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Scaevolus

Does anyone want to play armchair internet psychologist with me to speculate as to Matt's thinking here?

My guess is that he was focused on these facts:

1) I own Wordpress

2) WPEngine is profiting from Wordpress and I'm not benefiting

3) This is unfair

And it was stuck in his mind like a thorn, irritating him whenever the thought arose, and never went away. Commercializing open source is hard for myriad reasons, but wordpress.com is actually rather profitable, and yet it still bothered him that he wasn't getting a cut.

Eventually, after many grumpy ruminations on it, the answer was obvious: "I deserve a cut of WPEngine's income, since they're using my software." No, this isn't how the license works, and there's no legal basis for it, but it felt right and fair.

This thought, irrational and deluded as it was, wedged in his psyche and fed into his deep loathing for WPEngine. All the subsequent actions follow from it, from the initial ultimatum to the various actions he's taking to fight his enemy.

This is an intensely personal and emotional fight for him, and everyone that disagrees is an enemy too. He's just asking for what's fair, and yet all these ignorant commenters on the internet can't see it.

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I hate to speculate, especially from a distance. But I do wonder:

- Why now? What snapped? Clearly WPE didn't go to "billions" over night. So why go nuclear now?

- Doesn't he have a close and immediate circle of advisors and confidants? Are they speaking to him and he's not listen? Or has he locked himself in a room so to speak and is completely unapproachable? Either way, not good.

- Is he trying to force WPE to fork WP and then maintain their own version? Does he believe they can't do it? What if WPE's hosting peers unite and abandon what is effectively Automattic's version?

Am I the only one who can't imagine a good outcome from all this?

It is sad.

I imagine a near future result will be WPE maintaining a fork of WordPress and the plugin repo, with WP demanding plugin authors disclaim any association with WPE.

> Am I the only one who can't imagine a good outcome from all this?

Here's a possible good outcome.

1. The board fires Matt, stops chasing windmills, and settles with WP Engine. I'm kind of surprised they haven't done so already - it's all downhill from here. He's either lying to them, not listening, or they're drinking the Kool Aid.

2. Matt steps down from the WordPress Foundation and transfers ownership of wordpress.org to them. He takes his hundreds of millions of dollars and does something else.

3. The new CEO apologizes to the community and establishes public processes for removing extensions and such. Checks and balances are added.

4. The WordPress Foundation's new director orders a house clearing. Many hosting providers and developers are invited to join the board. It's no longer an instrument of Matt's will, but represents the community.

The first step will probably happen at some point.

The second step could happen, but seems unlikely. I think there's a significant chance Matt would go on a rampage if he was fired. He clearly thinks of WordPress as his personal property. If he retains control of the foundation, there's nothing to stop him from continuing his crusade there. He's certainly got the funds to do so.

The third step is effectively required if he's fired. It's even mentioned in the 48 Laws of Power.

I don't think this outcome is particularly likely, but it could happen. People do sometimes win the lottery.

I can see those, but I don't imagine there's even a fair chance of them happening.

In my mind, shortly after the WordCamp US things should have leveled out. Someone should have pulled Matt aside and said, "OK, you vented. Pissed all over The Community who showed up, but you vented. Let's get this back on the rails..."

It's possible that was said. But Matt's listening skills aren't good and lately have gotten worse. To me, the long this stays off the rails the less likely it is to get back on the rails.

Someday this is going to be an HBR case study on how not to ensure your legacy. There should also be an HBR case study for Gutenberg, "How not to roll out a product."

CEOs can get away with a lot if they're successful; Elon Musk is a good example. That only goes so far, though. If he wins the trademark lawsuit, he can probably do whatever he wants. If he loses, there's a shareholder lawsuit, or he continues escalating then at some point he'll be removed. One can only hope.

There are very good chances Matt control majority of Automattic. It's private company so he can do whatever he wants.

Also their employee "shares" dont have any voting rights:

https://ma.tt/2024/10/owner-mentality/

Yeah, Musk and others come to mind. But WP is supposed to OSS. Musk didn't build his empire on the backs of volunteers. Musk has built multiple successful ventures. Matt has step in it once.

In the context OSS Matt's behaviour is deplorable. His insistence on digging a deeper and deeper hole is freightening.

It's digital self-emmolation. It's professional suicide.

> The board fires Matt, stops chasing windmills, and settles with WP Engine

The board is Matt and a PE firm Managing Partner, appointed by Matt. The third board member m (also appointed by Matt) doesn’t seem to have been active in any way shape or form in several years.

I don’t see this happening.

I agree that the Wordpress Foundation will remain under his control. The Automattic board (https://automattic.com/board/), however, has four other members, so it's possible they'll remove him. They can't all be true believers in his Delenda est WP Engine agenda. One can only hope.

You'd need to see the cap table and articles of incorporation to know if the board has any power. Salesforce invested $300m in the D round and doesn't have a seat, for example. Phil Black and maybe Toni Schneider's seats might be protected, but Matt could have the voting power to replace the other two at will.

Current drama aside, good for him if that's the case. Very few founders maintain absolute control past a Series C.

Good for him?

He's just ruined that possibility for just about anyone else going forward.

Praise him? No way.

Ironic isn't it? He cries about the scourge known as PE, and he's single handedly f*ked every investor-seeking founder everywhere going forward.

Yes, good for him if the wholly speculative scenario I described is true. What's going on with Matt and WordPress will have zero impact on other founders.

So you're saying no other investor(s) - which btw Matt / Automattic has - anywhere are going to be concerned about what leverage they have if the founder goes sideways?

That's naive at best.

Plenty of investors are already asking "Can I get f*ked like this?" And going forward investors will be sure not to be exposed unnecessarily.

Zero impact? That's silly. Investors what high returns and lowest possible risk. Matt has made single founder with too much control high risk.

Yes, this has f*ked other investment-seeking founders. Full stop.

No, it hasn't. I'm a founder. I have investors. Nobody serious is asking these questions, for reasons that make perfect sense when you're familiar with the mechanics of venture investing and corporate governance.

I won't say nobody is asking questions at all, because "investor" is a loosey-goosey term and there are plenty of people writing small checks who call themselves investors. But those people never had leverage anyway. Investors get preferred shares with no voting rights (or even information rights!). The only ones who have any power are round leads, whose board seats are enshrined in the company's articles of incorporation.

If -- and again, it's a big if -- Matt, after raising a billion dollars across many funding rounds, still controls a majority of the voting shares and board seats, it's because Automattic was already so successful that he's been able to dictate terms every step of the way. This is stupendously rare. It's not a situation that applies to other startups, or that investors are measurably worried about.

Your investors are fools then.

I can not imagine writing a cheque for anything above $999 and not ensuring I have some sort of protection against this type of sideways.

Frankly, if my investors weren't now concerned I'd be concerned about the quality of my investors. It's not a win to say they're not comcerned.

I don't believe that this board will do anything that isn't already on the meeting agenda that Matt has prepared: https://automattic.com/board/

It is so transparently apparent that these people are completely subservient to Matt.

It's not new, Matt has been trying to reach an agreement for years.[1] To be fair, he has done everything he can for the health of the ecosystem for all these years.

WP Engine leech off the WordPress brand from head to toe. Literally, from trademark to infrastructure, while Automattic covers the bill for the most part.

Of course, legally, WPE doesn't have to contribute beyond its mouth but if we are going down that route then also Automattic doesn't have to put up with funding WPE operation anymore.

I'm tired of people justifying WPE attitude and behavior by saying "legally, they don't have to contribute", well let's talk legal, everything happening to them is within those same lines too. Why are you complaining if it's legal?

This is one of those "fuck around and find out" situation. Matt just run out of fucks to give, and decided it's better to teach the bully a lesson even if it comes at a cost.

[1] https://youtu.be/H6F0PgMcKWM

You're citing Matt but Matt has been proven to be untrustworthy. For example, his claim of many year long negotiations includes a claim that he had delivered a term sheet to WP Engine in May, but that claim was disproven by himself, no such term sheet was delivered. Additionally, the contributions that he counts from WP Engine are only those included in the "Five for the Future" program which Matt administrates. The actual contributions of WP Engine to the ecosystem include millions of dollars per year on event sponsorship, plugin development (WPGraphQL, ACF) and more.

Read the lawsuit filed by WP Engine. No such negotiations existed. Matt has been arguing with WP Engine in his head. You may believe WP Engine's contributions to WordPress are disproportionately small for their size but make that argument on the basis of accurate information, not the fiction from Matt.

Nobody likes WP Engine but Matt's lying has been so problematic that it is impossible to take his side unless you believe that integrity is optional.

> millions of dollars per year on event sponsorship

Are you for real? Event sponsorship is part of the marketing budget. They're there to promote their company among competitors. It's a universal business expense.

> plugin development ACF

ACF is their own asset

I mentioned this in my comment, they don't contribute significantly beyond their mouth. What you came with are just the receipts for what I said.

And Automattic's control over WordPress is part of their "marketing" budget. Let's not forget how valuable the exclusive commercial license for the WordPress trademark is to Automattic, their ability to use the WordPress.com domain has huge commercial value to them. I have no doubt that WP Engine would pay tens of millions of dollars per year for the exclusive commercial license to the WordPress trademark which is tens of millions that could be funnelled to the WordPress Foundation, which is tens of millions more than Automattic spend. Ask yourself how Matt justifies Automattic spending millions of dollars per year on hosting WordPress.org and millions of dollars on the 100+ staff Automattic have working on WordPress.org.

We can't pick and choose which contributions are valid and which aren't. WP Engine spend money on the development of WPGraphQL a free plugin, WP Engine spend money on the development of Advanced Custom Fields which they release for free for millions of WordPress sites to use... of course they're not doing that out of some altruistic moral crusade, of course it's a clear calculus about the benefit to their bottom line, but that doesn't change that they're contributing.

The "Five for the Future" contributions are specifically about contributing to WordPress Core, which is owned and controlled by Matt Mullenweg: you're playing into Matt's absurd narrative that the only valid contribution is one that is made to something under Matt's control.

I think WP Engine are Private Equity leeches, I have zero doubt about that, I wish that they were to contribute more but that's the deal with Open Source software, that's what we choose to allow by releasing Open Source software. The moral obligation we have when we use Open Source software is to respect the license, Matt had the choice about the license to release WordPress under, he made the choice for it to be GPL.

dhh is more eloquent and authoritative than I, read these if you need further convincing:

https://world.hey.com/dhh/automattic-is-doing-open-source-di...

https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-...

> The "Five for the Future" contributions are specifically about contributing to WordPress Core, which is owned and controlled by Matt Mullenweg

And? It is the backbone that powers their entire business. You're acting like they're being asked to contribute to something they don't use. That should be the bare minimum. Even business wise it make sense to contribute to it and help make it better. It's absurd we're even having this discussion.

You're also inconsistent. You claim something is fine because it's legal (the license doesn't ask for more as a condition) but you condemn the other party reaction on a different grounds? I thought everything you can get away with, legally, is OK. Matt has barely scratched the surface of what's within his power to do in response.

WP Engine are a Private Equity owned for-profit corporation who exist solely to hoover up as much revenue as possible, consequence be damned, that's Private Equity. Matt Mullenweg is an individual who professes to be an open-source software for-the-greater-good moral crusader. I hold them to very different standards. Matt has to behave according to his professed principles otherwise they're not his principles, they're just a mask.

I release Open Source software under a permissive license: if I leverage my control over that software to harm the consumers of my software that I believe are taking without giving, then I am far worse than a leech.

Regarding "WordPress Core": if WordPress Core is all that matters, why are plugins fundamental to WordPress? Why do millions of WordPress websites use Advanced Custom Fields?

You've repeated a bunch of Matt's lies, either you're uninformed or not impartial. The latter cannot be addressed, the former can. Read more, speak less.

> I hold them to very different standards

It's foolish to support a private equity against the guy because you hold him to a higher standards. It doesn't even make sense.

But this discussion is unlikely to lead anywhere.

Matt isn't being held to a higher standard, he's being held to a different standard, a standard he chose.

WP Engine is a company that chose to build a business around a piece of software released under a license that permits their commercialisation of the software.

Matt is an individual who chose to release software under a license that permits companies to build a business around the software and has then chosen to initiate a "nuclear war" against one of those companies who is complying with the license he chose to release the software under because they are not contributing to the software in a way that he deems acceptable.

They're fundamentally different actors in fundamentally different positions. WP Engine has behaved exactly as one would expect from the start. Matt has behaved in a way that suggests he has lost his damn mind, doing everything in his power to harm a business that is complying with the license he chose.

I don't disagree with the idea that WP Engine should contribute more, I don't disagree that Private Equity is harmful to Open Source, but I fundamentally disagree with Matt's weaponisation of Open Source to make a point. There is a lot of great prior thinking on this subject[1], Matt has many options, he is making the choice to behave in this way, it is not a foregone conclusion.

Our discussion isn't going to lead anywhere, but we can revisit it in a month when Matt's downward spiral has resulted in the inevitable. Perhaps, at that point, you'll reflect on whether Matt's behaviour was worth supporting.

[1] https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem

And thus the conclusion is: It's about money. Matt is having licensor remorse. He retroactively wants to change the license and the terms.

Clearly, this isn't about OSS or PE, etc. It's about the depth of Matt's pockets. He might be drinking his own Kool Aid but few others are.

A fork of WP might not be as "productive" but at least it won't have to carry a wild monkey Matt on its back.

Everyone should be held to the same standards. If my professed principle was to be evil, then would you judge me negatively if I acted good?

I release software under a permissive license too. But I understand the only reason I'm able to do it, is because companies like Google and Mozilla believe in supporting people like me. There's this unwritten rule that the most successful people in our society should be philanthropic, because they're the only ones who can. However nothing formally requires this.

It's similar to how a company might officially give you unlimited vacation days. Imagine if one person tests that rule, and makes every day a vacation day. It would probably take years before someone tries that, but once someone actually does, the rules are going to quickly change for everyone and you might end up with a lot less freedom than before.

WPEngine has certainly tested the limits of the open source gift economy and the way Automattic is reacting isn't helping either. It's a sad thing to witness.

If I release a fox into my hen house, who is at fault for the death of my hens: me or the fox?

I don't think WPEngine is a fox. I think it's more like a factory farm moves in next door and sells your customers eggs at a lower price, because it keeps more hens cramped in metal cages. So eventually your family farm has to close its hen house and all your hens end up at the factory farm.

> Let's not forget how valuable the exclusive commercial license for the WordPress trademark is to Automattic, their ability to use the WordPress.com domain has huge commercial value to them.

In the discussion for this post alone, we have commenters with no idea that WordPress can be self-hosted, or that dot com has a free plan.

That's skimming the top for how confused a non-HN-reading layperson could be at the whole project.

You don't see the non-premium version of ACF as contributing? I'm curious, why not?

WPE has other employees dedicated to WP and The Community. I'm not defending WPE but just because they don't contribute in a way MM wants doesn't mean they don't contribute. Suggesting they're not contributing is disingenuous.

Matt is not a dictator. Oh wait, scratch that.

p.s. Matt should be careful what he wishes for. If WPE or anyone contributes they're going to want a voice, a seat at the table. Is Matt willing to share control? If the answer is no, then that is the root problem here.

> Suggesting they're not contributing is disingenuous.

Where did I say they don't contribute? I said they don't contribute beyond their mouth

> You don't see the non-premium version of ACF as contributing?

It's a marketing strategy, first and foremost. If they didn't offer it, an alternative would come along and attract the crowd.

You know what's disingenuous? Claiming it's a contribution when you're doing it as marketing strategy or as part of sales funnel.

You can't cash a check twice.

So if I go successfully make a feature addition to ie Kubernetes, or the Linux kernel, and it is exclusively motivated by furthering my business needs instead of altruism, but happens to incidentally benefit others too - do you consider that a "contribution" under your mental model? If not, what's the distinction?

> make a feature addition to ie Kubernetes, or the Linux kernel

In your example, you're contributing to other people projects so yes it would be contribution right of the bat. That's completely different than the case with ACF.

And WPEngine does not own Wordpress or its ecosystem, right? So that's also "other people's projects" if they produce something of value to its ends users?

> if they produce something of value to its ends users?

No, that's would be their value proposition or what every company on earth have been doing since inception, filling a gap in the market.

You seem to be claiming that their mere existence in the ecosystem would be a contribution, even if they were closed source. They would be providing value and attracting users in a butterfly effect style. Sure, that help and have a positive impact but is it a contribution to an open source project and the ecosystem?

My model is fairly simple, you can't claim credit for something if you did it involuntarily or with a different intention or it happened as n-level side effect of what you are trying to do.

> It's a marketing strategy

And what makes Automattic's contributions any different? They "steer" the product to their benefit and sell that as what's good for them is good for all.

That's rubbish.

It's not contributing to "the cause" when the features you add are solely for your own benefit. Not that self-serving is wrong. But to sell it as benevolent red lines any decent bullshit detector.

Matt defined the license. Now he regrets that and he wants a cut. Nuttin wrong with that. But to sell it otherwise is shite. We're not that stupid.

> And what makes Automattic's contributions any different?

Well, unlike WPEngine, Automattic and Matt make significant contribution beyond their ecosystem, here are some:

- Let's encrypt: https://letsencrypt.org/sponsors/

- Matrix's open protocol: https://matrix.org/

- The PHP Foundation: https://thephp.foundation/

- Open Source Initiative: https://opensource.org/

- And the list goes on: contributing and sponsoring many projects and developers that everyone using the web benefited from, including you and billions of people (not counting wordpress's impact)

Please educate yourself before spreading FUD about people who made great contributions constantly to the open web, the entire industry, and promoted open source on every chance they got.

You left out Matt & Co partnering with privacy-crusher Google, and other "f*k the users this partnership is good for Automattic and my pockets" deals and decisions. And what about his anti-accessibility transgressions (with Gutenberg).

Matt championing himself as benevolent and using OSS as a shield is BS. No one is expecting him - or anyone - to be perfect. But he and his hypocrisy has jumped the shark.

There are well-established legal processes for resolving issues like trademark infringement. This dispute could have, and should have, been resolved without involving… literally everyone.

> There are well-established legal processes for resolving issues like trademark infringement.

Exactly, if that was the only thing WPE has leeched we wouldn't be here. They were tolerated for years but they kept digging more and more.

> They were tolerated for years

This sounds like dictator speak. "Tolerated" by who? The community embraced them, it's matt and his private-equity-associated, for-profit corporation that didn't like their success.

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

Where do you get the idea that "he didn't like their success" when he helped them ever since their inception?

Can you mention any specific events before the recent debacle that show Matt have been anything but supportive of them for all these years?

Why should we place a cutoff? We can discuss his behavior as of late, as well: Matt saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own, and demanded that they give his own for-profit corporation a large chunk of their revenue. When they declined his request, matt started fabricating all these gripes about private equity and contribution level.

It's quite telling that we don't see matt attacking less successful companies which do the same thing as WPEngine, much less putting forth the same pretexts for it.

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

And back to the first question: "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

> saw a successful corporation using wordpress, just like his own

That's hilarious because Matt and Automattic actually invested in WP Engine, supported them in many ways ever since their inception and helped them be more successful and reach this level.

Your entire argument about "jealous of success" falls apart if you look only few months back. He wanted them to succeed for years and years, even after private equity, he still saw them as partners.

None of that makes the "entire argument fall apart". Sounds like he regrets doing that.

The argument that matt is doing this for the community, though, totally falls apart when we see that he is actively harming community members, and the argument that he's doing it for open source totally falls apart when we see that he tried to extort WPEngine for money into his own pocket before contriving the aforementioned pretexts.

Why just WPEngine? It seems because they're successful and he's jealous of their money (hence demanding they give it to him, and not the community).

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

And back to the first question: "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

Look here and see how everyone contribute: https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledges/?order=hou...

>shake down WPEngine for money into his own pocket

It's not going to Matt pocket, Matt pays that multiple folds and has done that for years. Stop making ignorant accusations.

> It's not going to Matt pocket

Yes, it is. He demanded WPEngine pay 8% of revenues to Automattic. Not to the community. To Automattic: matt's private, for-profit corporation. The one matt runs along with a private equity friend of his. The one matt likely owns much of, too. The one matt named after himself.

Also, please stop ignoring the questions posed to you:

Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

And back to the first question: "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

I answered what I can but here let me put your mind at rest:

> Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? Put another way, the community has tolerated matt's behavior, but he keeps digging more and more – how do we stop his bad behavior?

Am I sitting on some regulatory board? What this got to do with me? if I had to propose anything it'd be form a board from all major contributors to solve this conflict and reach a resolution

> "tolerated" by who? The community embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community. It's matt that the community can't tolerate.

No, Matt supported and invested in them for years, before you and "the community" even heard about them. He was the one there from the very beginning.

> Am I sitting on some regulatory board? What this got to do with me

Well, I asked a simple question: Should matt have such a veto power over what the community wants? What do you think? Should he?

> if I had to propose anything it'd be form a board from all major contributors to solve this conflict

Ignoring for a moment that matt is banning contributors, rather than caring what they want: What about what the wordpress community wants? They are the most important and most numerous stakeholders here.

> No, Matt not only embraced them, he supported and invested in them for years, before you and "the community" even heard about them. He was the one there from the very beginning.

No, the community has embraced WPEngine and their contributions to the community and to Automattic's success. So who specifically are you speaking of, who merely "tolerated" WPEngine?

> It's quite telling that we don't see matt attacking less successful companies which do the same thing as WPEngine, much less putting forth the same pretexts for it.

If he succeeds with WP Engine, then he'll probably shake down other companies in the future.

Yup. Conclusion: It's not about trademarks.

It's about ego.

It's about money.

You sound like those armchair communists who feel they need to agree with Stalin because he was a communist too. You know, a person doing evil things for the right reasons is still doing evil things.

You got the wrong idea. What I care about is open source and fight back against those encouraging to take without contributing. Yes you don't have to give back, the same way you don't have to be nice, but promoting that you intentionally commit NOT to contribute and wear that badge proudly is stupid and harmful.

I don't care about specific individual or technology since I don't use WordPress and I'm not in that business to begin with but these discussions are spreading the wrong message and values.

Please make sure you're contributing to the discussion in the future, not just attacking people based on your limited view.

Some folks on this list spewing out misinformation, perhaps because of personal interests in WPE. Matt has done more than any of us to create and preserve an amazing open-source ecosystem that we all benefit from. Can you imagine what it would be like if WPE controlled WP? The claims in WPE's lawsuit, as you'll see, are not facts.

> play armchair internet psychologist with me

Guess: Matt is not well. You can find others making more specific guesses, but we don't need to make that public.

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