So, it is true.
"They claim that we demanded money from them around these dates.. not true!"
"So here is the demand for money that we requested they sign, around these dates"
Maybe I'm not reading this correctly but... it seems like the most obvious interpretation.
Also, what is the purpose of listing all these dates when the two companies met? Without knowing the content of these discussions, this list doesn't remotely meet the community's request for transparency.
Like somebody not trying to be deceptive would say "we started talking about trademarks and a commercial relationship in February 2023", but that's not what this post says, and that's not the answer Matt has given in interviews, it's always this strange list of dates instead.
- money directly to Automattic, not the WordPress Foundation.
- employees working on WordPress core, at the direction of Automattic - including looking at their time sheets and employee files.
Neither of this is "back into WordPress", it's "to Automattic". The company that often did prioritize their workers to work on features benefitting WordPress.com users. There actually used to be a constant for checking if running inside WPCOM in WP Core, but they seem to have removed it since. Let's not even talk about Jetpack and carving out shit from your core product, that gives me too many AOSP vs Play Services vibes.
Either way, WP Engine is a competitor of Automattic. This is laughable. I hope they fork WordPress, because I'd feel uncomfortable contributing software to the benefit of such a bully (I am a former contibutor).
This whole situation was handled poorly, but can it really be considered bullying? It definitely speaks to the heart of the eternal problem of open source: the imbalance of givers and takers at the bazaar.
No it's much more like extortion.
And it goes against everything open source has been about.
Matt's just mad he didn't capture the enterprise Wordpress hosting market earlier, with WordPress.com always being aimed at more casual users and Pressable only aquired in 2016.
WordPress.com VIP is a thing though, and I think they've done a great job selling it to huge organisations.
According to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41692300, Matt Mullenweg said at some point in that long interview from a couple of days ago that he was operating WordPress.org personally, rather than the WordPress Foundation as I think people would typically assume.
> > Do you really individually own http://WordPress.org?
> > Not Automattic? Not a different LLC or something? No employees? No board of directors?
> > Just you?
> Just me.
The public license agreement that Automattic has says the license is "perpetual, irrevocable:" https://www.pluginvulnerabilities.com/2024/10/02/matt-mullen...
The license that exists for WordPress.org, which seems to really be just him, doesn't appear to be public. It would be interesting to see who it really is with and what the terms really are.