Matt Mullenweg has gone too far
In case anyone missed it, Matt Mullenweg decided to drag WordPress.org into his temper truntum over WP Engine. This is what it looks like if you want to log into WordPress.org these days:
You now have to tick a box saying “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.”
Then, because was not done turning the WordPress ecosystem into a toxic hell hole, he forcibly forked the plugin ACF and renamed it SCF.
But whatever my feelings about private equity in general or Silver Lake’s management of WP Engine in particular, I care far more about the integrity of open source licenses, and that integrity is under direct assault by Automattic’s grotesque claim for WP Engine’s revenues.
Automattic is doing open source dirty
Mullenweg’s ego is only negative for the Open Source community in general and devastating for the WordPress community. None of us asked for this unprofessional power trip. This benefits no one but Mullenweg. And that’s just fine for him. After all, as far as Mullenweg is concerned, WordPress is his and his alone.
“WordPress.org just belongs to me personally,” Mullenweg said during an interview with The Verge.
Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’, The Verge
That’s just fine. WordPress is Open Source code. Just like WordPress was a fork of b2 FreePress or whatever comes next can as easily be a fork of WordPress and there’s not a damn thing Mullenweg can do other than scream and throw his toys out of the pram.
I suspect that he wants to go on calling WordPress open source while also ripping up what that means to demand money from the people who enjoy using WordPress for fun and profit.
But I suspect Automattic wants to have their cake and eat it too. They want to retain WordPress’ shine of open source, but also be able to extract their pound of flesh from any competitor that might appear, whenever they see fit. Screw that.
Automattic is doing open source dirty
Perhaps it is time for a change of name so we can get rid of Mullenweg’s ego and get back to creating CMS and blogging software for the community.
If there are any serious proposals to fork WordPress, I want in.
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