I don't think the issue is about WordPress, the open source software, but rather about using up ressources on the wordpress.org servers.

I think the issue is using a non-profit (WordPress) to suppress a for-profit's (Automattic's) competition.

I heard that there was an old handshake agreement that WPEngine should contribute so-and-so many developer hours to Wordpress per employee, but doesn't now and hasn't for a while. At some point the CEO of Automattic, which does contribute developer hours, blew up.

I keep not getting it. WordPress.org is offered as a free download and it accesses the website FOR FREE. Complaining that people don’t pay for free stuff is not a healthy mental state.

WP Engine is no different from the million hostings that auto-install WordPress and “abuse” their resources.

Yep, Matt (wordpress guy) has a dramatic writing style, but in essence WPE is using plugins, their security research, user system, theming store etc, without contributing back that much.

Worth adding that WPE is owned by private equity, and they allegedly tried to remove the newsfeed from wp-admin to hide his (dramatic) posts about them

My company is also a heavy user of WordPress and never have contributed. We also hide those widgets. Do we need to be blocked as well then?

Does your company offer a competitor to what Automattic is offering, taking revenues from them, and make 500+ millions in revenues a year? If the answer to those is yes then I’d probably keep quiet before Matt notices you :)

That is a really problematic question to ask. Because remember, Automattic is not the Foundation or the open source project...

so then the question becomes "Why is the Foundation/project hamstringing a competitor to their director's for profit company who is, in theory, and legally should be, independent?"

Hiding the widgets isn't the main issue. If you infringe the WordPress trademark in commercial use, and ignore any attempt to make it right, and pursue legal action, W.ORG does not have to provide those free services to you.

I'm guessing you are not size of WP Engine and Silver Lake, honest question, if you were, would you want to contribute back to WordPress?

Open source is a gift. There's etiquette involved.

Suppose one of your developers writes on twitter that you don't permit contribution, and you fire that developer on the next day. What reaction do you expect from the people who pay for most of the development?

I keep seeing people refer to this tweet. Can you share a link to it, please?

I'm afraid not. I look at twitter only in incognito mode and don't have any history, and can't find anything now.

Is your company building a business with half a billion of dollars in revenue out the uncountable amount of man-hours put into Wordpress development?

We probably made a lot more then that in the past 20 years.

We are talking about yearly revenues here, and something tells me that your company is not in the business of selling services that depend on WordPress code being developed

Seems like you should act as if you will be.

> Worth adding that WPE is owned by private equity

How do you think Matt got the money to build his empire?

WordPress Foundation is paying for the servers, so I guess they have the right to choose who gets access or not. Using the resources as a single person or a small business is not the same as using them from a hosting company with millions of websites. Other hosting companies contribute to the foundation which keeps the service running. If WPEngine isn't contributing anything, it would be unfair for other contributors/sponsors. Especially that they are making a large amount of money from it.

How would you feel if WordPress.org suddenly decided to lock ALL installations across the world and ask for $800/site/month to access it?

Is it their right? Sure. I don’t think you’d be here defending them though.

You’re moving the goalposts. We aren’t talking about who has a right to what. We’re talking about what is and what isn’t a deranged dick move.

It's not at all a dick move to block IPs that essentially DDOS your free services.

Google, Amazon, you name it do this infinite times a day with crawlers.

If you build a business on taking resources from some public source, on a large scale, you could very well be out of a business at any time. This has been the case for a long, long time. And nobody seems to take issue with it.

As so often I think it would be beneficial for the conversation to provide some more context. Single user install generated load VS WP generated load on the infrastructure of WordPress.org

What I find fascinating is that people in this thread and elsewhere are saying that Matt funds the WordPress.org servers personally.