff from php from over 20 years ago that only had to keep up with security patches
Unlike the Linux kernel ABI (and I think the JRE bytecode spec), PHP never made a "write once, run eternally" commitment.
And stuff from 20 years ago is likely to be riddled with bugs, not sure when exactly mysqli with prepared statements entered the field.
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According to Matt it's WP Engine's job to determine what WP.org counts 'affiliated' which is absurd.