It's very funny that Matt's original complaint was that WPEngine didn't contribute enough, and he has now banned them from contributing and stolen what they had previously provided
He's a guy running a multi-billion USD company annoyed at a ~bn USD company for capturing some of the profits from "his" "open" source software.
It's corporate warfare given the thinnest possible moral veneer. He was an investor in WP Engine.
I'm not happy with the mess and Matt's behaviour, but you can't steal free code.
You're right about the reviews, users, url, etc, but what was "previously provided" was code with a GPL license. You can't "steal" that.
The list of things to criticise Matt for is long, but you can't accuse him of stealing open source code.
Sure, the code is free, but that's still a lot of theft.
Way to speed run wiping out trust in your product.
Any Wordpress plugin developer who relies on it for their livelihood should be EXTREMELY worried.
Maybe it's a technicality, but the code is open source and you can do whatever you want it it, provided that you respect the GPL license.
There's a lot to criticise Matt for here, but you can't accuse him of stealing GPL code. Like, that's one of the points of that license.
In the case of gpl software, copying, and posessing a copy, and redistributing a copy of the code itself is not theft. The license grants those actions explicitly.
But the fact that the license grants those particular rights does not mean there is no license, and violating that license is exactly theft, which is what Mullenweg has done.
For someone persuing this whole pogrom under the banner of championing open source and being a good community member and challenging others integrity, this is about as hipocrytical and low as you can go. It would be a joke if it wasn't a fact.
I would not admit in public that you think that since a license does not require money, that means it has no owner or copyright and that it's impossible to steal it. Or that laws are the only thing that defines right and wrong and stealing. Money is just one of many terms in any agreement or contract or license.
What is your personal definition of "free code" and "stealing free code"? From your post, either you got one of them profoundly wrong, or both.
Obviously there's more to it here as they've also taken over the plugin's reviews, users, etc, but the code is GPL.
It's not only stealing, it's an even worse, exceptionally low form of stealing when something is already free and yet you still choose to steal it.
But if you willingly able to contribute back to the community with between 20 - 40% of profit generated from the open source used, is and will be considered fair play.
https://wpengine.com/blog/wp-engine-acquires-delicious-brain...
Even when you are banned from the event you are sponsoring.
Or something.
It's possible if they had been approached in a calm, polite and constructive way, they might have.
After Matt stormed in, set the bridges on fire and started pissing on everything?
lol. lmao even
> Nothing in this ongoing situation is about more than optics now
You're not wrong there! And since you apparently created this account purely to respond to my post, what do you think these optics make you look like, Matt? Do you think they make you look good?