Defending Open Source: Protecting the Future of WordPress

Small discussion at the time (20 points, 3 comments) <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42164923">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=42164923</a>

I don&#x27;t think this document has been modified since it was first published around a month ago: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20241104192103&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;automattic.com&#x2F;2024&#x2F;protecting-wordpress&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20241104192103&#x2F;https:&#x2F;&#x2F;automatti...</a><p>(I tried running a diff on the current text v.s. the Internet Archive copy from 4th November and unless I made a mistake there have been no updates.)

If you aren&#x27;t familiar with this drama, please understand that Matt and the Automattic folks have absolutely lost their minds when their attempted extortion of a competitor failed.<p>One of the things about open source is people use it, and they might even compete against your company. If you can&#x27;t handle that you shouldn&#x27;t open source your code. Matt is doing far more damage to Wordpress and open source in general than anything WPEngine has done.

Ecosystem, Open Source, and Freedom sure are bandied about quiet freely by the same guy who says “WordPress.org just belongs to me personally&quot;, and then unilaterally gets to decide what plugins are available to WordPress users.

Well, all this petty mud-throwing has shown me one thing; I will always pick alternatives over the products Automatticc offers.

Ah yes, the Big Bad Evil private equity firms behind WP Engine, which are <i>completely different</i> from the private equity firms behind Automattic. And those 3 private equity board members at Automattic? Just ignore them, they don&#x27;t exist - focus on those at WP Engine!<p>Is WP Engine &quot;evil&quot; and predatory? Maybe, possibly. I haven&#x27;t seen any concrete evidence either way. Is Automattic evil and predatory? Absolutely! We&#x27;ve seen plenty of evidence of that, and it is <i>very</i> clear that they can&#x27;t be trusted with Wordpress.

On a related note, I see the &quot;I am not affiliate with WP Engine&quot; checkbox has been removed from the WordPress.org login pages now. That must&#x27;ve stung...

Again with this drama. Does this company never learn to just shut up already. They don&#x27;t like that WPEngine made more money And wanted a piece of pie. Now claiming it&#x27;s a trademark issue. When it stated that &quot;WP&quot; was not trademarked.<p>&gt; Matt blocked WP Engine’s convenient access to resources he was under no obligation to provide such as the WordPress.org plugin directory<p>Just like WPEngine was under no obligation to pay towards Automattic.<p>I didn&#x27;t think things could get more petty. It&#x27;s infuriating and gives open source a bad name. &quot;It&#x27;s open untill we say so&quot;

Here&#x27;s hoping, WordPress, the software will be spared in this corporate vs corporate.

I had not read this before. It gives me more context than I have been missing.

You can&#x27;t make money off my labor&#x2F;work. Right decision

Completely misleading that &quot;Wordpress runs 40%&quot; of the internet when 6&#x2F;10 packets are also somehow bound for first-party Google properties like YouTube (I guess that means all traffic is bound for either Wordpress or Google? &#x2F;s).<p>I&#x27;m not sure anybody cares. Really. Wordpress was relevant like 20 years ago. I will probably get downvoted into oblivion by the community of PHP enjoyers that still exist, and good for you guys, I love that you love Wordpress so much. I don&#x27;t think any of this will change PHP or Wordpress or the thousands of sites that use it. Matt is spending political capital at an unrecoverable rate and the courts are not going to side with him here, I think.