8 ms·

WP Engine Reprieve

52 points by program 2y ago

ronsor 2y ago
This dispute continues to escalate and I can only conclude that both parties are acting like fools.
seriocomic 2y ago
I've found myself staring at this in-progress train-wreck of a spat in the past 24/48 hours. Honestly, the childish tone of @matt's posts on this, the silly C&D from WPE, all show real immaturity from people and companies that should know better.
- ncr100 2y ago
  A comment, power seem like a hell of a drug.
crabique 2y ago
How does one spin up a mirror of the entire WordPress.org registry, not to mention keeping up with plugin/theme updates that are uploaded there by the respective maintainers? Furthermore, does WordPress even support custom resource registries?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- benwills 2y ago
  If I understand correctly, this is the SVN repository for all public WordPress.org plugins: https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ If so, I'd imagine creating a mirror of the registry would start there.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    There's also https://themes.svn.wordpress.org https://themes.svn.wordpress.org. I started cloning them on my laptop, then realized I didn't have the free terabytes they likely would take.
- pluc 2y ago
  None of that is documented, if it's even supported at all. Beyond using network trickery to reverse-engineer API calls, I don't see how it can be expected that it should already be in place. Does Matt really want to risk creating alternative repositories and losing the central role wp.org is providing (yes, free of charge)? What about plugin authors who want to ensure their stuff is available on all WordPress hosts, what will they have to do to push to all stores? WPEngine acquired some pretty popular plugins (acf, deliciousbrains), it'd be a shame to see them exclusively available outside of the wordpress.org ecosystem as a retaliation.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > Beyond using network trickery to reverse-engineer API calls, I don't see how it can be expected that it should already be in place Don't worry, though, Matt has generously given them 72 whole hours to figure out exactly how to do it, and complete the whole mirroring process, too! Oh, he did that on a Friday afternoon, just before the weekend? Extra generous!
ericb 2y ago
At what point is snide, petulant, childish, vengeful or blackmail ever a good way to do business? Reading this, the last thing I'd want to do is ever be in business with this person. The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me. There are approaches where he could present the "low contributions" grievance, and even take some action on it, without seeming awful, but this isn't it. Even this "gesture," which could have been almost magnanimous, comes off as still awful because of the childish screed.
- throwaway89201 2y ago
  > The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me. That seems unwarranted. Both parties can be shitty. One for "snide, petulant" communication, and the other for being a private equity leech.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > for being a private equity leech Matt says that WPEngine doesn't contribute as much as he thinks they should (also, curious where he comes up with 8% of gross revenue as a licensing fee), but describing WPEngine as a "leech" is a little ... off. Just a few weeks ago WPEngine donated $75,000 to the Foundation for their conference. And then were booted from the conference. Didn't hear about the Foundation returning the donation though. And why were they booted from the conference? Because they are in dispute with wp.org (which remember, Matt, Automattic, insist wp.org is nothing to do with the Foundation, but a benevolent gift)? I don't know - Matt is the one who comes off shitty. I also like how you quoted snide and petulant as if disagreeing - you should perhaps read his text messages to WPEngine that amount effectively to extortion. There's precious few ways to read some of those and his other communications as NOT snide, petulant, or both.
    - throwaway89201 2y ago
      > Just a few weeks ago WPEngine donated $75,000 to the Foundation for their conference. Conferences are generally sponsored, and not merely donated to. I'm not at all familiar with Wordpress, the foundation or the company. If I look at the Foundation's financial report of 2023 [1] they expended $4,275,813 for their conferences, and got 88% of it covered by sponsorship – so there were a lot more or bigger sponsors. It doesn't seem that the development of Wordpress is covered by conference sponsorship. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any money going into the development of Wordpress at the foundation at all. So again, I don't know much about Wordpress, but a quick glance seems to imply that much of the 'official' development is going on at Automattic. [1] https://wordpressfoundation.org/about/financials/2023-financials/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/about/financials/2023-financ...
papichulo2023 2y ago
Why would they need a license agreement with wordpress.ORG? the trademarks are owned by the foundation as far as we know.
- SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
  I think it’s abundantly clear at this point that Mullenweg does not recognize an operational distinction between his roles as CEO of Automattic, founder of the WordPress foundation, and operator of WordPress.org.
ninjastar99 2y ago
Great work making the train-wreck worse, Matt. This whole situation is cringeworthy and makes me 100% dedicated to never trusting Matt or Wordpress with any important project, ever again.
- cr125rider 2y ago
  I mean… it’s also Wordpress. Terrible PHP from yesteryear, the Denny’s of software. You don’t choose Wordpress in 2024, you end up there.
deadfece 2y ago
This is not a good look, Matt.
cyral 2y ago
This is not going to end well for Matt. Remember the dispute is between WP Engine and Automattic, not the WordPress foundation (the .org). Blurring the lines between the foundation and his for-profit competitor to WP Engine (confusingly called WordPress.com) is not at all in the spirit of open source. Maybe he will be successful in his trademark claim, despite the foundation saying that using "WP" was okay for a decade, and then deciding to update the trademark terms to say it is confusing (again, ironic). His other claims about WP Engine not being "real wordpress" is one of the silliest arguments I've ever heard, considering his own competitor also disables features unless you pay. The feature he is upset about (post revisions being disabled), is literally a one line change in the config. Isn't the whole point of wordpress to be super customizable and moddable? It's one of the greatest strengths of the software, and it's open source, changing the defaults should be expected. Edit: Oh I forgot about the part where all of these posts are being published on the .org, so they appear in the dashboard of every wordpress install (including WP Engine, until they disabled the news). I'd love to hear from a lawyers perspective on how this sabotage gets into unfair competition and tortious interference. I think that is going to make the trademark thing more difficult to take to court, knowing that WP Engine probably has good grounds to countersue for actual damages at this point.
- foosantos 2y ago
  [dead]
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > not the WordPress foundation (the .org). Blurring the lines Hmm. Matt (and at least one employee of Automattic) says "wp.org has nothing to do with the foundation, it's run benevolently by Matt"... wp.org does live on the Foundation's IP space, though... Also, why does he feel that WP Engine should pay licensing fees to Automattic? Matt seems like he's far too comfortable with just picking and choosing whether he's acting on behalf of the Foundation, the .org site, Automattic (and the .com) completely interchangably depending on what his needs or messaging is to be (not to mention the fuzzy accounting that could easily be seen to be happening).
elashri 2y ago
The only conclusion that I can draw from all drama is that the legal and PR teams at those teo companies are not doing a good Job. Or that they are not given the chance to do their job.
mvellandi 2y ago
All this reminds me of a much more minor spat years ago when Matt got upset Chris Pearson made a configurable premium theme (Thesis) which controversially went against the GPL license. Matt then purchased the domain thesis.com and tried unsuccessfully to revoke Chris’ 3 trademarks related to the name and ‘diy themes’. In this current case, it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to ensure end customers don’t get unreasonably affected. But nonetheless, it certainly appears WP.org should at least be relationally more of an independent entity with a separate leadership, or at least appear to be so.
- ncr100 2y ago
  Or ... in 2022 when Mat called GoDaddy "Parasitic" and an "existential threat to [WordPress's] future." And then to argue at GoDaddy employees ... attempting to convince them they're working for a bad organization. All hovering around his presumption about the quantity and quality of GoDaddy's contribution back to WordPress, while GD simultaneously profits by being in the broader marketplace. * https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-...
- gamblor956 2y ago
  it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to ensure end customers don’t get unreasonably affected. No, WordPress' lawyers almost certainly told Matt he was committing tortious interference of contract, and opening up WordPress, Automattic, and himself to tens of millions in damages claims from WP Engine and their affected customers. Given his behavior in prior such tantrums, it's clear that the decision to be reasonable was not Matt's choice. It was an ultimatum given to him by others.
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > decision to be reasonable I'm not sure "We have given you 72 hours (starting on a Friday afternoon) to figure out how to mirror everything you need, and to have completed the mirroring process, and then the block is back. And updates? Sucks to be you." qualifies as "reasonable" in any sense of the word, though.
hiccuphippo 2y ago
Are other providers safe? How do I know they are not going to block other sites that offer Wordpress as a service? At least this will give me some leverage to tell management to move away from Wordpress.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
foosantos 2y ago
I'm so glad to see such a positive step in this conflict. It really shows how much Matt genuinely cares about the community and how he's willing to take the higher ground. WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist to WP.org, and Matt decided to keep providing the free service to them temporarily, prioritizing end users, even though it increases his costs for WP.org, and without WP Engine stepping back on the trademark infringements.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > I'm so glad to see such a positive step in this conflict. It really shows how much Matt genuinely cares about the community and how he's willing to take the higher ground. Yes. Saying "We have generously decided to give you 72 hours to figure out how to mirror all this content, actually mirror it, and then plug it in, before we reinstate a block affecting your end users again. Oh, yes, I do realize it's 3pm PT on Friday afternoon and the clock is ticking, no, not 3 business days, we're turning the block back on at 4pm PT on Monday afternoon" is entirely positive, empathetic to those users, and shows genuine care for the community... Or maybe not. > WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist to WP.org Despite you saying so in multiple places here, WPEngine did not fire the first shots in this shitshow.
brycelarkin 2y ago
I can see Matt’s point of view. Data transfer fees are expensive, especially at WordPress scale. Automattic probably covers a lot of that cost that wordpress.org is incurring and wants WP Engine to pay their fair share. WP Engine also seems to do some other “not in good faith” things such as change the woocommmerce Stripe attribution from wordpress.org to their own Stripe account. While the legal dispute is on trademark, I think it’s really on WP Engine profiting on wordpress.org without giving back. It’s not illegal, but blacklisting WP Engine isn’t illegal either. Automattic is essentially subsidizing a private equity backed company. I’d be upset and frustrated too if I was in Matt’s position. If you support WP Engine, you’re supporting Silver Lake Private Equity.
- itsdrewmiller 2y ago
  This position rests pretty heavily on the idea that Wordpress.com is subsidizing wordpress.org, which is a charitable foundation that accepts donations. Do you have any specific reason to believe this is true? I don’t recall seeing that complaint directly here but maybe I missed it.
  - brycelarkin 2y ago
    A quick look at the Automattic site (https://automattic.com/about/ https://automattic.com/about/) says they dedicate 5% of company time to WP open source. Their GitHub has over 1000 repos, likely all WP related. https://github.com/Automattic https://github.com/Automattic I don’t doubt Automattic is not putting in their fair share into the WP community.
    - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
      When I say subsidizing I mean financially subsidizing (i.e. paying for wordpress.org bandwidth costs) - that's the only way the comment makes sense, and I am not inclined to believe it to be true without evidence. As the other response notes though wordpress.org isn't even the foundation apparently, so is wordpress.com subsidizing wordpress.org? Have they asked WPEngine to cover their costs?
  - 2y ago
pluc 2y ago
Goddamn, that's embarrassing.
walkingmiller 2y ago
"Remember the dispute is between WP Engine and Automattic, not the WordPress foundation (the .org)." While you can disagree with Matt's approach, it actually feels like this dispute is more between WP Engine and the WordPress project than it is between WP Engine and Automattic. WP Engine not contributing to the project hurts Automattic a little, but the largest, most profitable companies in the WordPress ecosystem not contributing to the project are an existential threat to the sustainability of the Open Source project. Companies will always optimize for profits, and contributing to an Open-Source project is only profitable when you are in it for the long run. And we all know that PE firms (which play an important role in our economy) are not in the game for long-term gains. Silver Lake is doing what they are meant to do — maximize profits in the short-term so that they can turn around and sell WP Engine for as much as possible. Matt is using the leverage he has to ensure Silver Lake is forced to do something that is good for the WordPress project but will never happen because it cuts into WP Engine's P&L.
- appendix-rock 2y ago
  If Matt wants those to be the terms under which WordPress can be used commercially, put it in the license. Oh. Wait. He can’t. Because that’s not his call.
  - walkingmiller 2y ago
    I think that is at least an approximation of what he is trying to do with the trademark issue. If you want to use the trademark, you have to contribute to the success of the project. There are plenty of Open Source projects that billion-dollar companies completely rely on without contributing back, and this situation puts those projects and companies at risk. An imperfect analogy might be what happened with the XZ Utils backdoor in Linux. The person maintaining the utility seemed overwhelmed, so he was pressured into accepting malicious actors as maintainers. They were able to introduce a backdoor into the utility. If more of these companies would have contributed to help with the maintenance and development of the utility, this would not have been possible. If WP Engine starts contributing 5% of their revenue to the WordPress project, it helps protect the project that their entire business is built around. So I think the questions really should be, "Why does Matt feel like this was necessary in the first place? Why wasn't WP Engine contributing more than 40 hours a week to the project?"
angoragoats 2y ago
Not sure if Matt ever reads HN, but in case he does I’d like him to know that I will never use or recommend Wordpress again as a result of all of this garbage. I hope the internet at large can move to something else and WP can eventually be consigned to the dustbin of history.
- photomatt 2y ago
  I do read! And I hope you consider WordPress for something in the future and don't let a PE firm's bad behavior forcing us into a public fight cloud your user experience.
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    You were not forced into anything. You chose to take these actions. Furthermore, you stealthily edited your trademark policy to make it appear as if the name "WP Engine" was violating it, when in fact you specifically called out (with no caveats) that the "WP" initials were okay to use for a decade. This demonstrates bad faith on your part. If your company is harmed from these actions, then the blame will be squarely on your shoulders, and I hope your board of directors does the right thing and fires you. Edit: To be crystal clear, and to address the rest of your comment directly, the only way I would consider Wordpress for anything of my own or recommend it to my clients at any point in the future is if you issued an unconditional apology and resigned from your position.
    - photomatt 2y ago
      The problem isn't their use of WP, it's their use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
      - angoragoats 2y ago
        I never said that was THE problem, I was simply using it to show that Automattic is acting in bad faith. Besides, that’s BS and if you don’t already know it you need to speak with a competent attorney. Trademarks must be defended in a timely manner to be maintained, and they’ve been using those terms for years. That ship has sailed. Stop digging yourself a deeper hole and start thinking about what you can do to repair the goodwill you’re burning.
_q6hy 2y ago
Automattic auto-rejects applications to sign up to their Jetpack WordPress plugin's non-commercial free tier if your blog has so much as a single contact link[1]. This behavior feels greedy in my opinion, and may reflect on other behaviors expressed by Automattic. 1. https://wordpress.org/support/topic/non-commercial-license-application-denial-appeal/ https://wordpress.org/support/topic/non-commercial-license-a...
- timeon 2y ago
  From the link: > escalate my concerns to management staff On one side automatic algorithms are often unreasonably unfair but entitlement of that user for free service seems pretty strange.
gamblor956 2y ago
Matt's behavior is the reason I stopped making plugins for WordPress years ago and went into law. Not surprised to see more of the same from him, and this farce that WordPress is granting WP Engine a "reprieve" when it's really the case that WordPress is doing this to avoid a lawsuit that would result in the loss of its nonprofit status. WordPress is run primarily for the benefit of Matt. The IRS regards that as "private inurement" and it has bad consequences for both the organizations at the individual(s) receiving those benefits.
ChocolateGod 2y ago
Surely there someone in Automattics other 1,881 employees (Wikipedia) willing to point out how self childish this looks for Wordpress.
mtlynch 2y ago
What's outlandish about this situation is that Matt blocked WP Engine customers, not WPEngine itself. It would be one thing if WPEngine had an API key so that customers on its servers could access wordpress.org. Even then, it would be a slimy move to cut off access by surprise as part of this dispute rather than offering 30 days to migrate away. But Matt is offering this free service to the world to encourage growth of WordPress, and now that he's in this dispute with WPE, he's acting as if WPE is a client who's not paying. Meanwhile, Matt designed WordPress so that it takes a hard dependency on wordpress.org and doesn't make plugin servers configurable. If it's such a burden on Matt to serve traffic to WPE customers, why is there zero support for mirroring the repository or pointing WordPress instances at third-party mirrors?
- photomatt 2y ago
  Today, I offered them a reprieve: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - angoragoats 2y ago
    You are commenting on the HN thread for this very blog post. Do you think the person you're replying to doesn't know that you offered a "reprieve"? Why are you not actually answering any questions asked here?
- vbtechguy 2y ago
  There are repos that folks can mirror https://core.svn.wordpress.org/ https://core.svn.wordpress.org/ https://themes.svn.wordpress.org/ https://themes.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ but rest if the infrastructure is needed https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/s/bU4EzLozho https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/s/bU4EzLozho
appendix-rock 2y ago
Hopefully this aides WordPress’s slow but definite walk toward irrelevance. Maybe what we end up with will have proper governance instead of what can only be described as a deranged child at the helm.
photomatt 2y ago
Happy to answer any questions HN folks have about this. Love y'all. :)
- slyall 2y ago
  Matt, you currently have three roles. You are running Automattic, the WordPress Foundation and wordpress.org. It seems that this is a huge conflict of Interest and a dispute with one seems to quickly become a dispute with all. eg a Trademark dispute with The Wordpress Foundation results in a ban from wordpress.org. Will you be resigning from one or more of these roles?
  - photomatt 2y ago
    No, I will continue to serve in all of those roles.
    - bdzr 2y ago
      So why should someone use WordPress, knowing one person with enormous conflicts of interest determines which companies are allowed to host it?
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
    - slyall 2y ago
      A pity. But I guess people now know that wordpress.org and The Wordpress Foundation are subordinate to the aims and profits of Automattic and yourself.
    - 3np 2y ago
      You want to make your pick while you seemingly still have options open, unless you'd rather go down with the ship. You've proven yourself to be too much of a central point of failure and the longer this position is maintained, the more risk-conscious customers will feel forced to start thinking about their options.
InsomniacL 2y ago
This guy is an utter tyrant. > It saddens me that they’ve been negatively impacted by Silver Lake‘s commercial decisions. He blocked IPs with no warning, that's why they're impacted. > WP Engine was well aware that we could remove access He doesn't say ~"we warned them we could could remove access" and speaks that volumes. > Heather Brunner, Lee Wittlinger, and their Board chose to take this risk. I very much doubt they choose to take this risk. > We have lifted the blocks of their servers from accessing ours, until October 1, UTC 00:00. The timing of this is designed to have maximum impact on WordPress users hosting on WP Engine. They now have to work the weekend to update their site and this tyrant can say he restored access just long enough to negate any security impact.
zoodologist 2y ago
This is messed up at another level. Never thought there would be so much anger and abuse in this space. Matt Mullenweg needs to be removed or something else needs to change for the community to survive.
weirdindiankid 2y ago
This is an unfortunate situation. While WP Engine could have been a better actor here, the way Automattic have gone about this has made things vastly worse for everyone using Wordpress. As an aside, I’m curious if Wordpress.org are bound to allow WP Engine access to their plugin SVN under some sort of estoppel theory in U.S. law? 72 hours seems like it’d be too short notice for WP Engine to mirror everything, no?

52 points by program 2y ago

This dispute continues to escalate and I can only conclude that both parties are acting like fools.

I've found myself staring at this in-progress train-wreck of a spat in the past 24/48 hours. Honestly, the childish tone of @matt's posts on this, the silly C&D from WPE, all show real immaturity from people and companies that should know better.

ncr100 2y ago
A comment, power seem like a hell of a drug.

crabique 2y ago

How does one spin up a mirror of the entire WordPress.org registry, not to mention keeping up with plugin/theme updates that are uploaded there by the respective maintainers? Furthermore, does WordPress even support custom resource registries?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
benwills 2y ago
If I understand correctly, this is the SVN repository for all public WordPress.org plugins: https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ If so, I'd imagine creating a mirror of the registry would start there.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  There's also https://themes.svn.wordpress.org https://themes.svn.wordpress.org. I started cloning them on my laptop, then realized I didn't have the free terabytes they likely would take.
pluc 2y ago
None of that is documented, if it's even supported at all. Beyond using network trickery to reverse-engineer API calls, I don't see how it can be expected that it should already be in place. Does Matt really want to risk creating alternative repositories and losing the central role wp.org is providing (yes, free of charge)? What about plugin authors who want to ensure their stuff is available on all WordPress hosts, what will they have to do to push to all stores? WPEngine acquired some pretty popular plugins (acf, deliciousbrains), it'd be a shame to see them exclusively available outside of the wordpress.org ecosystem as a retaliation.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > Beyond using network trickery to reverse-engineer API calls, I don't see how it can be expected that it should already be in place Don't worry, though, Matt has generously given them 72 whole hours to figure out exactly how to do it, and complete the whole mirroring process, too! Oh, he did that on a Friday afternoon, just before the weekend? Extra generous!

ericb 2y ago

At what point is snide, petulant, childish, vengeful or blackmail ever a good way to do business? Reading this, the last thing I'd want to do is ever be in business with this person. The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me. There are approaches where he could present the "low contributions" grievance, and even take some action on it, without seeming awful, but this isn't it. Even this "gesture," which could have been almost magnanimous, comes off as still awful because of the childish screed.

throwaway89201 2y ago
> The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me. That seems unwarranted. Both parties can be shitty. One for "snide, petulant" communication, and the other for being a private equity leech.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > for being a private equity leech Matt says that WPEngine doesn't contribute as much as he thinks they should (also, curious where he comes up with 8% of gross revenue as a licensing fee), but describing WPEngine as a "leech" is a little ... off. Just a few weeks ago WPEngine donated $75,000 to the Foundation for their conference. And then were booted from the conference. Didn't hear about the Foundation returning the donation though. And why were they booted from the conference? Because they are in dispute with wp.org (which remember, Matt, Automattic, insist wp.org is nothing to do with the Foundation, but a benevolent gift)? I don't know - Matt is the one who comes off shitty. I also like how you quoted snide and petulant as if disagreeing - you should perhaps read his text messages to WPEngine that amount effectively to extortion. There's precious few ways to read some of those and his other communications as NOT snide, petulant, or both.
  - throwaway89201 2y ago
    > Just a few weeks ago WPEngine donated $75,000 to the Foundation for their conference. Conferences are generally sponsored, and not merely donated to. I'm not at all familiar with Wordpress, the foundation or the company. If I look at the Foundation's financial report of 2023 [1] they expended $4,275,813 for their conferences, and got 88% of it covered by sponsorship – so there were a lot more or bigger sponsors. It doesn't seem that the development of Wordpress is covered by conference sponsorship. In fact, there doesn't seem to be any money going into the development of Wordpress at the foundation at all. So again, I don't know much about Wordpress, but a quick glance seems to imply that much of the 'official' development is going on at Automattic. [1] https://wordpressfoundation.org/about/financials/2023-financials/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/about/financials/2023-financ...

papichulo2023 2y ago

Why would they need a license agreement with wordpress.ORG? the trademarks are owned by the foundation as far as we know.

SpicyLemonZest 2y ago
I think it’s abundantly clear at this point that Mullenweg does not recognize an operational distinction between his roles as CEO of Automattic, founder of the WordPress foundation, and operator of WordPress.org.

ninjastar99 2y ago

Great work making the train-wreck worse, Matt. This whole situation is cringeworthy and makes me 100% dedicated to never trusting Matt or Wordpress with any important project, ever again.

cr125rider 2y ago
I mean… it’s also Wordpress. Terrible PHP from yesteryear, the Denny’s of software. You don’t choose Wordpress in 2024, you end up there.

deadfece 2y ago

This is not a good look, Matt.

cyral 2y ago

This is not going to end well for Matt. Remember the dispute is between WP Engine and Automattic, not the WordPress foundation (the .org). Blurring the lines between the foundation and his for-profit competitor to WP Engine (confusingly called WordPress.com) is not at all in the spirit of open source. Maybe he will be successful in his trademark claim, despite the foundation saying that using "WP" was okay for a decade, and then deciding to update the trademark terms to say it is confusing (again, ironic). His other claims about WP Engine not being "real wordpress" is one of the silliest arguments I've ever heard, considering his own competitor also disables features unless you pay. The feature he is upset about (post revisions being disabled), is literally a one line change in the config. Isn't the whole point of wordpress to be super customizable and moddable? It's one of the greatest strengths of the software, and it's open source, changing the defaults should be expected. Edit: Oh I forgot about the part where all of these posts are being published on the .org, so they appear in the dashboard of every wordpress install (including WP Engine, until they disabled the news). I'd love to hear from a lawyers perspective on how this sabotage gets into unfair competition and tortious interference. I think that is going to make the trademark thing more difficult to take to court, knowing that WP Engine probably has good grounds to countersue for actual damages at this point.

foosantos 2y ago
[dead]
FireBeyond 2y ago
> not the WordPress foundation (the .org). Blurring the lines Hmm. Matt (and at least one employee of Automattic) says "wp.org has nothing to do with the foundation, it's run benevolently by Matt"... wp.org does live on the Foundation's IP space, though... Also, why does he feel that WP Engine should pay licensing fees to Automattic? Matt seems like he's far too comfortable with just picking and choosing whether he's acting on behalf of the Foundation, the .org site, Automattic (and the .com) completely interchangably depending on what his needs or messaging is to be (not to mention the fuzzy accounting that could easily be seen to be happening).

elashri 2y ago

The only conclusion that I can draw from all drama is that the legal and PR teams at those teo companies are not doing a good Job. Or that they are not given the chance to do their job.

mvellandi 2y ago

All this reminds me of a much more minor spat years ago when Matt got upset Chris Pearson made a configurable premium theme (Thesis) which controversially went against the GPL license. Matt then purchased the domain thesis.com and tried unsuccessfully to revoke Chris’ 3 trademarks related to the name and ‘diy themes’. In this current case, it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to ensure end customers don’t get unreasonably affected. But nonetheless, it certainly appears WP.org should at least be relationally more of an independent entity with a separate leadership, or at least appear to be so.

ncr100 2y ago
Or ... in 2022 when Mat called GoDaddy "Parasitic" and an "existential threat to [WordPress's] future." And then to argue at GoDaddy employees ... attempting to convince them they're working for a bad organization. All hovering around his presumption about the quantity and quality of GoDaddy's contribution back to WordPress, while GD simultaneously profits by being in the broader marketplace. * https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-...
gamblor956 2y ago
it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to ensure end customers don’t get unreasonably affected. No, WordPress' lawyers almost certainly told Matt he was committing tortious interference of contract, and opening up WordPress, Automattic, and himself to tens of millions in damages claims from WP Engine and their affected customers. Given his behavior in prior such tantrums, it's clear that the decision to be reasonable was not Matt's choice. It was an ultimatum given to him by others.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > decision to be reasonable I'm not sure "We have given you 72 hours (starting on a Friday afternoon) to figure out how to mirror everything you need, and to have completed the mirroring process, and then the block is back. And updates? Sucks to be you." qualifies as "reasonable" in any sense of the word, though.

hiccuphippo 2y ago

Are other providers safe? How do I know they are not going to block other sites that offer Wordpress as a service? At least this will give me some leverage to tell management to move away from Wordpress.

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foosantos 2y ago

I'm so glad to see such a positive step in this conflict. It really shows how much Matt genuinely cares about the community and how he's willing to take the higher ground. WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist to WP.org, and Matt decided to keep providing the free service to them temporarily, prioritizing end users, even though it increases his costs for WP.org, and without WP Engine stepping back on the trademark infringements.

FireBeyond 2y ago
> I'm so glad to see such a positive step in this conflict. It really shows how much Matt genuinely cares about the community and how he's willing to take the higher ground. Yes. Saying "We have generously decided to give you 72 hours to figure out how to mirror all this content, actually mirror it, and then plug it in, before we reinstate a block affecting your end users again. Oh, yes, I do realize it's 3pm PT on Friday afternoon and the clock is ticking, no, not 3 business days, we're turning the block back on at 4pm PT on Monday afternoon" is entirely positive, empathetic to those users, and shows genuine care for the community... Or maybe not. > WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist to WP.org Despite you saying so in multiple places here, WPEngine did not fire the first shots in this shitshow.

brycelarkin 2y ago

I can see Matt’s point of view. Data transfer fees are expensive, especially at WordPress scale. Automattic probably covers a lot of that cost that wordpress.org is incurring and wants WP Engine to pay their fair share. WP Engine also seems to do some other “not in good faith” things such as change the woocommmerce Stripe attribution from wordpress.org to their own Stripe account. While the legal dispute is on trademark, I think it’s really on WP Engine profiting on wordpress.org without giving back. It’s not illegal, but blacklisting WP Engine isn’t illegal either. Automattic is essentially subsidizing a private equity backed company. I’d be upset and frustrated too if I was in Matt’s position. If you support WP Engine, you’re supporting Silver Lake Private Equity.

itsdrewmiller 2y ago
This position rests pretty heavily on the idea that Wordpress.com is subsidizing wordpress.org, which is a charitable foundation that accepts donations. Do you have any specific reason to believe this is true? I don’t recall seeing that complaint directly here but maybe I missed it.
- brycelarkin 2y ago
  A quick look at the Automattic site (https://automattic.com/about/ https://automattic.com/about/) says they dedicate 5% of company time to WP open source. Their GitHub has over 1000 repos, likely all WP related. https://github.com/Automattic https://github.com/Automattic I don’t doubt Automattic is not putting in their fair share into the WP community.
  - itsdrewmiller 2y ago
    When I say subsidizing I mean financially subsidizing (i.e. paying for wordpress.org bandwidth costs) - that's the only way the comment makes sense, and I am not inclined to believe it to be true without evidence. As the other response notes though wordpress.org isn't even the foundation apparently, so is wordpress.com subsidizing wordpress.org? Have they asked WPEngine to cover their costs?
- 2y ago

pluc 2y ago

Goddamn, that's embarrassing.

walkingmiller 2y ago

"Remember the dispute is between WP Engine and Automattic, not the WordPress foundation (the .org)." While you can disagree with Matt's approach, it actually feels like this dispute is more between WP Engine and the WordPress project than it is between WP Engine and Automattic. WP Engine not contributing to the project hurts Automattic a little, but the largest, most profitable companies in the WordPress ecosystem not contributing to the project are an existential threat to the sustainability of the Open Source project. Companies will always optimize for profits, and contributing to an Open-Source project is only profitable when you are in it for the long run. And we all know that PE firms (which play an important role in our economy) are not in the game for long-term gains. Silver Lake is doing what they are meant to do — maximize profits in the short-term so that they can turn around and sell WP Engine for as much as possible. Matt is using the leverage he has to ensure Silver Lake is forced to do something that is good for the WordPress project but will never happen because it cuts into WP Engine's P&L.

appendix-rock 2y ago
If Matt wants those to be the terms under which WordPress can be used commercially, put it in the license. Oh. Wait. He can’t. Because that’s not his call.
- walkingmiller 2y ago
  I think that is at least an approximation of what he is trying to do with the trademark issue. If you want to use the trademark, you have to contribute to the success of the project. There are plenty of Open Source projects that billion-dollar companies completely rely on without contributing back, and this situation puts those projects and companies at risk. An imperfect analogy might be what happened with the XZ Utils backdoor in Linux. The person maintaining the utility seemed overwhelmed, so he was pressured into accepting malicious actors as maintainers. They were able to introduce a backdoor into the utility. If more of these companies would have contributed to help with the maintenance and development of the utility, this would not have been possible. If WP Engine starts contributing 5% of their revenue to the WordPress project, it helps protect the project that their entire business is built around. So I think the questions really should be, "Why does Matt feel like this was necessary in the first place? Why wasn't WP Engine contributing more than 40 hours a week to the project?"

angoragoats 2y ago

Not sure if Matt ever reads HN, but in case he does I’d like him to know that I will never use or recommend Wordpress again as a result of all of this garbage. I hope the internet at large can move to something else and WP can eventually be consigned to the dustbin of history.

photomatt 2y ago
I do read! And I hope you consider WordPress for something in the future and don't let a PE firm's bad behavior forcing us into a public fight cloud your user experience.
- angoragoats 2y ago
  You were not forced into anything. You chose to take these actions. Furthermore, you stealthily edited your trademark policy to make it appear as if the name "WP Engine" was violating it, when in fact you specifically called out (with no caveats) that the "WP" initials were okay to use for a decade. This demonstrates bad faith on your part. If your company is harmed from these actions, then the blame will be squarely on your shoulders, and I hope your board of directors does the right thing and fires you. Edit: To be crystal clear, and to address the rest of your comment directly, the only way I would consider Wordpress for anything of my own or recommend it to my clients at any point in the future is if you issued an unconditional apology and resigned from your position.
  - photomatt 2y ago
    The problem isn't their use of WP, it's their use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.
    - angoragoats 2y ago
      I never said that was THE problem, I was simply using it to show that Automattic is acting in bad faith. Besides, that’s BS and if you don’t already know it you need to speak with a competent attorney. Trademarks must be defended in a timely manner to be maintained, and they’ve been using those terms for years. That ship has sailed. Stop digging yourself a deeper hole and start thinking about what you can do to repair the goodwill you’re burning.

_q6hy 2y ago

Automattic auto-rejects applications to sign up to their Jetpack WordPress plugin's non-commercial free tier if your blog has so much as a single contact link[1]. This behavior feels greedy in my opinion, and may reflect on other behaviors expressed by Automattic. 1. https://wordpress.org/support/topic/non-commercial-license-application-denial-appeal/ https://wordpress.org/support/topic/non-commercial-license-a...

timeon 2y ago
From the link: > escalate my concerns to management staff On one side automatic algorithms are often unreasonably unfair but entitlement of that user for free service seems pretty strange.

gamblor956 2y ago

Matt's behavior is the reason I stopped making plugins for WordPress years ago and went into law. Not surprised to see more of the same from him, and this farce that WordPress is granting WP Engine a "reprieve" when it's really the case that WordPress is doing this to avoid a lawsuit that would result in the loss of its nonprofit status. WordPress is run primarily for the benefit of Matt. The IRS regards that as "private inurement" and it has bad consequences for both the organizations at the individual(s) receiving those benefits.

ChocolateGod 2y ago

Surely there someone in Automattics other 1,881 employees (Wikipedia) willing to point out how self childish this looks for Wordpress.

mtlynch 2y ago

What's outlandish about this situation is that Matt blocked WP Engine customers, not WPEngine itself. It would be one thing if WPEngine had an API key so that customers on its servers could access wordpress.org. Even then, it would be a slimy move to cut off access by surprise as part of this dispute rather than offering 30 days to migrate away. But Matt is offering this free service to the world to encourage growth of WordPress, and now that he's in this dispute with WPE, he's acting as if WPE is a client who's not paying. Meanwhile, Matt designed WordPress so that it takes a hard dependency on wordpress.org and doesn't make plugin servers configurable. If it's such a burden on Matt to serve traffic to WPE customers, why is there zero support for mirroring the repository or pointing WordPress instances at third-party mirrors?

photomatt 2y ago
Today, I offered them a reprieve: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-reprieve/
- deleted 2y ago
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- angoragoats 2y ago
  You are commenting on the HN thread for this very blog post. Do you think the person you're replying to doesn't know that you offered a "reprieve"? Why are you not actually answering any questions asked here?
vbtechguy 2y ago
There are repos that folks can mirror https://core.svn.wordpress.org/ https://core.svn.wordpress.org/ https://themes.svn.wordpress.org/ https://themes.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/ but rest if the infrastructure is needed https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/s/bU4EzLozho https://www.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/s/bU4EzLozho

appendix-rock 2y ago

Hopefully this aides WordPress’s slow but definite walk toward irrelevance. Maybe what we end up with will have proper governance instead of what can only be described as a deranged child at the helm.

photomatt 2y ago

Happy to answer any questions HN folks have about this. Love y'all. :)

slyall 2y ago
Matt, you currently have three roles. You are running Automattic, the WordPress Foundation and wordpress.org. It seems that this is a huge conflict of Interest and a dispute with one seems to quickly become a dispute with all. eg a Trademark dispute with The Wordpress Foundation results in a ban from wordpress.org. Will you be resigning from one or more of these roles?
- photomatt 2y ago
  No, I will continue to serve in all of those roles.
  - bdzr 2y ago
    So why should someone use WordPress, knowing one person with enormous conflicts of interest determines which companies are allowed to host it?
    - deleted 2y ago
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  - slyall 2y ago
    A pity. But I guess people now know that wordpress.org and The Wordpress Foundation are subordinate to the aims and profits of Automattic and yourself.
  - 3np 2y ago
    You want to make your pick while you seemingly still have options open, unless you'd rather go down with the ship. You've proven yourself to be too much of a central point of failure and the longer this position is maintained, the more risk-conscious customers will feel forced to start thinking about their options.

InsomniacL 2y ago

This guy is an utter tyrant. > It saddens me that they’ve been negatively impacted by Silver Lake‘s commercial decisions. He blocked IPs with no warning, that's why they're impacted. > WP Engine was well aware that we could remove access He doesn't say ~"we warned them we could could remove access" and speaks that volumes. > Heather Brunner, Lee Wittlinger, and their Board chose to take this risk. I very much doubt they choose to take this risk. > We have lifted the blocks of their servers from accessing ours, until October 1, UTC 00:00. The timing of this is designed to have maximum impact on WordPress users hosting on WP Engine. They now have to work the weekend to update their site and this tyrant can say he restored access just long enough to negate any security impact.

zoodologist 2y ago

This is messed up at another level. Never thought there would be so much anger and abuse in this space. Matt Mullenweg needs to be removed or something else needs to change for the community to survive.

weirdindiankid 2y ago

This is an unfortunate situation. While WP Engine could have been a better actor here, the way Automattic have gone about this has made things vastly worse for everyone using Wordpress. As an aside, I’m curious if Wordpress.org are bound to allow WP Engine access to their plugin SVN under some sort of estoppel theory in U.S. law? 72 hours seems like it’d be too short notice for WP Engine to mirror everything, no?