ankleturtle

Adding archives: https://archive.ph/KDb5g https://archive.ph/0oa73

It's the removal of "paywalls" (e.g., license checks, product keys, etc.) in plugins. A lot of developers see this as "stealing" and unethical.

If you really want to see the shady, dishonest side, try to have a discussion about nulling plugins. You'll get called every name in the book for adhering to the GPL.

The part which did it in for me was learning that Matt personally owns Wordpress.org. It's not the Foundation. It's not Automattic. It's Matt, personally.

Nope, that's a bus factor of one. I'm done.

This has been the approach since the M1s.

See: https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/19/apple_m1_high_bandwid...

> The SoC has access to 16GB of unified memory. This uses 4266 MT/s LPDDR4X SDRAM (synchronous DRAM) and is mounted with the SoC using a system-in-package (SiP) design. A SoC is built from a single semiconductor die whereas a SiP connects two or more semiconductor dies.

Reporting to Google is generally useless. Skim these search results.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/deck+builder+chicago/

The a large percentage of these listings are fake. They're run by a single company who has blanketed Chicago with "lead generation" listings across several local service business industries.

You can report them to Google. Nothing gets done most of the time. Redressal form? Same thing. Escalate on the forums? Same result.

And this is only one such lead gen network that I know of. Google doesn't care.

The article update links to a Google Doc in which Matt takes issue with the following remark from the article: > he's a wealthy CEO of a for-profit corporation that is attacking a competitor

Matt responds: > WP Engine is a “competitor”, but so is every other web host in the world. Automattic and WordPress.org have had good relations with all the others for 21 years. WordPress.org recommends a number of hosts.

It seems Matt is forgetting his "friendly" spat with GoDaddy a few years ago.

Matt continues: > His criticism of certain practices focuses on maintaining the platform’s integrity and open-source commitment to ensure the community can grow further with sustainable investments.

Let's assume this is all true. It doesn't change the fact that he's attacking a direct competitor.

Matt continues: > Silver Lake is far wealthier than Matt or Automattic.

This is how you know that Matt wrote the response. It's the same ego defending behavior that he used when responding to DHH.

Matt is very, very bad at PR. It's really time he learns that and lets others take over those roles. And it's time he learns to shut up. He hurts more than he helps.

Matt made a post a few weeks ago about his charitable donations.[0] It's really just a "I'm better than them" post. And it doesn't say where any of it was donated.

0. https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/

> Suggesting that DHH should seek therapy is way out of line.

Matt already knows this.[0]

photomatt: "It is also unethical to publicly speculate on my medication, medical state, or mental health."

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CB1ZXFiEgJY

Harm of WP Engine.

I am not a lawyer, but I am really curious if this would amount to tortious interference.

Wow. I will never contribute anything to WordPress again.

You are abusing the community for your own gain. Stop!

> The launch is an intense marketing push with a component of artificial scarcity.

I consider artificial scarcity to be an unethical practice. It's literally lying. It uses fake timers to pressure people into buying or fake limits to suggest that they need to buy now. Does it work? Absolutely. Is it ethical? Not a chance.

The article has been updated.

> The Foundation also licensed the name to the website WordPress.org, which facilitates widespread access to WordPress-related software at no charge.

This is straight from Matt, himself:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41782365

Wordpress.org isn't a legal entity. It's simply a domain owned by Matt. It seems Matt has a license to use the Wordpress trademarks.

The Wordpress Foundation is a non-profit legal entity with a tiny budget. It appears the only thing it does is serve as a holding entity for the trademarks and the for-profit company than operates the WordCamp conferences.

I suspect that Automattic is the one who foots the bill for the infrastructure behind Wordpress.org, but that's not clear.

Matt talks about transparency, but how everything operates is a muddled mess.

More context:

"Due to recent events in the WordPress ecosystem, WP Engine employees have been blocked from accessing WordPress.org. This means the ACF team is unable to deploy updates to the free version of ACF hosted on WordPress.org and users running this plugin on their sites were removed from the ability to automatically update to newer versions."[0]

Matt really meant it when he said he was going nuclear.

0. https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/installing-and-upg...

Matt Mullenweg is angry at WP Engine (owners of ACF). He thinks they don't contribute enough to Wordpress development, so he's enacted a "nuclear" approach to dealing with it. WP Engine has filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Matt, so not Automattic is claiming they know of a vuln in ACF and will disclose it in 30 days.

He demanded either 8% of their gross revenue, the equivalent in development time for employees who would be directed by WordPress.org, or some combination thereof.

He also demanded auditing of WP Engine by their direct competitor, Automattic.

0. https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet...

WP Engine, itself. He is already threatening a "corporate takeover."[0]

0. https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-corporat...

EIG is not Newfold Digital.[0] Matt has specifically praised EIG hosts.[1] He even praised Godaddy, a company which he called a "parasitic company" just a few years ago.[2]

This is definitely not about subpar hosting for Matt.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endurance_International_Group 1. https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenwegs-ecosystem-thinking-for-... 2. https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-...

WordPress.org blocked access for WP Engine to their developer account on the website. This means they can no longer push out plugin updates via this path.[0] This comes straight from Matt Mullenweg himself in an interview done today.

0. https://x.com/ryancduff/status/1840192524398231660

Software maintenance is not already existing software though.

Free public services are a finite resource. Already existing software is not.

> But if you're making half a billion in revenue every year on top of someone else's tech, you need to stay involved and contribute back in a very significant way.

Revenue is a red herring. It is not an appropriate measure to determine if and how much one should contribute to an open source project.

Instead, we should measure the need to contribute by the burden one places on the project.

Do you request features or bug fixes? Contribute appropriately.

Do you request support? Contribute appropriately.

Do you simply copy, install, and run the existing software? No need to contribute.