13 ms·

That's what going "nuclear" looks like ... I guess Mullenweg found out. Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 milli

That's what going "nuclear" looks like ... I guess Mullenweg found out. Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers.

csa 2y ago
> Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers. I think both sides more or less see this as a case of standing up against a bully — they may lose out in the short run (in terms of money), but they think that they will discourage future bullying by fighting back. I’m not sure if either side is right, but that’s why they both drew a line in the sand, imho.
- dmix 2y ago
  Ignoring the executive drama (on both sides) it is in bad taste to build WPEngine off an Open Source project and barely contribute back to it. It's probably a case where their version is so heavily customized they don't spend much time on the fundamentals. But still. I wonder if that had a petty rationale as well. Relationships are important in business.
  - initplus 2y ago
    Harder to justify contributing back when the open source project is so tightly coupled to your biggest for profit competitor.
  - busterarm 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - onli 2y ago
      HN isn't one person. There was always a lot of criticism of those closed source licenses. See for example the thread when Redis fell, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562
    - immibis 2y ago
      WPEngine contributed a lot to WordPress. It was, in fact, one of the biggest sponsors of the conference it was just banned from participating in. It also wrote the most popular plugin. When Matt says "contribute" he means monetarily. Probably (speculation) because his company is about to be bankrupt without finding a way to get more money.
    - echelon 2y ago
      Matt shouldn't have made his thing "open source" [1], just like Elastic and other vendors shouldn't have allowed Amazon to set up shop and steal their work. Unrelated organizations coming in, soaking up all the profit, and not contributing back is horrible. "Open source" needs to be amended to prevent this. Something like MAU, MRR, or market% seems like a healthy way to limit big time corporations from taking over. [1] Hindsight is 20/20.
      - Kye 2y ago
        He had no choice. It was a fork of b2.
anonylizard 2y ago
Automattic requested well over $10 million annually from WP Engine, so WP engine would find a lawyer battle cheaper.
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  To go to Matt’s for profit entity, for his for profit entity to direct as they wish. “I demand you give resources to your for profit competitor for them to use as they wish. And I’ll pretend to be wearing my non-profit, independent hat while demanding it.” Is it any surprise this has gone the way it has?
  - sroussey 2y ago
    OR to the non-profit entity.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - lolinder 2y ago
      The term sheet is here [0], the money option offered was only to Automattic. The other choice was 8% of developer time to WordPress itself, which is arguably under the control of the non-profit, but no one is quite sure at this point what the distinction between the two even is. [0] https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet-wp-engine-inc.-automattic-trademark-license_09.19.2024-1.pdf https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet...
  - joeyoungblood 2y ago
    And they demanded full auditing while also making them agree to not fork GPL licensed software. No CEO with even the most basic of business educations would sign this agreement. It's a total farse, he's trying to shut the company down and either doing so for his own benefit or for the benefit of his buddies at Newfold or Blackrock.
photomatt 2y ago
Silver Lake and WPE's legal attacks may impact my ability to provide free services on WordPress.org in the future, especially things like Slack or forums that are grounds for discovery. I hope not, though. Going to fight this with everything I have.
- lolinder 2y ago
  > Going to fight this with everything I have. Your chance to do that was before you threw a grenade into the WordPress ecosystem and injured hundreds of thousands of innocent WordPress developers over a {trademark|giving back|general bad vibes} dispute. No one here is buying your attempts to pawn responsibility for your actions off onto WP Engine. They may have legitimately been the bad guys until a month ago, but you've thoroughly stepped into that role now and you're making no effort to step back.
  - metamichael 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - lolinder 2y ago
      I'm not going to engage with brand new accounts on this thread. It's nothing personal, but there are way too many of them posting here and it's too hard to distinguish sincere questions from sock puppets. If you're legitimately new to HN, welcome! I hope to see you around engaging with other topics.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- aimazon 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - photomatt 2y ago
    Thanks, I carry a co2 and carbon monoxide monitor. Co2 where I'm at is 572. I do own a place in Montana, and I meditate several times a day. I have not threatened to take down WordPress.org. WPE's preservation requests do complicate things, legally, though, for the Slack and forums that W.org offers. Both Cloudflare and Fastly have reached out offering CDN services to W.org, which we're considering. Cloudflare also serves a lot of WP Engine. We do like controlling our infrastructure, though, for a variety of reasons, and have run it without problems or downtime for 21 years. Currently the only outside vendor we use is Slack/Salesforce, which donates free Slack Pro accounts for 49k users. (I think that would cost ~5M/yr.) We also use some Github, which is free for open source.

That's what going "nuclear" looks like ... I guess Mullenweg found out. Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers.

csa 2y ago

> Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers. I think both sides more or less see this as a case of standing up against a bully — they may lose out in the short run (in terms of money), but they think that they will discourage future bullying by fighting back. I’m not sure if either side is right, but that’s why they both drew a line in the sand, imho.

dmix 2y ago
Ignoring the executive drama (on both sides) it is in bad taste to build WPEngine off an Open Source project and barely contribute back to it. It's probably a case where their version is so heavily customized they don't spend much time on the fundamentals. But still. I wonder if that had a petty rationale as well. Relationships are important in business.
- initplus 2y ago
  Harder to justify contributing back when the open source project is so tightly coupled to your biggest for profit competitor.
- busterarm 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - onli 2y ago
    HN isn't one person. There was always a lot of criticism of those closed source licenses. See for example the thread when Redis fell, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39772562
  - immibis 2y ago
    WPEngine contributed a lot to WordPress. It was, in fact, one of the biggest sponsors of the conference it was just banned from participating in. It also wrote the most popular plugin. When Matt says "contribute" he means monetarily. Probably (speculation) because his company is about to be bankrupt without finding a way to get more money.
  - echelon 2y ago
    Matt shouldn't have made his thing "open source" [1], just like Elastic and other vendors shouldn't have allowed Amazon to set up shop and steal their work. Unrelated organizations coming in, soaking up all the profit, and not contributing back is horrible. "Open source" needs to be amended to prevent this. Something like MAU, MRR, or market% seems like a healthy way to limit big time corporations from taking over. [1] Hindsight is 20/20.
    - Kye 2y ago
      He had no choice. It was a fork of b2.

anonylizard 2y ago

Automattic requested well over $10 million annually from WP Engine, so WP engine would find a lawyer battle cheaper.

FireBeyond 2y ago
To go to Matt’s for profit entity, for his for profit entity to direct as they wish. “I demand you give resources to your for profit competitor for them to use as they wish. And I’ll pretend to be wearing my non-profit, independent hat while demanding it.” Is it any surprise this has gone the way it has?
- sroussey 2y ago
  OR to the non-profit entity.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - lolinder 2y ago
    The term sheet is here [0], the money option offered was only to Automattic. The other choice was 8% of developer time to WordPress itself, which is arguably under the control of the non-profit, but no one is quite sure at this point what the distinction between the two even is. [0] https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet-wp-engine-inc.-automattic-trademark-license_09.19.2024-1.pdf https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet...
- joeyoungblood 2y ago
  And they demanded full auditing while also making them agree to not fork GPL licensed software. No CEO with even the most basic of business educations would sign this agreement. It's a total farse, he's trying to shut the company down and either doing so for his own benefit or for the benefit of his buddies at Newfold or Blackrock.

photomatt 2y ago

Silver Lake and WPE's legal attacks may impact my ability to provide free services on WordPress.org in the future, especially things like Slack or forums that are grounds for discovery. I hope not, though. Going to fight this with everything I have.

lolinder 2y ago
> Going to fight this with everything I have. Your chance to do that was before you threw a grenade into the WordPress ecosystem and injured hundreds of thousands of innocent WordPress developers over a {trademark|giving back|general bad vibes} dispute. No one here is buying your attempts to pawn responsibility for your actions off onto WP Engine. They may have legitimately been the bad guys until a month ago, but you've thoroughly stepped into that role now and you're making no effort to step back.
- metamichael 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - lolinder 2y ago
    I'm not going to engage with brand new accounts on this thread. It's nothing personal, but there are way too many of them posting here and it's too hard to distinguish sincere questions from sock puppets. If you're legitimately new to HN, welcome! I hope to see you around engaging with other topics.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
aimazon 2y ago
[flagged]
- photomatt 2y ago
  Thanks, I carry a co2 and carbon monoxide monitor. Co2 where I'm at is 572. I do own a place in Montana, and I meditate several times a day. I have not threatened to take down WordPress.org. WPE's preservation requests do complicate things, legally, though, for the Slack and forums that W.org offers. Both Cloudflare and Fastly have reached out offering CDN services to W.org, which we're considering. Cloudflare also serves a lot of WP Engine. We do like controlling our infrastructure, though, for a variety of reasons, and have run it without problems or downtime for 21 years. Currently the only outside vendor we use is Slack/Salesforce, which donates free Slack Pro accounts for 49k users. (I think that would cost ~5M/yr.) We also use some Github, which is free for open source.