The WordPress vs. WP Engine Debacle - The Battle of Private Equity

[Dome]

To be fair it requires two to tango to contribute to open source. There is always a group who controls what goes in. I’d have to do some research to know for sure but it is very possible to have huge numbers like that when you are the one choosing what’s allowed in and what’s not. Open source doesn’t just mean anyone’s contributions are accepted.

Also the not contributing financial donations thing is a slightly imperfect angle too - look how many businesses have Wordpress sites that don’t donate either. Targeting the entity hosting versus the businesses actually choosing and using the tech is a little strange no? It’s basically make it a paid software indirectly.

Yes, it's not a 100% valid way to show things, but we can clearly see other big contributors. Also, it just supports the 40 hours a week vs 3,915 a week point. Do you know any company that "sells WordPress" and makes more than +10mio a year revenue that doesn't contribute, or at least is donating something back? Most companies using WordPress don't sell WordPress. I think thats the point here.

This is really misleading, as are most of the talking points from the Matt/Automattic/WP.com camp.

- The WordPress core that WP Engine offers is unchanged. They disabled revisions, which is largely a bogus feature that causes massive bloat in databases. They also have caching at the server level, which is an improvement over caching plugins.

- WP Engine has never been referred to or marketed as WordPress engine. The WP letters are free-to-use and not trademarked,. It's not on them if some less than savvy users refer to that as WordPress Engine.

- Revenue/hours comparison:

GoDaddy: $4 billion/year revenue (335 hours)
Bluehost: $1 billion/year revenue (76 hours)
WP Engine: $400 million/year revenue (35 hours)

Of course Matt is going to self-aggrandize and bloat the hours of Automattic here - he owns WordPress.com while also being the founder of The WordPress Founation and having control over WordPress.org. Every hour tracked goes back to directly benefiting his companies. WP Engine's success is a rising tide that lifts all boats. They are driving significant progress on Headless WordPress and ACF. Their contributions far exceed the 35 hours in the image you shared.

- This really doesn't need to be said but website hosts can price their services however they want. There are many "premium managed WordPress hosts" who charge exactly the same as WP Engine or more - Kinsta, Pantheon, A2, etc. - it's an entire industry. A host's product positioning/pricing/positioning/success does not dictate how many hours per week they should have to contribute.




The WordPress.com scam that Matt is running is losing market share, so his private equity investors like BlackRock are putting on the pressure. This same exact thing happened two years ago when he publicly called out GoDaddy - Matt Mullenweg Identifies GoDaddy as a “Parasitic Company” and an “Existential Threat to WordPress’ Future”. As the owner of the trademark logo and WordPress.com, the biggest beneficiary of any contributed hours is Matt himself and the private equity behind Autoattic. There cannot be true alignment with open source ideals when you run a for-profit company stealing the same name of your own open source company. WordPress.com is way more confusing to new users who are seeking out WordPress services than WP Engine is.

I'm the one misleading? Sure, let's go straight into it.

The WordPress core that WP Engine offers is unchanged:
- The WordPress core is not unchanged. They disabled revisions, they also removed the news widget from the WordPress Admin Dashboard. While they are free to do, it is no longer vanilla core WordPress. Revisions doesn't bloat. And any decent hoster nowadays offers server-side caching. And anyone who sells WordPress Websites in a high price segment should have an understanding on how to self-host WordPress and how to set up things like server-side caching. Or at least should have someone in the agency who knows the "server" stuff.


WP Engine has never been referred to or marketed as WordPress engine:
They even bid on the keyword in google.



Revenue/hours comparison:
So, while I compared WordPress Hoster to WordPress Hoster you are now comparing a WordPress Hoster to general boutique Hoster?
What is the % of the revenue that is from WordPress-Hosting? Could you please provide the numbers? Because you aren't trying to mislead us here, or?

WPEngine puts time into a plugin that they're selling? Great, WPEngine. And there are plenty of perfect alternatives to ACF out there.
The only open source they offer is the faustjs headless WordPress. Also, we have the 40 hours a week against ~4,000 hours a week.


This really doesn't need to be said but website hosts can price their services however they want.
And yes, they can also host their own API's. I will just copy a old point from me in here:
Yes, WP is free to use. But if it is free to use and open source, how could wp engine even get banned from using WordPress? Doesn't add up or? Maybe wpengine is using server infrastructure from WordPress.org for free, like we all? Maybe we all take this infrastructure for granted?
The plugin, theme and update library and some more API's cost money to operate. But who pays for it? The WordPress.org foundation and so most likely the biggest piece automattic.


So, to put this into perspective, we have now two firms with private equity investors fighting right?
Both firms will try to generate as much of revenue as possible. Should we go with the one who contributes the most? Who has the most value from having a good ecosystem? Or with the one who leeches the most? Doesn't really well contribute and so on. A user who ends up using WordPress com is at least a user where a chunk of its money gets put back into evolving the whole ecosystem. While the money of a user ending up on wpengine goes mostly straight to the investors and not back into the ecosystem.

Open-Source overall is in a tuff position nowadays. There is big money to make with open-source and hosting. Like vercel did with nextjs. Offering something open-source and then bill hard on the hosting. And to bring this back, I'm not 100% on Matt's side. Sometimes you have to pick shit over some bigger shit. And that's my decision, why I’m aligning more with org foundation.

 

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[Dark Water]

Yes, it's not a 100% valid way to show things, but we can clearly see other big contributors. Also, it just supports the 40 hours a week vs 3,915 a week point. Do you know any company that "sells WordPress" and makes more than +10mio a year revenue that doesn't contribute, or at least is donating something back? Most companies using WordPress don't sell WordPress. I think thats the point here.





I'm the one misleading? Sure, let's go straight into it.

The WordPress core that WP Engine offers is unchanged:
- The WordPress core is not unchanged. They disabled revisions, they also removed the news widget from the WordPress Admin Dashboard. While they are free to do, it is no longer vanilla core WordPress. Revisions doesn't bloat. And any decent hoster nowadays offers server-side caching. And anyone who sells WordPress Websites in a high price segment should have an understanding on how to self-host WordPress and how to set up things like server-side caching. Or at least should have someone in the agency who knows the "server" stuff.


WP Engine has never been referred to or marketed as WordPress engine:
They even bid on the keyword in google.
View attachment 58919


Revenue/hours comparison:
So, while I compared WordPress Hoster to WordPress Hoster you are now comparing a WordPress Hoster to general boutique Hoster?
What is the % of the revenue that is from WordPress-Hosting? Could you please provide the numbers? Because you aren't trying to mislead us here, or?

WPEngine puts time into a plugin that they're selling? Great, WPEngine. And there are plenty of perfect alternatives to ACF out there.
The only open source they offer is the faustjs headless WordPress. Also, we have the 40 hours a week against ~4,000 hours a week.


This really doesn't need to be said but website hosts can price their services however they want.
And yes, they can also host their own API's. I will just copy a old point from me in here:
Yes, WP is free to use. But if it is free to use and open source, how could wp engine even get banned from using WordPress? Doesn't add up or? Maybe wpengine is using server infrastructure from WordPress.org for free, like we all? Maybe we all take this infrastructure for granted?
The plugin, theme and update library and some more API's cost money to operate. But who pays for it? The WordPress.org foundation and so most likely the biggest piece automattic.


So, to put this into perspective, we have now two firms with private equity investors fighting right?
Both firms will try to generate as much of revenue as possible. Should we go with the one who contributes the most? Who has the most value from having a good ecosystem? Or with the one who leeches the most? Doesn't really well contribute and so on. A user who ends up using WordPress com is at least a user where a chunk of its money gets put back into evolving the whole ecosystem. While the money of a user ending up on wpengine goes mostly straight to the investors and not back into the ecosystem.

Open-Source overall is in a tuff position nowadays. There is big money to make with open-source and hosting. Like vercel did with nextjs. Offering something open-source and then bill hard on the hosting. And to bring this back, I'm not 100% on Matt's side. Sometimes you have to pick shit over some bigger shit. And that's my decision, why I’m aligning more with org foundation.

Again... it is disingenuous to say that a $400 million/year company is only contributing 40 hours per week to the WordPress ecosystem. They also sponsor WordCamp and {DECODE}, basically power 8% of the active web, and have thousands of how-to articles. At some point, you have to consider these intangibles (which you are blatantly ignoring each time you say "only 40 hours per week blah blah").

Let's pretend for a second that you are actually making valid points and I'm on your side. Regarding managed WordPress hosting - not a single host is putting in their fair percentage of contribution hours. Does this mean that the overlord can start cutting off other hosts from the WordPress.org repository?

It not only erodes trust in the system but it kills the very thing that powers open source - human spirit. As he pulled this back in 2022 against GoDaddy, the question is who's next? Go over to /r/wordpress and people are already searching for alternatives. No, this isn't just people leaving WP Engine, this is people leaving WordPress and looking at Drupal, Joomla, and countless small time open source CMS's, while others are considering a possible fork. None of this is good.

Historically, contributions have never been anything more than a token of good will, never hard-enforced into the open source agreement.

PS: I think there's a very fair and level-headed argument that bidding on a keyword on Google has nothing to do with copyright infringement.

PPS: Removing revisions and a news widget is really not relevant to the conversation here. If a user doesn't like that, there are plenty of premium managed hosting alternatives. If that is an issue to you, what are your thoughts on WordPress.com massively bastardizing the source code, such as productizing the service to the point that the theme and plugin repository isn't even available for basic monthly plans?

WP Engine has been silent the past few days and today is Monday. I am certain this is going to litigation - let's see what happens.

 

[MJ DeMarco]

and Matt had a weird serial-killer perma-smile.

Throw in a punchable face and I can't see myself siding with, what now seems like a male version of a Karen.

 

[Dome]

Again... it is disingenuous to say that a $400 million/year company is only contributing 40 hours per week to the WordPress ecosystem. They also sponsor WordCamp and {DECODE}, basically power 8% of the active web, and have thousands of how-to articles. At some point, you have to consider these intangibles (which you are blatantly ignoring each time you say "only 40 hours per week blah blah").

And again you are making points up and being misleading. You mean the $75.000 that a 400 mio company "sponsored". Man, come on, we are here on the fastlane forum. We all know that this is pure marketing spending to get more user from the WordPress ecosystem to wpengine.

And again,,, quick fact check, the internet has 200-400 mio active websites. wpengine self states they host +1,5 mio sites. So they are powering max. 0,75% not 8%. That's way off. Most of these websites would be hosted with or without wpengine.

Thousands of how-to articles, great content strategy. So much "blah blah" from you, and we're again at 40 hours per week.

And the funny thing, your own points are proving my points. Everything wpengines does is undercutting and leeching of the wp ecosystem.

Let's pretend for a second that you are actually making valid points and I'm on your side. Regarding managed WordPress hosting - not a single host is putting in their fair percentage of contribution hours. Does this mean that the overlord can start cutting off other hosts from the WordPress.org repository?

While we're pretending, let's pretend you're following the conversation. Wpengine got cut off from the WordPress.org Server's/API's they still can fork or clone the WordPress GitHub Repository. The owner of the WordPress Trademark has every right for it's copyright. And the WordPress.org team can decide and even has to use the mechanism of control to stabilize the ecosystem and stop bad actors. Most bigger hosts contribute.

It not only erodes trust in the system but it kills the very thing that powers open source - human spirit. As he pulled this back in 2022 against GoDaddy, the question is who's next? Go over to /r/wordpress and people are already searching for alternatives. No, this isn't just people leaving WP Engine, this is people leaving WordPress and looking at Drupal, Joomla, and countless small time open source CMS's, while others are considering a possible fork. None of this is good.

Historically, contributions have never been anything more than a token of good will, never hard-enforced into the open source agreement.

Funny that you're talking about killing open source while you're defending a company that makes 400 mio of open source while investing literary zero back into the same open-source code and ecosystem. And are against someone who wants to save this open source from bad "human spirits". Who is next? Anyone infringing copyright or bad actors. Go over to YouTube and you will see people supporting Matt's decision. Let them test the other open-source cms's, they will be back quick. More thankful than ever. If none of this is good, why did wpengine let it escalate it to this point? Matt was in talk with them for 3 years.

And historically, what happens to open-source projects with no contributions? They're dead. And I think I don't have to post here how long WordPress is around.

PS: I think there's a very fair and level-headed argument that bidding on a keyword on Google has nothing to do with copyright infringement.

And again, you're making things up. We never talked about copyright infringement here. Here are your own words, "WP Engine has never been referred to or marketed as WordPress engine." And I showed to you that they are, at this moment, bidding on the keyword "WordPress Engine".

PPS: Removing revisions and a news widget is really not relevant to the conversation here. If a user doesn't like that, there are plenty of premium managed hosting alternatives. If that is an issue to you, what are your thoughts on WordPress.com massively bastardizing the source code, such as productizing the service to the point that the theme and plugin repository isn't even available for basic monthly plans?

WP Engine has been silent the past few days and today is Monday. I am certain this is going to litigation - let's see what happens.

And again, we're talking about wpengine offering vanilla WordPress or, not. I already told you that I'm not a fan of wordpress.com, too. But at least, some percentage of the money spent on wordpress.com will be contributed back to WordPress open-source and ecosystem. While, money spent on wpengine leaves the ecosystem on a very high percentage.

 

[Two Dog]

implies WP Engine is using some of Wordpress's services

Matt was very clear about WPEngine using WP services without compensation and detailed a LONG list of functionality that absolutely would take considerable time and effort to replicate and maintain. He has a legitimate complaint about resource usage by a for profit company without compensation. Mostly though, it's pretty hard to take WPEngine's complaints seriously. Since it's open source, there is *nothing* stopping WPEngine from forking and rolling out their own version of WP with 100% control.

The fact that WPEngine hasn't done that should tell you how much of a free ride they've been enjoying from WP over the years.

The customers getting bent over are WPEngine customers, not WP customers. Hate should be directed to the company getting paid who refuses to simply acknowledge a legitimate trademark and pay an appropriate licensing fee to the owner. Who knows what led to the cutoff, but there's a long history of back and forth that could have been resolved amicably before it got to this point.

This little tidbit highlights my personal irritation when FREE or CHEAP just ain't good enough for far too many people. Go elsewhere.

 

[Dark Water]

The term sheet that Automattic gave WP Engine just came out. Automattic requested 8% of revenue before taxes. In other words, they were requesting 62% of WP Engine's profit. $32 million/year. @Dome @Two Dog you can't say in good faith that this is fair or reasonable.

They also wanted full audit rights over all financials and employee records. 7 year term with autorenewal. As a direct competitor.

Oh by the way—the 8% revenue would go towards Automattic, the for-profit WordPress.com company—not The WordPress Foundation or WordPress.org. What the F*ck? The 8% revenue wouldn't even be used to benefit open source.

This wasn't requesting a reasonable contribution to WordPress.org. It was an attempt to neuter WP Engine as a competitor.

Again, it's very reasonable to ask: why is the extortion only happening to WP Engine? Why not WP Neuron, WPX, Kinsta, or countless others offering WordPress-specific hosting? It has nothing to do with contribution or trademark issues - it's simple, they are a threat.

Maybe there is some argument that WP Engine should contribute more - as should all hosts. But the way you two are framing your arguments, it's clear you've had the wool pulled over your eyes. I could line-by-line quote the fallacies and poor logic being used to argue here but it wouldn't be worth the effort - belief perseverance is strong here. Happy fastlaning.

 

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[Dark Water]

An interesting thought is: how much are WordPress.org's total costs, considering so much of the platform is volunteer driven?

Did we forget that?

Did we also forget that economies of scale massively bring down costs?

I used ChatGPT to create an overall estimate of WordPress.org's total annual costs (server hosting, infrastructure, repository maintenance, legal/admin, events, misc) to be in the range of $1.2 million to $3.5 million per year.

Of course, this could be largely inaccurate. I said, that sounds low: what if there's 100 million users? ChatGPT said $2.2 million to $6 million. Let's scale that up, 1 billion users: $7.25 million to $22 million.

Either way, it sounds like Automattic asking for $30 million+ per year from WP Engine would not only cover all of WordPress.org's entire costs, but a hefty amount of profit too. I'm not sure a nonprofit like WordPress.org is even in a position to legally ask that.

 

[Bence Ur]

Here's the trademark policy: Trademark Policy

It's interesting that they specifically mention WP Engine in their trademark policy as a bad example:

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

If you would like to use the WordPress trademark commercially, please contact Automattic, they have the exclusive license. Their only sub-licensee is Newfold.

From these two paragraphs I think the issue is that WP Engine should either rename themselves to something else (for example from WP Engine to just "Engine"), or they should buy the commercial license from Automattic.

There a lot of other managed WordPress hosts like Kinsta, GoDaddy, Rocket.net etc. Seems like in practice even the "WP" abbrevation is problematic.

The source code of WordPress is available under the terms of the GPL license, however the WordPress name and logo are trademarked, they are not available under the GPL license terms.

You can take the full source code of WordPress and launch a competing company right away (but you must still honor the GPL license terms), however you need to invent your own brand name, you cannot call it "WordPress".

But the linked license terms should be clearer. Is it OK to use WP or not? Seems like in practice you cannot even use "WP".

Still I think it's not the right move to ban anyone from WordPress.org. It is a trademark issue, they shouldn't ban WP Engine from WordPress.org, they can demand the license fees but WordPress.org is a community project, and the WordPress trademark is a separate thing.

 

[Two Dog]

The term sheet that Automattic gave WP Engine just came out. Automattic requested 8% of revenue before taxes. In other words, they were requesting 62% of WP Engine's profit. $32 million/year. @Dome @Two Dog you can't say in good faith that this is fair or reasonable.

Wouldn't disagree at all. The terms are onerous. Can't imagine those would be acceptable to anyone.

However...

From the term sheet: "The 8 percent cut could either be paid as a royalty fee to Automattic or as salaries for WP Engine employees who would contribute to the WordPress.org open-source project." Roughly translated as (a) support the open source community that is making you rich or (b) pay a licensing fee.

Somewhere amongst the news coverage, I came across Matt saying "We provides thousands of volunteer hours from Automattic employees to support WP.org and the codebase. WPEngine provides a few dozen hours." Open source tracks contributions relentlessly, so there can't be much argument about the data. Ballpark numbers from memory, but the point is valid.

Yes, $32M equates to 150 - 200 F/T coders contributing year round. Not reasonable. Given that WPEngine did $400M last year, I'm pretty sure one of their overpaid corporate attorneys could have figured out that "Hey, why not use the open-source code" WITHOUT using the WP intellectual property in the first place???" Argue all you want about fair use yada yada, but that's an obvious workaround that I haven't seen proposed by anyone in the media. Big companies rebrand ALL THE TIME. Meta, Alphabet and X are recent examples that come to mind.

How many competing companies distributing Linux are calling themselves Redhat Super Pro X?

To understand who owns WordPress, you first have to understand the WordPress ecosystem and how WordPress works.

Who Owns WordPress? Automattic Business Model Explained - Wishpond Blog

In the end, this smells strongly like a royal pissing match between two company founders with far too much ego.

 

[Dome]

The term sheet that Automattic gave WP Engine just came out. Automattic requested 8% of revenue before taxes. In other words, they were requesting 62% of WP Engine's profit. $32 million/year. @Dome @Two Dog you can't say in good faith that this is fair or reasonable.

Automattic released it. It can be found here https://automattic.com/wp-content/u...automattic-trademark-license_09.19.2024-1.pdf

I am not a trademark expert but after a quick google and chatgpt it seems that it is common for a company using a trademark to build their business to pay round about 2-15% of the gross revenue for the trademark. Maybe there are some people here with expert knowledge. Also, it is a negotiation. Isn't it normal to go into the negotiation with a higher number to meet in the middle? For example, Matt also said in one of the YouTube videos that they would be willing to negotiate.

They also wanted full audit rights over all financials and employee records. 7 year term with autorenewal. As a direct competitor.

You're mixing some things up. They could choose from options.

Option A (money option):
"WP Engine will also provide Automattic a detailed monthly report of its Gross Revenue within fifteen days of the close of each calendar month, including a product line breakdown of all revenues generated. Automattic will have full audit rights."
-> The questions is here full audit rights to what?

Option B (contribution option):
"WP Engine will provide Automattica detailed monthly report demonstrating its fulfillment of this commitment. WordPress.org and Automattic will have full audit rights, including access to employee records and time-tracking."

Option C (mix):
"Some combination of the above two options."

Oh by the way—the 8% revenue would go towards Automattic, the for-profit WordPress.com company—not The WordPress Foundation or WordPress.org. What the F*ck? The 8% revenue wouldn't even be used to benefit open source.

Automattic is the trademark owner. So why should it go to wordpress.org? Automattic is the biggest contributor to wp.org, and who do you think pays the server bills for wp.org? Automattic. So it would benefit open source.

This wasn't requesting a reasonable contribution to WordPress.org. It was an attempt to neuter WP Engine as a competitor.

Again, it's very reasonable to ask: why is the extortion only happening to WP Engine? Why not WP Neuron, WPX, Kinsta, or countless others offering WordPress-specific hosting? It has nothing to do with contribution or trademark issues - it's simple, they are a threat.

They have deals with some hoster. I think reading between the lines, the biggest issue is with wpengine that it was branded like WordPress. I just found out they even had a Hosting Plan called "WordPress Core" until some days ago. They didn't make it clear on the Homepage that they are not WordPress. Which they now do, since two or three days. All the marketing and branding was to look like WordPress and leeching money out of the ecosystem. And some other shady stuff going up with, like the WooCommerce stripe plugin. And again I'm not a fan of wp.com too but at least a (maybe much higher) amount of money goes back to the open-source ecosystem, while with wpengine it leaves the ecosystem on a much higher scale.

Maybe there is some argument that WP Engine should contribute more - as should all hosts. But the way you two are framing your arguments, it's clear you've had the wool pulled over your eyes. I could line-by-line quote the fallacies and poor logic being used to argue here but it wouldn't be worth the effort - belief perseverance is strong here. Happy fastlaning.

Haha, the classic "I could totally debunk everything but won't because of reasons" argument. Now this has become a classic internet debate! and it doesn't even lacks accusing the other person of something. Happy fastlaning and in the end, we can learn something from all of this for our own fastlanes. Don't build your own company on another company's trademark, without having the paperwork done, first.

An interesting thought is: how much are WordPress.org's total costs, considering so much of the platform is volunteer driven?

Did we forget that?

Did we also forget that economies of scale massively bring down costs?

I used ChatGPT to create an overall estimate of WordPress.org's total annual costs (server hosting, infrastructure, repository maintenance, legal/admin, events, misc) to be in the range of $1.2 million to $3.5 million per year.

Of course, this could be largely inaccurate. I said, that sounds low: what if there's 100 million users? ChatGPT said $2.2 million to $6 million. Let's scale that up, 1 billion users: $7.25 million to $22 million.

Either way, it sounds like Automattic asking for $30 million+ per year from WP Engine would not only cover all of WordPress.org's entire costs, but a hefty amount of profit too. I'm not sure a nonprofit like WordPress.org is even in a position to legally ask that.

I think you're mixing up things here. The API/Server where wpengine got banned from aren't volunteer-driven. They cost money. The more you consume/transfer, the more they cost. The costs that wpengine used could be in the million(s) every year with 1,5 mio sites. It won't really bring down the cost. Because it is always data transfer. But on this scale, I'm out to give a 100% correct answer.

 

[Dark Water]

Was fun discussing, but as I predicted, WP Engine would (in my opinion, rightfully) file a lawsuit. They did so yesterday.

As people who are far more capable are going to spend a lot of time and resources arguing this, I see no reason to do so any further.

https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al.pdf

COMPLAINT FOR:
(1) Intentional Interference with Contractual
Relations;
(2) Intentional Interference with Prospective
Economic Relations;
(3) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18
U.S.C. § 1030 et seq.;
(4) Attempted Extortion;
(5) Unfair Competition, Cal. Bus. Prof. Code
§ 17200, et seq.;
(6) Promissory Estoppel;
(7) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement;
(8) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Dilution;
(9) Libel;
(10) Trade Libel; and
(11) Slander

Let's see how this plays out.

 

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[loop101]

Theo goes over WP Engine's complaint. One of the complaints was that Matt had previously offered the CEO of WPE a job, which she declined. Then he threatened to reveal the job offer to the WPE board to make it look like she had interviewed for the job, which is their extortion complaint. Somewhere in all this, WPE poached 37 employees from Matt's company Automattic.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edCrrWj6WK4

 

[Two Dog]

Was fun discussing, but as I predicted, WP Engine would (in my opinion, rightfully) file a lawsuit. They did so yesterday.

If WPEngine doesn't get an immediate injunction to lift the ban, their revenue is going to flat line pretty quickly as customer websites start going wonky. Given that WordPress.com is a private company that can choose their business relationships, it would pretty surprising to see a judge tell them otherwise. If by some miracle it actually happens, count on another violation of terms and conditions that will get the ban reinstated.

Happy fastlaning and in the end, we can learn something from all of this for our own fastlanes. Don't build your own company on another company's trademark, without having the paperwork done, first.

Thx for pointing out the useful lesson here. It was one of the first things I mentioned to my kids.

Dan Kennedy used to call it "The Danger of One" implying that relying on one of ANYTHING is a really bad idea for business. One supplier, one distributor, one expert, one patent. If you can't replace the "one" within a reasonable time & cost, you're living on borrowed time waiting for the floor to drop out.

I still have trouble believing that's the position that WPEngine left themselves in for years. That's incredibly shortsighted.

 

[LightHouse]

 

[MJ DeMarco]

View attachment 59033

Wow, so not only if you disagree with him, he will pay you to leave for your disagreement. What a win for a jaded employee.

On paper this sounds pretty cool, but effectively he is just legally bribing people who find his behavior in the wrong. Stripped down, he wants everyone to agree with his politics, or you don't work there. He might as well ask, "Who you voting for?" and then hire/fire from there.

 

[Bounce Back]

Yeah that actually makes it seem even more egotistical - like the opposite effect then I am sure he thinks it seems.

Not “hey you disagree so I am reserving time to meet every week on the topic and answer any questions I can” just “hey you disagree what can I pay to just get you to go away”

 

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[LightHouse]

Wow, so not only if you disagree with him, he will pay you to leave for your disagreement. What a win for a jaded employee.

On paper this sounds pretty cool, but effectively he is just legally bribing people who find his behavior in the wrong. Stripped down, he wants everyone to agree with his politics, or you don't work there. He might as well ask, "Who you voting for?" and then hire/fire from there.

Right, which also happens in politics, if you don't agree, get out. Great for the ones that wanted to exit, terrible for those that wanted to exit but didn't have the proper means to say yes.

On one hand, it theoretically means the org is "aligned"... except it doesn't. It also creates an echo chamber culture IMO which can leave massive vulnerabilities as time goes on.

To me this is a REALLY early indicator of market shifts. Some new AI based tool will come around that makes functionality and integrations easy for an end user and be the new dominating power. I'll bet its a 5-6 year shift.

 

[Two Dog]

effectively he is just legally bribing people who find his behavior in the wrong

Isn't that every board that disagrees with the direction the CEO is heading? Or one who's shouting something negative to the world?

Paying people to shut up and go away is a time honored tactic. It cleans house and saves face at the same time.

 

[loop101]

The WordPress drama continues. Since WP banned WPE employees from their repos, WPE can't maintain their popular Advanced Custom Fields plugin. So WP took over the plugin. People aren't going to trust WP if Mullenweg keeps attacking the WP ecosystem. His messages to the other projects almost sound sadistic. DHH is publicly asking him not to become a Mad King.

 

[Bence Ur]

The WordPress drama continues. Since WP banned WPE employees from their repos, WPE can't maintain their popular Advanced Custom Fields plugin. So WP took over the plugin. People aren't going to trust WP if Mullenweg keeps attacking the WP ecosystem. His messages to the other projects almost sound sadistic. DHH is publicly asking him not to become a Mad King.

Yes it's now "Secure Custom Fields": Secure Custom Fields
WordPress.org controls it from now on.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1845190372764401908

View: https://x.com/wp_acf/status/1845190372764401908

 

[loop101]

Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg loses in court to WP Engine. Has to remove roadblocks he created. Mullenweg quits PHP Slack channel.

Court orders Automattic to restore WP Engine's access to WordPress.org | TechCrunch

A California district court judge on Tuesday ruled that Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg must restore WP Engine's access to WordPress.org, a theme

techcrunch.com

WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction

Automattic is ordered to undo several of the actions of its CEO Matt Mullenweg in its ongoing legal battle with WP Engine. “It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," Mullenweg said in a community Slack message.

www.404media.co

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg loses in court to WP Engine. Has to remove roadblocks he created. Mullenweg quits PHP Slack channel.

Court orders Automattic to restore WP Engine's access to WordPress.org | TechCrunch

A California district court judge on Tuesday ruled that Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg must restore WP Engine's access to WordPress.org, a theme

techcrunch.com

WordPress CEO Rage Quits Community Slack After Court Injunction

Automattic is ordered to undo several of the actions of its CEO Matt Mullenweg in its ongoing legal battle with WP Engine. “It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," Mullenweg said in a community Slack message.

www.404media.co

None of this surprises me; I won't say why.