The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained
September 27, 2024 12:16 PM Subscribe
The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites, is going through a very heated controversy. The core issue is the fight between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress.
"so, like, wordpress has this bad reputation for getting your site hacked if you don't update it every 2 minutes, because it's all PHP spaghetti code... so I just threw the switch that prevents wp engine clients from auto-updating their plugins and themes, that should show them.... a phone call, for me, from Irony itself?"
posted by Rhomboid at 12:32 PM on September 27, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 12:32 PM on September 27, 2024 [5 favorites]
I'm a long-term WordPress user (since it was b2) but I've only used it for my personal site and never paid attention to the wider ecosystem or news about it. So is this dispute actually about something or is it more of a shakedown? From the explainer it seems like Automattic is saying it's the one and WP Engine is saying it's the other and I don't know enough to decide who's blowing hot air.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
I read that explainer earlier and (no shade to the OP) did not feel like it explained too much. I found this explainer was better for me. I use self-hosted WordPress so this affects me in a "there is no ethical web development under capitalism, it seems' way but not immediately. Matt M. appears to be a billionaire doing billionaire things including weird threatening "I will blow up your company when I do my keynote" texts that seem unhinged. WP Engine is a huge company making money off of an open source product and they probably should have contributed something back. They're both being sort of terrible here. I continue to read more about it in the attempt to figure out if there is anyone to root for besides me and my smol webhosts.
posted by jessamyn at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [26 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 12:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [26 favorites]
I have been a WP dev since v1 and have had clients who use wpengine as their hosting solution, though in at least one case that proved to be a bad idea and they went back to self-hosting on their own server in their own office (also a bad idea if you don't have dedicated server techs to keep all of the non-wp software on it up-to-date).
Anyway, WPEngine's tools are mostly pretty good, but some of their internal "rules" are not great for highly-customized WP instances. Par for the course, I'd guess.
WordPress itself is generally pretty OK, though I feel their initiative to move to their "gutenberg" architecture was both slow and rushed and subsequently (as a developer) it's a real mess in places. That said, WordPress' biggest organizational problem, from my outside and specific perspective, is that their core dev group, from the architects thinking big thoughts to the fingers-on-keyboards internal developers, do not have a feel for what the vast majority of web sites using WP-as-a-content-manager do, or what might be useful to those users. WP still believes the only group of users that matter are people running "bicycle blogs" and the like, with new software features and decisions made with only those people in mind. Some of the core thinking and architecture behind the "gutenberg" project are frankly insane when considering what the majority of websites are trying to do.
posted by maxwelton at 1:04 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
Anyway, WPEngine's tools are mostly pretty good, but some of their internal "rules" are not great for highly-customized WP instances. Par for the course, I'd guess.
WordPress itself is generally pretty OK, though I feel their initiative to move to their "gutenberg" architecture was both slow and rushed and subsequently (as a developer) it's a real mess in places. That said, WordPress' biggest organizational problem, from my outside and specific perspective, is that their core dev group, from the architects thinking big thoughts to the fingers-on-keyboards internal developers, do not have a feel for what the vast majority of web sites using WP-as-a-content-manager do, or what might be useful to those users. WP still believes the only group of users that matter are people running "bicycle blogs" and the like, with new software features and decisions made with only those people in mind. Some of the core thinking and architecture behind the "gutenberg" project are frankly insane when considering what the majority of websites are trying to do.
posted by maxwelton at 1:04 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
I use WordPress for a bunch of sites hosted by different providers (Reclaim Hosting, for one).
I also help teach my students to make WP sites, hosted by our university.
Should I rethink these strategies?
posted by doctornemo at 1:54 PM on September 27, 2024
I also help teach my students to make WP sites, hosted by our university.
Should I rethink these strategies?
posted by doctornemo at 1:54 PM on September 27, 2024
Unless there's something going on here that is not visible to anybody outside of the immediate parties involved, Mullenweg is blowing every ounce of goodwill he has gained over the past 20 years (and then some) in one quick shot.
Maybe WP-Engine isn't perfect but there is documentation of Matt trying to extort them. It's insane. I have no idea of the world in which he thinks this was going to end well for him.
posted by tubedogg at 2:14 PM on September 27, 2024 [7 favorites]
Maybe WP-Engine isn't perfect but there is documentation of Matt trying to extort them. It's insane. I have no idea of the world in which he thinks this was going to end well for him.
posted by tubedogg at 2:14 PM on September 27, 2024 [7 favorites]
This is real "let's you and him fight" territory for me. I don't use WordPress, but from my perspective this is two roughly equal-sized companies having some kind of bizarre spat in which neither side comes out looking particularly good. Mullenweg looks like he's try to extort the WPEngine people out of spite/malice/ego, while they look parasitical for building a sizable business off FOSS they don't contribute back to. Like I said I don't use WordPress at all so I can just eat this big bowl of popcorn, but if you do I'd worry at least a little bit. Per usual, using the actual open source thing rather than someone else's add-on services and repackaging/whatnot is an option.
posted by axiom at 2:25 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by axiom at 2:25 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
maxwelton: That said, WordPress' biggest organizational problem, from my outside and specific perspective, is that their core dev group, from the architects thinking big thoughts to the fingers-on-keyboards internal developers, do not have a feel for what the vast majority of web sites using WP-as-a-content-manager do, or what might be useful to those users.My work has me straddling a bunch of different open source and commercial CMS and digital publishing ecosystems, so I don't feel like I can speak as a Wordpress insider, but one of the things this conflagration really highlights, IMO, is that the community has one person effectively in charge of several critical and sometimes conflicting jobs:
- Running a nonprofit that controls an open source software project used by large swaths of the internet, and many commercial businesses
- Deciding the "road map" of features that become an official part of that open source software, or receive ongoing maintenance and improvement
- Via control of the Wordpress trademark and the "bully pulpit" of project leader, defining what constitutes "good citizenship" in the Wordpress world versus parasitism and exploitation of the open source commons everyone depends on
- Running one of the largest commercial businesses that makes money off of that open source project
In theory, the magic of open source is that you can still build your own stuff with it — turn off the Gutenberg "visual page editor" and use a more traditional bloggy interface, or install a bunch of other plugins to give yourself an editorial calendar instead of a list of posts on your dashboard, etc. Or start a business that uses Wordpress as its base but builds, like, community art collaboration on top of it and sells subscriptions to local galleries. Whatever. You have different needs than the ones Matt is prioritizing, but there's not necessarily a conflict.
What's happening here is that Matt is using his overlapping roles to simultaneously:
- Set the priorities of the Wordpress open source project such that each version of Wordpress makes it easier for his commercial business to compete with its biggest competitor.
- Define other successful companies in the Wordpress ecosystem as "parasites and freeloaders" if they don't contribute back… by dedicating money or engineering hours to the priorities he set.
- Define the things his competitors spend their money and engineering hours on as "bastardizing and forking and ruining wordpress," even if that work is used by others who have similar needs.
posted by verb at 2:33 PM on September 27, 2024 [22 favorites]
I guess this explains somewhat why Matt seemingly randomly posted the last 12 years of his "personal non-profit donations" on Threads recently...?
posted by gwint at 2:39 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by gwint at 2:39 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also note that WordPress owns Tumblr and recently announced they are going to migrate all Tumblr blogs to WordPress, which would likely be one of the largest software migrations ever. Before that there was the whole selling your Tumblr data to AI companies thing.
posted by gwint at 2:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [7 favorites]
posted by gwint at 2:43 PM on September 27, 2024 [7 favorites]
Here's another pretty good explainer from Josh Collinsworth which is long but gets into the details of the spat pretty decently without adding more drama to it for the most part.
posted by jessamyn at 2:53 PM on September 27, 2024 [8 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 2:53 PM on September 27, 2024 [8 favorites]
"Silver Lake and WP Engine put their customers at risk, not me" says the person who intentionally turned off access to the security updates. I hope that what comes out of this is WP Engine putting the dev time that Matt has been complaining about into creating a new and better system for distributing Wordpress updates and themes, etc. that isn't centralized in wordpress.org and thus not able to be controlled and weaponized by such a petulant child of a CEO.
posted by metaphorever at 3:00 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by metaphorever at 3:00 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
I guess this explains somewhat why Matt seemingly randomly posted the last 12 years of his "personal non-profit donations" on Threads recently...?Yes. I don't mean this in the pejorative right-wing sense, but that was definitely a virtue signal. It was Matt saying, "I have donated lots of money to charity, while they have spent theirs in self-serving ways" — while ignoring the fact that he also gets to determine what constitutes charity versus self-interest.
Again, that isn't to say that that WPEngine meets any specific definition of "giving back," just to point out that right now, the person who is empowered to make the determination has a significant conflict of interest and is going gonzo scorched earth about it.
posted by verb at 3:08 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
As i have been pointing out in multiple places lately, it's pretty hypocritical of Matt to criticize people for being owned by private equity firms when fucking BlackRock is one of Automattic's major investors.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:15 PM on September 27, 2024 [12 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:15 PM on September 27, 2024 [12 favorites]
while they look parasitical for building a sizable business off FOSS they don't contribute back to.
The FOSS world works best when everyone contributes, it's true.
It's also true though that there are a lot of ways to be open source, and one of those ways is to have a license where certain categories of users (say, commercial entities, or commercial entities with over $X in annual revenue) need to pay some amount or make some other kind of contributions to use the product. WP apparently decided not to go that way, maybe in part because they figured it would limit their adoption rate/market penetration and encourage forks/rivals.
To come after the fact and punish someone for using your product exactly as licensed is problematic and feels like wanting to have it both ways. They could have just changed their licensing structure for future versions to require companies like WP to start paying something. That might have also started a war or rebellion, but as a move it seems much more defensible to me.
posted by trig at 3:32 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
The FOSS world works best when everyone contributes, it's true.
It's also true though that there are a lot of ways to be open source, and one of those ways is to have a license where certain categories of users (say, commercial entities, or commercial entities with over $X in annual revenue) need to pay some amount or make some other kind of contributions to use the product. WP apparently decided not to go that way, maybe in part because they figured it would limit their adoption rate/market penetration and encourage forks/rivals.
To come after the fact and punish someone for using your product exactly as licensed is problematic and feels like wanting to have it both ways. They could have just changed their licensing structure for future versions to require companies like WP to start paying something. That might have also started a war or rebellion, but as a move it seems much more defensible to me.
posted by trig at 3:32 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
To come after the fact and punish someone for using your product exactly as licensed is problematic and feels like wanting to have it both ways.Indeed, it's also rich because Wordpress itself started not as an original project by Matt but a fork of b2, a different open source blogging project that was seeking donations and contributions at the time and languished after Wordpress swept the blogging scene. There's nothing wrong with that — it's literally what the GPL license is meant to facilitate! — but it feels indicative of the weirdness in this specific situation.
posted by verb at 3:42 PM on September 27, 2024 [7 favorites]
They could have just changed their licensing structure for future versions to require companies like WP to start paying something.
Fun fact, they actually can't, because they don't have a CLA, and they're a fork of b2/cafelog which also didn't have a CLA. So they'd have to clean-room reimplement literally everything in order to get off GPL.
(Which is probably why Matt is desperate to extort his competitors for money, lmao. He'd relicense in a heartbeat if he could.)
Incidentally, i have a rough timeline/outline which i'm trying to keep updated, it's over here.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:52 PM on September 27, 2024 [14 favorites]
Fun fact, they actually can't, because they don't have a CLA, and they're a fork of b2/cafelog which also didn't have a CLA. So they'd have to clean-room reimplement literally everything in order to get off GPL.
(Which is probably why Matt is desperate to extort his competitors for money, lmao. He'd relicense in a heartbeat if he could.)
Incidentally, i have a rough timeline/outline which i'm trying to keep updated, it's over here.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:52 PM on September 27, 2024 [14 favorites]
I feel like this is the thread adrienneleigh and i have been training for for years
posted by verb at 4:27 PM on September 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
posted by verb at 4:27 PM on September 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
I'm firmly in the "php is fractally wrong" camp, so have kept WordPress far away on principle, but I'm certainly enjoying the popcorn. Thank you adrienneleigh, verb, et al for the informed commentary.
posted by bcd at 4:40 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by bcd at 4:40 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
I'm firmly in the "php is fractally wrong" camp
If you haven't touched it for years, you might give it a try again sometime—it's grown up into quite a nice little language with a fantastic ecosystem!
(WordPress is an awful CMS, though, with a terrible codebase and an even worse database schema. Definitely not The Best of PHP. I build on actually-good CMSes in my professional and personal lives, and i only touch WP if someone pays me a lot of money.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:46 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
If you haven't touched it for years, you might give it a try again sometime—it's grown up into quite a nice little language with a fantastic ecosystem!
(WordPress is an awful CMS, though, with a terrible codebase and an even worse database schema. Definitely not The Best of PHP. I build on actually-good CMSes in my professional and personal lives, and i only touch WP if someone pays me a lot of money.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:46 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
adrienneleigh, you may be pleased then to note that my largely WP-based business went from being fairly well-paid to not over the past few years as there are now lots and lots and lots of devs in the space, many willing to work for peanuts.
(I tried a couple of clients on Drupal probably before it was really time to do so, and that didn't work out well. I'd poke my head in to see if it's better or what the new hotness is, but I'm old and tired now.)
posted by maxwelton at 5:25 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
(I tried a couple of clients on Drupal probably before it was really time to do so, and that didn't work out well. I'd poke my head in to see if it's better or what the new hotness is, but I'm old and tired now.)
posted by maxwelton at 5:25 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
This is nothing less than Matt letting his true self shine through.
posted by Brilliantcrank at 5:51 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by Brilliantcrank at 5:51 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
maxwelton: I'm never pleased to know that colleagues are struggling, even if they use systems i think are bad! (I'm an underemployed freelancer myself.) I hope things get better for you!
verb is the guy to talk to about Drupal (no really, he's well-known elseweb as one of THE GUYS to talk to about Drupal), but if you want to MeMail me, i can also suggest some other awesome PHP-based CMSes that i think are super great for client work!
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:52 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
verb is the guy to talk to about Drupal (no really, he's well-known elseweb as one of THE GUYS to talk to about Drupal), but if you want to MeMail me, i can also suggest some other awesome PHP-based CMSes that i think are super great for client work!
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:52 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
So, if you bought the Divi plugin for WP and used it to build a website hosted elsewhere, how would this affect you? Asking for my company.
posted by blue shadows at 6:19 PM on September 27, 2024
posted by blue shadows at 6:19 PM on September 27, 2024
blue shadows: as long as you're not hosting your WordPress site on WP Engine, your exposure right now is absolutely zero. The danger, longer-term, is that this is potentially going to fracture the WordPress community and/or crater it as a platform, because Mullenweg shows absolutely no signs, this past year, of being willing or even able to back down from "out-of-control aggression" as his primary life strategy.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:23 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:23 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
adrienneleigh, if you'd share whatever you're willing to of your list of good CMSes, I think that would be a good deed. I've been a WordPress user for yonks, but I'm starting to be spooked. Mullenweg controls too much, wilds too much, and bids fair to splinter the community.
posted by humbug at 6:42 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by humbug at 6:42 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
Yeah I don’t really know what any of this means but I have a Wordpress website on my own host and boy did it get hacked last month with all kinds of shitty pop up menus and the like, I guess they got in via plugins. I’ve updated everything and installed some other plugins that are supposed to keep it safer but now I’m getting several alert emails a day telling me to update this or that, as someone mentioned above. Anyhow I hate Wordpress and I feel like I’m a bit trapped in the ecosystem as I need something that has lots of template options for video and music but is visual in implementing as I absolutely can’t code.
posted by chococat at 6:49 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by chococat at 6:49 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
"To come after the fact and punish someone for using your product exactly as licensed is problematic..."
Hmm, maybe he can change the company name to Problemattic, Inc.
posted by symbioid at 7:29 PM on September 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
Hmm, maybe he can change the company name to Problemattic, Inc.
posted by symbioid at 7:29 PM on September 27, 2024 [9 favorites]
I don't think this is a solution for people who want plugnplay but I started to use the Pelican SSG, based off of python. People with more fancy needs may need something like WP, but if you don't mind a little markup (depending on the system you choose, either basic Markdown, or reStructured Text, or a few others), and are OK with the command line - then typing "pelican -rl" to build the site and launch a local server to see it in your browser. Then you can upload the files to your normal host directory via SFTP and it should work.
That said it's more work than I make it sound above, and if you prefer not to do "command line" things, or "code" things (which mostly isn't that bad since it's literally just a text file with few simple header options, once you get the config and page layout specified...
I've heard Hugo is supposed to be good but it took longer to build my minimal site even though Go is faster than Python. It has a lot more plugins IIRC, and a lot more themes to play with. But I know Python and Pelican looked simple for my needs.
The other official weblog option my hosting company used for a while (IDK if it's offered anymore) was Ghost blogging software. I had a heck of a time with that one though. It just didn't feel right to me. IDK.
Hopefully y'all can find some good alternatives that fit your desired skillset!
posted by symbioid at 7:38 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
That said it's more work than I make it sound above, and if you prefer not to do "command line" things, or "code" things (which mostly isn't that bad since it's literally just a text file with few simple header options, once you get the config and page layout specified...
I've heard Hugo is supposed to be good but it took longer to build my minimal site even though Go is faster than Python. It has a lot more plugins IIRC, and a lot more themes to play with. But I know Python and Pelican looked simple for my needs.
The other official weblog option my hosting company used for a while (IDK if it's offered anymore) was Ghost blogging software. I had a heck of a time with that one though. It just didn't feel right to me. IDK.
Hopefully y'all can find some good alternatives that fit your desired skillset!
posted by symbioid at 7:38 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
This is sad because the bigger asshole basically holds the keys to a very important open source project. This will eventually lead to significant fragmentation or shift.
We only recently got off WP after using it since Duke in 2005 or 6. We even used WPE from about 2012 to 2015 or so and had mostly good things to say about them. The reality is that plugins touch too much in a site and make for slow, messy pages, and the newer toolbox themes and theme frameworks make it even heaier and clunkier in exchange for easier customization. We just had to get off for perf reasons.
Now we live with a static site generator and it has its own shortcomings but the code is cleaner and 3-7x more performant but our biggest lesson was that the CMS (based on Directus) immediately made us realize how much we took for granted in WordPress. It took us almost a year to build out all the functionality that we were used to having out of the box. That, plus the ecosystem, were always WordPress’ strengths.
posted by furtive at 7:38 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
We only recently got off WP after using it since Duke in 2005 or 6. We even used WPE from about 2012 to 2015 or so and had mostly good things to say about them. The reality is that plugins touch too much in a site and make for slow, messy pages, and the newer toolbox themes and theme frameworks make it even heaier and clunkier in exchange for easier customization. We just had to get off for perf reasons.
Now we live with a static site generator and it has its own shortcomings but the code is cleaner and 3-7x more performant but our biggest lesson was that the CMS (based on Directus) immediately made us realize how much we took for granted in WordPress. It took us almost a year to build out all the functionality that we were used to having out of the box. That, plus the ecosystem, were always WordPress’ strengths.
posted by furtive at 7:38 PM on September 27, 2024 [4 favorites]
Okay, i'll write up something about Good CMSes and post it here (or post a link to it here)!
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:23 PM on September 27, 2024 [14 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:23 PM on September 27, 2024 [14 favorites]
If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed - Looks a nice summary here.
posted by maupuia at 9:06 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by maupuia at 9:06 PM on September 27, 2024 [6 favorites]
Many of us are anticipating that a lawsuit by WPE will drop very soon along with a request for injunctive relief. The escalation into blocking them from the .org repositories made it inevitable.
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:08 PM on September 27, 2024
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:08 PM on September 27, 2024
And after checking, mentioned in adrienneleigh's summary!
posted by maupuia at 9:08 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by maupuia at 9:08 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
(Also linked upthread by jessamyn, which is where it got into my summary from!)
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:10 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:10 PM on September 27, 2024 [1 favorite]
Like symbioid, I use Pelican (actually, I use it enough I have a commit bit on it :) ); I can attest to it being a pretty nice blogging system, but I'm not sure I'd want to use it as a CMS for anyone who isn't far over on the coding side of the spectrum.
posted by ChrisR at 11:29 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by ChrisR at 11:29 PM on September 27, 2024 [2 favorites]
I've just ploughed through the Josh Collinsworth post that maupuia posted above... and holy heck, it's an even bigger mess than I'd originally thought!
I'd soured a bit on WordPress over the past few years, partly from the direction the core app is taking and partly from finding out more about Matt Mullenweg, but until this past week I would still have recommended it to others. But given what has gone down since, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's renewed interest in forks like ClassicPress or even other blogging apps & platforms.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a snowflake's change in hell of Matt being removed from WordPress, so I guess it's MattPress now?
(I'm currently using Hugo for my personal site, it's okay but I'm not loving it, and I'm considering moving back towards a server-based system like Kirby, which I've used before and liked a lot.)
posted by SpiffyVoxel at 3:21 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I'd soured a bit on WordPress over the past few years, partly from the direction the core app is taking and partly from finding out more about Matt Mullenweg, but until this past week I would still have recommended it to others. But given what has gone down since, I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's renewed interest in forks like ClassicPress or even other blogging apps & platforms.
Unfortunately, I don't think there's a snowflake's change in hell of Matt being removed from WordPress, so I guess it's MattPress now?
(I'm currently using Hugo for my personal site, it's okay but I'm not loving it, and I'm considering moving back towards a server-based system like Kirby, which I've used before and liked a lot.)
posted by SpiffyVoxel at 3:21 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The techy YouTuber Theo was discussing this brouhaha on his channel and made a really interesting point - he basically asked "what on earth is Wordpress doing with all of their volunteer hours and funding?"
Beyond security updates, and the Gutenberg Editor, the product doesn't seem to have changed much in a very long time. What do they need with that 5% back? It can't all be security updates.
I'm sure there's a not-insignificant amount of work to keep Wordpress current on the latest versions of PHP, while retaining backwards compatibility. But the software seems largely un-changed in the last decade.
That's fine? I guess? If it works it works. But why all the drama about giving back? What does Wordpress (the software) need that it's not getting?
posted by device55 at 7:39 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
Beyond security updates, and the Gutenberg Editor, the product doesn't seem to have changed much in a very long time. What do they need with that 5% back? It can't all be security updates.
I'm sure there's a not-insignificant amount of work to keep Wordpress current on the latest versions of PHP, while retaining backwards compatibility. But the software seems largely un-changed in the last decade.
That's fine? I guess? If it works it works. But why all the drama about giving back? What does Wordpress (the software) need that it's not getting?
posted by device55 at 7:39 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
“Many of us are anticipating that a lawsuit by WPE will drop very soon along with a request for injunctive relief. The escalation into blocking them from the .org repositories made it inevitable.”
I’m curious, what legal argument would they have to force access to the repos? Lots of folks have argued that Matt is in the wrong for this, but I’m not sure there’s any reason that WPE has a *right* to access. WP.org can block anybody they want to, AFAIK. (They may have other claims, just not clear there’s any argument that would force an injunction.)
posted by jzb at 8:27 AM on September 28, 2024
I’m curious, what legal argument would they have to force access to the repos? Lots of folks have argued that Matt is in the wrong for this, but I’m not sure there’s any reason that WPE has a *right* to access. WP.org can block anybody they want to, AFAIK. (They may have other claims, just not clear there’s any argument that would force an injunction.)
posted by jzb at 8:27 AM on September 28, 2024
The techy YouTuber Theo was discussing this brouhaha on his channel and made a really interesting point - he basically asked "what on earth is Wordpress doing with all of their volunteer hours and funding?"It’s worth noting that what people think of as the core work of Wordpress — saving and showing mostly text-and image entries in reverse chronological order — hasn’t changed significantly in many, many years. Gutenberg is an effort to do something else entirely: full-page editing and design, with configurable modular components. There are a lot of pros and a lot of cons to that approach for people working with lots of content (I’ve ranted publicly about it before), but for the past several years that approach to page and site creation has been pretty dominant in the CMS market.
The problem is that architecturally, under the hood, Wordpress really IS a fairly simple blog publishing tool. The basic patterns of the 2003 era program it was originally forked from are still visible, and as adrienneleigh noted upthread, despite all the complexity of a modern wordpress site the way the data is stored under the hood (a list of “posts,” and a big list of “other data” for each post that increasingly holds all the meat of an actual wordpress site) hasn’t evolved in about two decades.
The drag and drop modules and color pickers approach Gutenberg has made “standard” isn’t a change to wordpress’s internals: it is an entirely new content architecture and user interface model stacked on top of the old one, and keeping the two working together is a lot like doing maintenance on a cybertruck that’s resting gently on the roof of a 1973 buick skylark.
posted by verb at 10:35 AM on September 28, 2024 [10 favorites]
Matt has announced a limited 'WP Engine Reprieve'.
(This is already in adrienneleigh's gist, but seemed significant enough it should be in the thread here directly too.)
posted by bcd at 10:57 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I’ve heard from WP Engine customers that they are frustrated that WP Engine hasn’t been able to make updates, plugin directory, theme directory, and Openverse work on their sites. It saddens me that they’ve been negatively impacted by Silver Lake‘s commercial decisions.Which, to my taste anyway, just continues his completely juvenile language and behavior.
On WP Engine’s homepage, they promise “Unmatched performance, automated updates, and bulletproof security ensure your sites thrive.”
WP Engine was well aware that we could remove access when they chose to ignore our efforts to resolve our differences and enter into a commercial licensing agreement. Heather Brunner, Lee Wittlinger, and their Board chose to take this risk. WPE was also aware that they were placing this risk directly on WPE customers. You could assume that WPE has a workaround ready, or they were simply reckless in supporting their customers. Silver Lake and WP Engine put their customers at risk, not me.
We have lifted the blocks of their servers from accessing ours, until October 1, UTC 00:00. Hopefully this helps them spin up their mirrors of all of WordPress.org’s resources that they were using for free while not paying, and making legal threats against us.
(This is already in adrienneleigh's gist, but seemed significant enough it should be in the thread here directly too.)
posted by bcd at 10:57 AM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
The drag and drop modules and color pickers approach Gutenberg has made “standard” isn’t a change to wordpress’s internals: it is an entirely new content architecture and user interface model stacked on top of the old one, and keeping the two working together is a lot like doing maintenance on a cybertruck that’s resting gently on the roof of a 1973 buick skylark.Thanks for the detail verb, I’ve only vaguely touched Wordpress in recent years (mostly to migrate people off of it tbh). The Gutenberg “system” is totally shoehorned onto the existing post architecture. I see the appeal and need to complete with visual tools like Squarespace and Wix - and that’s likely the right target market. But it seems like “professional” CMS platforms (Contentful, Sanity, Strapi, etc) have solidly bet on “structured” content which allows you define your content types and collections, instead of relying on the arbitrary page metaphor.
There seems to be a giant hole in the market. You have Squarespace and Wix and friends at one end, Wordpress nearby for folks who need or want more customization, and then way at the other end are modern headless CMS systems. There doesn’t seem to be a single contender for structured, optionally self-hosted CMS that doesn’t require at least some coding knowledge (Strapi, for example, requires defining your content models)
posted by device55 at 3:25 PM on September 28, 2024 [2 favorites]
I’m curious, what legal argument would they have to force access to the repos? Lots of folks have argued that Matt is in the wrong for this, but I’m not sure there’s any reason that WPE has a *right* to access. WP.org can block anybody they want to, AFAIK. (They may have other claims, just not clear there’s any argument that would force an injunction.)
I don't know that they'll get injunctive relief, and i am definitely not a lawyer. But they will probably at least apply for it based on the underlying claims (which are defamation and tortious interference, according to the C&D; it's possible that they'll add self-dealing, since that is obviously also going on).
(There's also some chatter about a possible class-action suit against Automattic and/or Mullenweg himself (because he personally controls the .org domain) by WP Engine customers. I have no idea whether that's likely or not, because, again, i'm extremely not a lawyer—but i'm seeing it discussed at least. Customers are very angry at being exposed to the possibility of real harm by this bullshit.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:10 PM on September 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
I don't know that they'll get injunctive relief, and i am definitely not a lawyer. But they will probably at least apply for it based on the underlying claims (which are defamation and tortious interference, according to the C&D; it's possible that they'll add self-dealing, since that is obviously also going on).
(There's also some chatter about a possible class-action suit against Automattic and/or Mullenweg himself (because he personally controls the .org domain) by WP Engine customers. I have no idea whether that's likely or not, because, again, i'm extremely not a lawyer—but i'm seeing it discussed at least. Customers are very angry at being exposed to the possibility of real harm by this bullshit.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:10 PM on September 28, 2024 [7 favorites]
So, just something that I haven't seen mentioned that should be a consideration for the WordPress Foundation: You can lose your 501(c)3 status if board members have a conflict of interest where they're directly profiting from decisions made by the 501(c)3. In the larger scheme, it's basically part of anti-money laundering policy, because (surprise surprise) lots of folks try to set up 501(c)3s to allow them to dodge taxes. I don't think that's what's happening here, at least from my read, but it is the sort of thing that the IRS is willing to yank your status over, which can be fatal to the non-profit, and board members specifically have a fiduciary duty to steer clear of entanglements like this.
This doesn't just cover things like the Orange County Supervisor who steered donations to his daughter's non-profit, which she used to buy herself a house and a car, but things like making decisions to financially harm a commercial rival, which shutting off access seems to pretty clearly be. I'm not a lawyer; I hope that the WP Foundation is talking to lawyers about this, because I would assume that WP Engine is talking to lawyers about this, and I would very much not want to have my ass be on the line for this call if the IRS audits.
posted by klangklangston at 12:55 PM on September 29, 2024 [6 favorites]
This doesn't just cover things like the Orange County Supervisor who steered donations to his daughter's non-profit, which she used to buy herself a house and a car, but things like making decisions to financially harm a commercial rival, which shutting off access seems to pretty clearly be. I'm not a lawyer; I hope that the WP Foundation is talking to lawyers about this, because I would assume that WP Engine is talking to lawyers about this, and I would very much not want to have my ass be on the line for this call if the IRS audits.
posted by klangklangston at 12:55 PM on September 29, 2024 [6 favorites]
Mullenweg is now talking idly about a hostile takeover of WP Engine, and claiming that his lawyers said it was fine to run his mouth because he's right.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:22 PM on October 1, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:22 PM on October 1, 2024 [2 favorites]
This is so weird... I have a couple of WP Engine instances I keep an eye on and maybe touch every once in a while. I keep updating my team on it just to make sure this circus is on their radar.
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:16 PM on October 1, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by JoeXIII007 at 3:16 PM on October 1, 2024 [2 favorites]
Wake up babe, new WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf] complaint just dropped, and Mullenweg is talking in the Hacker News thread.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:09 PM on October 2, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:09 PM on October 2, 2024 [4 favorites]
How is this guy still talking? How have his lawyers not throttled him?
posted by karasu at 6:59 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by karasu at 6:59 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
Oof that thread, when a rando on HN (albeit one who works at Google) is saying "Matt - i'm not your lawyer, but you should shut up." perhaps you should shut up.
posted by jessamyn at 7:57 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by jessamyn at 7:57 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
Kellie Peterson used to work at Autonattic. She noted that Automattic was offering severance to workers who wanted out, and offered to help those who jumped without more work lined up. Matt Mullenweg handled it with as much grace as you’d expect right now: not much.
posted by Pronoiac at 8:05 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 8:05 AM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
The WP Engine complaint does ask for injunctive relief on multiple grounds, and also for declaratory judgment on a couple of the claims.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:56 PM on October 3, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:56 PM on October 3, 2024 [1 favorite]
And now that the deadline has passed, we learn from Matt that 159 people took the severance offer, 8.4% of staff.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:44 PM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:44 PM on October 3, 2024 [3 favorites]
Matt to Kellie Peterson (in response to her saying "diversity of opinion is vital"): I welcome dissenting and disagreeing opinion! Our employees can disagree publicly, unlike those other guys!
On Ma.tt:
posted by trig at 2:23 AM on October 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
On Ma.tt:
Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” [...] It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.(There's something so oppressive about how "alignment" has taken off as a business buzzword.)
So we decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible, we called it an Alignment Offer
posted by trig at 2:23 AM on October 4, 2024 [2 favorites]
Hey, if you don't align with the party line, you will get purged. That's marxism-leninism for you.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:04 AM on October 4, 2024
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:04 AM on October 4, 2024
This is so weird to me because I met Mullenweg back in the early 2000s at Houston-area blogger meetups. A friend in our alumni social circles actually suggested the name of WordPress. I couldn't say Mullenweg and I know each other; it was just a mutual acquaintance friend-of-friends thing 20 years ago. But all the same this is a person I know who's turned into kind of a stereotypical billionaire tech villain. Very strange.
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:38 AM on October 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
posted by gentlyepigrams at 7:38 AM on October 4, 2024 [3 favorites]
A couple of people on Mastodon have noted... a certain vibe
> Matt Mullenweg is transforming before our eyes into PHPlon Musk
> ... describing Matt Mullenweg as "like someone wrote Elon Musk in PHP"
posted by Pronoiac at 3:35 PM on October 4, 2024 [5 favorites]
> Matt Mullenweg is transforming before our eyes into PHPlon Musk
> ... describing Matt Mullenweg as "like someone wrote Elon Musk in PHP"
posted by Pronoiac at 3:35 PM on October 4, 2024 [5 favorites]
I'm hoping this isn't against the rules; it's not my content but it is living on my YouTube account. Lawyer Mike Dunford (questauthority.bsky.social) has done two shows in a row of his weekly Litigation Disaster Tour Hour on the WP Engine / Automattic shenanigans and the VODs are now available over here for viewing. (Twitch removes VODs from public view after a week so we wanted to capture them for archival.)
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:42 PM on October 4, 2024 [6 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 4:42 PM on October 4, 2024 [6 favorites]
Aaaaand today, the official “Wordpress” account on X posted that there’s an undisclosed security vulnerability in “Advanced Custom Fields,” one of the most popular third-party plugins for setting up complex content in Wordpress. Coincidentally, although ACF was originally created by an independent developer it’s been purchased and is now maintained and supported by… WPEngine.
This is another level of escalation for a couple reasons:
1. Announcing an “undisclosed security vulnerability” is a scary thing in the WP world, as it has a long and relatively deserved reputation for being an easy hacking target. It’s also … not exactly COMMON for a good faith actor to announce this kind of thing before the software’s maintainer has had a chance to fix the issue.
2. The ACF team has noted that since they’ve been banned from the wordpress.org servers, they can no longer log in to post an updated version of the plugin. They’ve rewritten portions of the plugin, now, to get future updates from WPEngine-hosted servers, but anyone “locked” to the version currently on wordpress.org will have to understand what’s going on, go to a different site, manually download and install the new fixed version themselves.
3. Announcements about this vulnerability and snarky comments about how “WPE could solve this problem very easily…” have been posted by the actual @wordpress account on X, not @photomatt or @automattic.
4. Matt “casually asked” the community on X about the best alternatives to ACF, since “lots of people will probably be leaving it soon.”
posted by verb at 6:47 PM on October 5, 2024 [4 favorites]
This is another level of escalation for a couple reasons:
1. Announcing an “undisclosed security vulnerability” is a scary thing in the WP world, as it has a long and relatively deserved reputation for being an easy hacking target. It’s also … not exactly COMMON for a good faith actor to announce this kind of thing before the software’s maintainer has had a chance to fix the issue.
2. The ACF team has noted that since they’ve been banned from the wordpress.org servers, they can no longer log in to post an updated version of the plugin. They’ve rewritten portions of the plugin, now, to get future updates from WPEngine-hosted servers, but anyone “locked” to the version currently on wordpress.org will have to understand what’s going on, go to a different site, manually download and install the new fixed version themselves.
3. Announcements about this vulnerability and snarky comments about how “WPE could solve this problem very easily…” have been posted by the actual @wordpress account on X, not @photomatt or @automattic.
4. Matt “casually asked” the community on X about the best alternatives to ACF, since “lots of people will probably be leaving it soon.”
posted by verb at 6:47 PM on October 5, 2024 [4 favorites]
I’m still kind of chewing on that one, for two reasons:
First, as someone who participates in various open source projects as a developer, I would not contribute time or resources to a project where this happens. Successful open source projects almost by definition end up bringing competing companies together to cooperate. In my previous job, I helped build infrastructure code fore use on Sony Music’s stable of artist sites, and released the code as open source with their permission. A year later, Warner Brothers paid for improvements to that code because they used it on their sites. That only works when everyone involves can trust that the cooperation won’t be weaponized against them, and that the basic mechanisms of a safe and well maintained project (like the security announcements process) won’t be weaponized to advantage one participant over another.
Matt is demonstrating that he expects everyone to participate in specific ways, but will block them from participating in those ways if he believes it will help him pressure a competitor. Then, when they’re blocked and unable to participate in the ways he’s set up as an expectation, he will use their “non-participation” as a lever as well.
Second, as someone who advises large clients on what CMSs they should use, this is — even more than the issue of blocking WPEngine servers in particular — grounds to seriously warn a client considering WordPress about the potential for a site getting screwed by Matt going to war with… anyone, really.
Hosting is one thing, but there are all kinds of hosts out there and at least in theory moving hosts shouldn’t require you to radically change your site. If a popular plugin that’s central to the functioning of a site becomes unusble, though, it’s much more than simply moving the site to a hosting company Matt approves of. You basically have to rebuild the site, or at least do major internal renovation.
If Matt is willing to actively kill popular plugins under the pretext of security issues while blocking the maintainers from posting security updates, pretty much anything that relies on any wordpress.org infrastructure should be considered unsafe as long as the current commercial and nonprofit structures are headed by Matt.
i wouldn’t say it’s reason enough to advise someone against Wordpress categorically, but I’d be negligent if I didn’t walk a client through the pros and cons as they make a CMS decision.
posted by verb at 7:22 PM on October 5, 2024 [5 favorites]
First, as someone who participates in various open source projects as a developer, I would not contribute time or resources to a project where this happens. Successful open source projects almost by definition end up bringing competing companies together to cooperate. In my previous job, I helped build infrastructure code fore use on Sony Music’s stable of artist sites, and released the code as open source with their permission. A year later, Warner Brothers paid for improvements to that code because they used it on their sites. That only works when everyone involves can trust that the cooperation won’t be weaponized against them, and that the basic mechanisms of a safe and well maintained project (like the security announcements process) won’t be weaponized to advantage one participant over another.
Matt is demonstrating that he expects everyone to participate in specific ways, but will block them from participating in those ways if he believes it will help him pressure a competitor. Then, when they’re blocked and unable to participate in the ways he’s set up as an expectation, he will use their “non-participation” as a lever as well.
Second, as someone who advises large clients on what CMSs they should use, this is — even more than the issue of blocking WPEngine servers in particular — grounds to seriously warn a client considering WordPress about the potential for a site getting screwed by Matt going to war with… anyone, really.
Hosting is one thing, but there are all kinds of hosts out there and at least in theory moving hosts shouldn’t require you to radically change your site. If a popular plugin that’s central to the functioning of a site becomes unusble, though, it’s much more than simply moving the site to a hosting company Matt approves of. You basically have to rebuild the site, or at least do major internal renovation.
If Matt is willing to actively kill popular plugins under the pretext of security issues while blocking the maintainers from posting security updates, pretty much anything that relies on any wordpress.org infrastructure should be considered unsafe as long as the current commercial and nonprofit structures are headed by Matt.
i wouldn’t say it’s reason enough to advise someone against Wordpress categorically, but I’d be negligent if I didn’t walk a client through the pros and cons as they make a CMS decision.
posted by verb at 7:22 PM on October 5, 2024 [5 favorites]
I'm not up to date on plug-in registries, but if there were not projects aiming to create an independently operated central plug-in registry that doesn't depend on WP HQ, ... well there must be now.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:31 PM on October 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
posted by Rhomboid at 9:31 PM on October 5, 2024 [1 favorite]
Also, some $2000/hour lawyers are furiously writing an amended complaint at Quinn Emmanuel. To get a preliminary injuction, WPE needs to prove irreparable harm; this might help with that.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:41 PM on October 5, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 9:41 PM on October 5, 2024 [4 favorites]
Rhomboid, I know of at least one that’s being worked on and some coordination is happening on the /r/wordpress sub on reddit, but I’d be cautious putting my faith in anything until Matt’s future is clarified.
Basically, the “standard” Wordpress plugin system automatically phones home to wordpress.org for every plugin, theme, and also for wordpress itself, and checks for any new versions. On most sites, it also automatically installs those updates.
The same registry is used as a kind of “easy install” system, where users can search for themes and plugins, discover them, and install them and try them out without ever having to learn about FTP and file permissions or anything like that. However, Wordpress has no mechanism to change what site those requests are pointing to, and no easy hooks to modify it. (That’s one of the reason’s Matt’s complaints about the resources WPEngine uses hitting wordpress.org are IMO silly; no one forced him to make his privately owned web site a chokepoint for 40% of the internet.)
Some third party plugins (especially very popular paid ones) maintain their own plugin specific update servers so they can serve new versions of the “pro” edition to clients who’ve purchased licenses. But that’s plugin by plugin, not something universal. The fact that ACF had a pro version and had that infrastructure in place helps them — their next update repurposes it to distribute updates of BOTH the free and pro versions as needed, but that’s impractical for most projects.
Ultimately, changing Wordpress to support a less centralized model for this stuff would require either a fork of Wordpress, Matt-approved changes to Wordpress that directly affect his control over the project, or an approach that lives outside of Wordpress itself, essentially proxying the wordpress.org requests and routing them somewhere that works similarly.
posted by verb at 9:56 PM on October 5, 2024 [2 favorites]
Basically, the “standard” Wordpress plugin system automatically phones home to wordpress.org for every plugin, theme, and also for wordpress itself, and checks for any new versions. On most sites, it also automatically installs those updates.
The same registry is used as a kind of “easy install” system, where users can search for themes and plugins, discover them, and install them and try them out without ever having to learn about FTP and file permissions or anything like that. However, Wordpress has no mechanism to change what site those requests are pointing to, and no easy hooks to modify it. (That’s one of the reason’s Matt’s complaints about the resources WPEngine uses hitting wordpress.org are IMO silly; no one forced him to make his privately owned web site a chokepoint for 40% of the internet.)
Some third party plugins (especially very popular paid ones) maintain their own plugin specific update servers so they can serve new versions of the “pro” edition to clients who’ve purchased licenses. But that’s plugin by plugin, not something universal. The fact that ACF had a pro version and had that infrastructure in place helps them — their next update repurposes it to distribute updates of BOTH the free and pro versions as needed, but that’s impractical for most projects.
Ultimately, changing Wordpress to support a less centralized model for this stuff would require either a fork of Wordpress, Matt-approved changes to Wordpress that directly affect his control over the project, or an approach that lives outside of Wordpress itself, essentially proxying the wordpress.org requests and routing them somewhere that works similarly.
posted by verb at 9:56 PM on October 5, 2024 [2 favorites]
If I were evaluating the risk in my open source software supply chain, the nonprofit shenanigans would make me check that any foundation meant to provide governance over the project is on the up and up. After all, checking the trademark filings would have revealed the foundash had given the commercial license to Automattic. And looking at the incorporation documents you could have seen that the foundation was essentially Matt in a trench coat.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:35 PM on October 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 10:35 PM on October 6, 2024 [5 favorites]
Okay, so, a few developments here:
* Mattyboy has hired someone to be the executive director of wordpress.org -- whatever that actually is, and Mattyboy and Mattyboy's lawyers do not appear to agree about it.
* Mattyboy has also put an "are you affiliated with WPEngine" checkbox on the wordpress.org login page, and if the box is checked login is refused. Requests to Mattyboy for clarification on who counts as "affiliated" have been met with "ask your lawyers."
Plenty available on the WordPress subreddit for those who want more of the tea.
I'm looking at Serendipity as a migration target for my (fairly simple) self-hosted WordPress blogs.
posted by humbug at 11:16 AM on October 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
* Mattyboy has hired someone to be the executive director of wordpress.org -- whatever that actually is, and Mattyboy and Mattyboy's lawyers do not appear to agree about it.
* Mattyboy has also put an "are you affiliated with WPEngine" checkbox on the wordpress.org login page, and if the box is checked login is refused. Requests to Mattyboy for clarification on who counts as "affiliated" have been met with "ask your lawyers."
Plenty available on the WordPress subreddit for those who want more of the tea.
I'm looking at Serendipity as a migration target for my (fairly simple) self-hosted WordPress blogs.
posted by humbug at 11:16 AM on October 9, 2024 [2 favorites]
In today's Matt Surprise (tm), Automattic "forks" WPE's Advanced Custom Fields plug-in for "security reasons", taking over its spot in the wordpress.org plugin repository, complete with url, reviews and version history.
Matt cites the wordpress.org plugin guideline 18:
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 1:00 PM on October 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
Matt cites the wordpress.org plugin guideline 18:
18. We reserve the right to maintain the Plugin Directory to the best of our ability.I don't think the takeover shows "as much fairness as humanly possible", nor "as much respect as possible for both end users and developers".
Our intent is to enforce these guidelines with as much fairness as humanly possible. We do this to ensure overall plugin quality and the safety of their users. To that end, we reserve the following rights:
... to update these guidelines at any time.
... to disable or remove any plugin from the directory, even for reasons not explicitly covered by the guidelines.
... to grant exceptions and allow developers time to address issues, even security related.
... to remove developer access to a plugin in lieu of a new, active, developer.
... to make changes to a plugin, without developer consent, in the interest of public safety.
In return, we promise to use those rights sparingly and with as much respect as possible for both end users and developers.
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 1:00 PM on October 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
Watching the subreddit is interesting. Sentiment for some time was "a pox on both their houses," but now it's hard to find a single supporter for Mattyboy.
I didn't have "start migrating websites" on my to-do for this weekend, but here we are.
posted by humbug at 1:25 PM on October 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
I didn't have "start migrating websites" on my to-do for this weekend, but here we are.
posted by humbug at 1:25 PM on October 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
Even after all the twists and turns, I honestly was not expecting this to actually play out. Literally just two weeks ago the primary dev for ACF, a WPEngine employee, posted a long update about the new work that’s gone into its latest release and the in progress roadmap for it. The attempts to suggest that it is “abandoned” because its maintainers were locked out of the repository where they used to pose updates, then forking the project to take control of it, is… well, pick a superlative.
That said, the ecosystem of paid plugins in the Wordpress world has always been kind of a ticking timebomb; the GPL license has always been fine with selling software as long as anyone who purchases it can also get the code for free — and once they have the code, they can give it away, etc. The ecosystem of paid plugins has relied on a kind of uncomfortable gentlemen's’ agreement not to exploit that, and Matt has weaponized it to explicitly harm a business competitor.
Mind you, if I were making any plans, I wouldn’t trust Matt to support the “new” “secure custom fields” plugin; he fought efforts to move that kind of feature into WordPress core for a decade.
posted by verb at 2:15 PM on October 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
That said, the ecosystem of paid plugins in the Wordpress world has always been kind of a ticking timebomb; the GPL license has always been fine with selling software as long as anyone who purchases it can also get the code for free — and once they have the code, they can give it away, etc. The ecosystem of paid plugins has relied on a kind of uncomfortable gentlemen's’ agreement not to exploit that, and Matt has weaponized it to explicitly harm a business competitor.
Mind you, if I were making any plans, I wouldn’t trust Matt to support the “new” “secure custom fields” plugin; he fought efforts to move that kind of feature into WordPress core for a decade.
posted by verb at 2:15 PM on October 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
humbug: I literally am a Professional CMS Person, and if you'd like to MeMail me i'm happy to talk through what might be good options for you?
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:13 PM on October 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:13 PM on October 12, 2024 [2 favorites]
There's an HN discussion or two on the plug-in hijacking. The first has Matt taking on everyone. Wasn't he supposed to be on vacation this week? Oh, and also:
WHAT
THE
FUCK
MATT?
posted by Pronoiac at 3:25 PM on October 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
WHAT
THE
FUCK
MATT?
posted by Pronoiac at 3:25 PM on October 12, 2024 [6 favorites]
Mind you, if I were making any plans, I wouldn’t trust Matt to support the “new” “secure custom fields” plugin; he fought efforts to move that kind of feature into WordPress core for a decade.@verb I’d love to know more about this, if you have a handy reference. I’ve long been baffled by Wordpress’ steady refusal to implement a structured content system.
posted by device55 at 7:50 PM on October 12, 2024 [1 favorite]
I just saw a typo for Mullenweg's name elsewhere, as "Mullewang", and now I'm weighing which is better for his random choices, "that's Mullewang!" or "that's Numberwang!"
posted by Pronoiac at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by Pronoiac at 8:51 PM on October 12, 2024 [4 favorites]
I’d love to know more about this, if you have a handy reference. I’ve long been baffled by Wordpress’ steady refusal to implement a structured content system@devices55, I'm not sure I have a handy reference, but I've got 25 of open source CMS community lore, and a bunch of gross simplifications!
The short answer is that the WordPress ecosystem is a huge pile of third-party plugins layered on top of a 2000/2001 era database schema cribbed from MovableType, and Matt Mullenweg has spent the last quarter of a century insisting that's actually fine and good. Over time, the WordPress community has fragmented into several distinct tiers:
- People who basically use whatever Wordpress gives them, but install a plugin if they're it will get them a feature they want
- People who build or use lots of plugins to add lots of features to one or more Wordpress sites, and more than anything else DO NOT WANT THOSE SITES TO BREAK
- People who essentially build custom PHP web applications around WordPress, handling things like data storage and administration themselves and tying into WordPress's admin screens and login page because their customers are used to Wordpress and comfortable with it.
Adding a high-quality (or even medium-quality) content modeling tool in WordPress would arguably make complex sites a lot cleaner under the hood. But it would also be a radically different way of doing things, would be incompatible with the seventeen different third-party plugins that do so by jamming lots of things into WordPress's anemic 2000-era data structures, would take a lot of work, and group (1) still wouldn't care.
While other CMSs from the WordPress era started accumulating "high end" features like content modeling tools, Wordpress-Aka-Matt left it up to the third-party plugin system, and focused on iterative refinement to stuff he felt was really core to the blogging experience. Image uploading (which was actually remarkably frustrating in most CMSs and blogging tools for years), automatic installation of security updates (which was critical because WordPress's early-aughts PHP architecture and reliance on third-party plugins led to many security holes), and an easy "one-click installation process" were all pretty significant areas of focus — but HOW those features were implemented always prioritized keeping the underlying system as untouched as possible.
While it frustrated some developers, it also led to absolute domination of the pure blogging space, and (eventually) a second wave of small business sites that were close enough to blog-shaped that WordPress could be hammered into shape. Network effects meant more and more individuals and small businesses used WordPress, so writing third-party plugins for it could be an actual paying gig for PHP developers — and Wordpress's locked in stone architecture meant keeping their plugins up to date (aka sellable) was less work than many other "better" platforms.
Wordpress's steady growth over 20 years was driven by capturing the low end and slowly eating its way upwards. When the big threat arrived, it wasn't high-end CMSs getting easier: it was the new generation of page-builders like Squarespace and Wix that undercut Wordpress's simplicity by abandoning the legacy conventions of posts and categories and blogging and just let people drag stuff around on pages. When those tools arrived, they started cannibalizing the lucrative pool of small business sites, pop-up marketing campaigns, and so on that had been built on Wordpress for a generation.
Gutenberg was Wordpress's response to that threat — and while it was a significant shift in the user experience of Wordpress… under the hood it's basically an extremely complicated plugin layered on top of the same old underlying architecture. While there are dedicated developers who've spent a decade trying to get "Custom Fields" into Wordpress core, Matt's never felt it was important enough to Wordpress's market to deal with the complexity of actually changing how Wordpress works internally.
For better or worse, from a product perspective, it's hard to argue with success. I've written, spoken, and yelled at the clouds about the challenges organizations face when blindly building on top of that architecture, but, y'know, Matt's worth $400,000,000 and 40% of the web is Wordpress sites.
posted by verb at 12:17 AM on October 13, 2024 [23 favorites]
Amazing verb, flagged as “fantastic”.
Your breakdown helps to put it all into perspective.
In recent years, when I have touched Wordpress, it has been to migrate a client site off of the platform and over to a CMS like Contentful (fine, but spendy).
Eventually most Wordpress sites become a coral reef of bad decisions, and it’s at that point clients are ready for a change. My recent experience has been biased toward those customers, but this is clearly not the bulk of Wordpress customers.
I think your point about Squarespace and Wix challenging Wordpress on the low end is true. I see SaaS platforms like SanityCMS, Contentful reaching down to the middle with free tiers. StrapiJS and Payload, which are open source and free to self host, are another challenge. But it’s a long road to supplant 40% of the web.
posted by device55 at 4:58 AM on October 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
Your breakdown helps to put it all into perspective.
In recent years, when I have touched Wordpress, it has been to migrate a client site off of the platform and over to a CMS like Contentful (fine, but spendy).
Eventually most Wordpress sites become a coral reef of bad decisions, and it’s at that point clients are ready for a change. My recent experience has been biased toward those customers, but this is clearly not the bulk of Wordpress customers.
I think your point about Squarespace and Wix challenging Wordpress on the low end is true. I see SaaS platforms like SanityCMS, Contentful reaching down to the middle with free tiers. StrapiJS and Payload, which are open source and free to self host, are another challenge. But it’s a long road to supplant 40% of the web.
posted by device55 at 4:58 AM on October 13, 2024 [3 favorites]
All this got me to finally finish migrating my last WordPress site (which had been read-only for years) to static HTML. One less potential security hole on my server, one less thing to constantly upgrade.
posted by mbrubeck at 11:52 AM on October 13, 2024 [5 favorites]
posted by mbrubeck at 11:52 AM on October 13, 2024 [5 favorites]
Mod note: [We've added verb's very interesting breakdown of the Wordpress ecosystem to the sidebar and Best Of blog!]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:48 AM on October 14, 2024 [4 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 2:48 AM on October 14, 2024 [4 favorites]
The WordPress subreddit has completely imploded. All mods but one are gone, and that one wants to be gone.
There's a new WPDrama subreddit that's... slightly useful for breaking news.
posted by humbug at 10:13 AM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
There's a new WPDrama subreddit that's... slightly useful for breaking news.
posted by humbug at 10:13 AM on October 16, 2024 [1 favorite]
« Older "I can feel the pinch. Something pointed that... | Podcast all the things Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
/ traumatized web dev on the verge of retirement.
posted by supermedusa at 12:30 PM on September 27, 2024 [22 favorites]