The thing that all of my customers had in common before they started hosting their website with me was that they were paying companies like WP Engine and EIG tons of money for (in my humble opinion) a terrible hosting platform. They all complained their websites were slow, customer support was nonexistent, etc. They had very little knowledge of the web and bought the first thing they clicked on when doing a Google search for “best wordpress host.”

That context partially informs why I agree with Matt’s decision to go after WP Engine. The rest of my agreement stems from my belief that open source is only successful if people contribute back. Sure, licensing-wise people are under no obligation to do so, but let’s face it — you wouldn’t have a successful business without those people that created the project in the first place.

Do I agree with how Matt is doing this? No not really. I think there are probably better ways to address predatory companies like WP Engine that harm the community & reputation of Automattic far less. I’ve seen some excellent ideas in this thread.