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Comment by photomatt | Hacker News Reader

Happy to answer any questions HN folks have about this. Love y'all. :)

Hey Matt, ex-Automattician here. I don't have any comment on the issues themselves (haven't touched PHP or WP since I left) but please consider that the fallout of these actions may hurt your own employees in ways you can't see.

This has turned into a legal situation and I'd have to guess it's making people very uncomfortable. From the outside, it seems to have happened so suddenly that anyone employed at Automattic wouldn't have time to consider their options beforehand. Some people I really respect and enjoyed working with are in a tough spot right now and there's no way they can be fully honest with you given the circumstances.

Why go through trademark rather than licensing agreement for access to wp.org resources?

If they are in violation of trademark why not just file a case against them?

Why the selective enforcement of your trademark? Doesn't that essentially void your trademark?

If wpengine renamed would you leave them alone or is the trademark dispute just a form of leverage?

What entity is at the heart of this dispute? Wordpress foundation, automattic, wp.org, or you personally? Is there any difference between those entities or are they essentially the same when it comes to this dispute?

I am a wpengine user. Why should I trust my building needs to the wordpress ecosystemgoing forward if access can be revoked for what appears to be any reason?

Matt, you currently have three roles. You are running Automattic, the WordPress Foundation and wordpress.org. It seems that this is a huge conflict of Interest and a dispute with one seems to quickly become a dispute with all. eg a Trademark dispute with The Wordpress Foundation results in a ban from wordpress.org.

Will you be resigning from one or more of these roles?

No, I will continue to serve in all of those roles.

A pity. But I guess people now know that wordpress.org and The Wordpress Foundation are subordinate to the aims and profits of Automattic and yourself.

So why should someone use WordPress, knowing one person with enormous conflicts of interest determines which companies are allowed to host it?

You want to make your pick while you seemingly still have options open, unless you'd rather go down with the ship.

You've proven yourself to be too much of a central point of failure and the longer this position is maintained, the more risk-conscious customers will feel forced to start thinking about their options.

How would one replicate privately the entire WordPress.org infrastructure, from plugins and theme hosting and updates, core storage and update calls? Can you point to any documentation that would allow WPEngine or any other host to stop using wordpress.org capabilities and keep using WordPress functionality as you are asking WPEngine? How do you envision that affecting plugin and theme authors? Core contributors? "Extend" Stores?

It's hard, I agree. You'll need to be a good engineer to set it up and host it. But it's very doable. I guess we'll see how good their engineers are.

You think that's very doable in 72hrs? Can you provide documentation? Do you think that's a reasonable delay to do this thing that's never been done before?

When do you plan to add support in the admin UI for alternate source urls for plugins and themes, so that others can more effectively mirror your apparently overtaxed infrastructure?

Why would I build that? The built-in source works great, for tens of millions of servers.

You are making a public display out of your ability to harm those who you feel have wronged you. It is understandable that some users might want to, in light of this, reduce your ability to harm them. It is also, in a way, understandable that you would not want to help them do this.

> your ability to harm those who you feel have wronged you

Importantly, also his complete and utter inability to separate soldiers from civilians. You can't even be safe knowing that you haven't personally offended Matt—if you do business with anyone who has or with anyone who does business with anyone or...

There's no way for a rational company to keep Matt in their supply chain anymore, he's too volatile.

Because with what you are asking WPEngine, that will be the result. Other hosts will follow to not be taken hostage by your opinions. So if WPEngine creates another repository for their customers and the very popular plugins they acquired, how do you plan on reconciling their solution with WordPress'? What happens once there's several Extend stores? What happens to authors who need to push plugins to all stores? What happens if I'm hosted on wp.com (and I am paying whatever tier allows me to install plugins) who doesn't use WPEngine's plugins repository and I want an updated ACF?

I just want to say I think what you did was right.

I started using Wordpress last year, in 2023. The first version of WP came out in 2003. Someone had to make sure this project stayed alive for 20 years just so I could use it. I think you're trying to make sure it stays alive for another 20 so someone like me could pick it up in the future. I think that's very noble.

I hope your efforts bear fruit :-)

With Wordpress and Tumblr as well.

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