WordPress CEO quits community Slack after court injunction
404media.co
404media.co
At least Wordpress is open source - if it disappears, something can take its place.
Automattic has 72 hours to comply with the order. They probably will, plus or minus Matt being a whiny child about it. They have competent attorneys who are surely telling them to do so. They can also appeal the order, and they could even ask for the appeal to be granted on an emergency basis, but there's no promise that'd work, and usually it doesn't. The whole point of injunctions is that they stop things from changing until they're overturned by appeal or trial.
If they do comply, the status quo resumes until this goes to trial. There's no guarantee that WP Engine prevails at trial, but the fact that the injunction was granted means it's pretty likely they will, unless facts or law materially changes in the meantime. The statement Automattic released suggests to me that this is the path they'll take.
If they do not comply, things become... interesting. Of course, the case still eventually goes to trial. In the meantime, though, WP Engine can ask the court to force Automattic to comply. That probably looks like a motion to show cause why they have not complied, followed by further orders to comply and possible contempt findings. Contempt findings often come with monetary fines that escalate (e. g. $1,000 per day the first week, $2,000 per day the next, and so on). It can also come with jail time, though I am not sure how that works in cases where the entity being sued is a company.
It probably won't get to that, though. Refusing to comply with a preliminary injunction is an extremely bad idea, which is why almost nobody does it. Even states and government actors with strong political desires for things and a lot of power nearly always comply. While Matt Mullenweg is clearly not a rational actor, and clearly is willing to do extremely dumb things despite the advice of council, the other people who work for Automattic (and certainly its investors) are unlikely to be so willing to ignore the order of a federal court. If they do, their lives are going to get worse, not better, and possibly rapidly.
As of this writing, the Automattic WP Engine tracker site is still up.
(Hopefully some actual attorneys who read HN can correct anything I got wrong. I just haven't seen anyone write this out yet.)
He personally digitally stalked and targeted online users, followed them from site to site, publishing and using user details that weren't public, and personally started attacking and practically doxxing those that couldn't take or understand his weird (unintelligible) stances. He would even argue with random users by PM'ing directly.
Which gets even stranger that he doesn't know to stay quiet, considering Automattic had to pay out to the New York City Commission on Human Rights, for constructing teams and moderation policies that unfairly targetted LGBTQ+ individuals^2. They kept the policies after acquisition, made them worse, and ended up paying out for it - just for them to end up going back to what they were doing.
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To 404Media: There is an incredible article waiting to be written that has your name all over it. It was a huuuge thing that Automattic tried to cover up and keep from breaking containment. Just start with "the car full of hammers" comment that led to the blow-up (after a lot of targeted build-up).
He self-destructed and went absolutely mental, it was weird and strange. This was last year.
Edit: knowyourmeme^2 has a little bit of history, but it goes much deeper. It's a great story that Vice would have covered in extremely poignant details years ago, ready for the taking.
^1: https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/25/22949293/tumblr-nycchr-se...
^2: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/events/tumblr-ceo-transphobic...
I used to see WordPress as an example of how open-source can be good business. Being open-source, and comparatively better then other proprietary options at the time, made WordPress an attractive option, and its user base grew rapidly. Blogging was also more popular then, although people still blog.
I think as of today there are better options then WordPress, and blogging is not the same as in the past. I think because of peoples history with products like WordPress, many people have gravitated towards static site generators.
Early on Automattic seemed like a place I might want to work, but obviously a lot that has changed since WordPress first launched. I can't see myself wanting to work there now, or wanting to use WordPress again. Not to mention I moved on from PHP a long time ago.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42382829 ("WPEngine, Inc. vs. Automattic– Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction (courtlistener.com)", 19 hours ago, 107 comments)
The jokes write themselves.
At the moment I feel uncertain about Wordpress and its status. Are there any plans to bring more stability here?
Of all the tech CEOs to get humbled in 2024, why did it have to be one from an open source project?
He, by his own account, went 'scorched earth'/overreached as a result of his ignorance with licensing (either true or demonstrative).
Any marks on his back, he put there. Open source will genuinely be better off without people like him co-opting it. WordPress may be forked (won't be the first time, there's currently 12.6k)
I'm wildly interested to see where this all goes. Where does Matt/WordPress.(org|com)/the Foundation end?
Off topic, as someone prone to overreacting I have a lot of compassion towards Matt. At the same time it was his choice to attack the other party so actively and I wouldn’t try to excuse that.
With any good lie there's a nugget of truth. I do get the sense that Matt cares about these principles... my criticism is 'just' that they've been to mislead.
The guy tried to take an emotional argument he was having with himself to court. That works with the public, less so with a judge. Especially when documenting your rage/material impact at such depth.
But I don't know actually what this is all about, is there any possibility.
I hope all the best for him anyway.
> WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and organizations to build, host, and manage websites powered by WordPress.
> During the week preceding September 22, 2024, Matt Mullenweg—founder of WordPress.com—began speaking negatively about rival WP Engine. Mullenweg gave a speech at WordCamp US 2024 that argued that WP Engine had made meager contributions to WordPress compared to Automattic, criticized WP Engine's significant ties to private equity, and called for a boycott, sparking internet controversy.[30] In response, WP Engine issued a cease and desist against what it characterized as defamation and extortion, attributing his attacks to WP Engine's refusal to pay Automattic "a significant percentage of its gross revenues – tens of millions of dollars in fact – on an ongoing basis" for what it claimed were necessary trademark licensing fees (later clarified as 8% of all revenue, payable in gross or in salaries for its own employees working under WordPress.org's direction, combined with a clause that would've prohibited forking[31]) for the "WordPress" name.[32] Automattic responded by sending its own cease and desist the next day, citing the trademark issue.[33] On October 2, 2024, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for extortion and abuse of power, which the defendants denied.[31] As a result of the dispute, WordPress.org blocked WP Engine and affiliates from accessing its servers—which include security updates, the plugin and theme repository, and more—on September 25, 2024, a day after its trademark policy was updated[34] to ask against usage of WP "in a way that confuses people", listing WP Engine as an example.[35] Following backlash, access to WordPress.org was temporarily restored until October 1 to allow WP Engine to build its own mirror sites two days later,[36][37] which the company did.[35] On the 12th, WordPress.org replaced the listing of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin on the WordPress.org plugin directory with a fork called "Secure Custom Fields" citing a guideline that empowers the foundation to "make changes to a plugin, without developer consent, in the interest of public safety".[38] On October 7, 2024, to align the company's stance, Mullenweg announced that 159 employees—8.4% of Automattic—had quit in exchange for a severance package of $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher, with the condition that the resigned would not be able to return.[39] The next week concluded another offer of nine months' salary to attempt to placate those who could not quit for financial reasons,[40] though with only four hours to respond and the added term of being excluded from the WordPress.org community.[35]
It would be better if WP Engine contributed more to the open source project that they make so much money from, but it's not illegal or immoral. Maybe Amoral at worse?
Your overall point is still valid though - they were for example sponsors of the very conference where mm first went berserk.
Unfortunately outright lying and saying that “I personally don’t think they voluntarily contribute enough” is “contributes nothing” seems to have been partially successful in seeding the idea.
The reason why Matt started ratfucking is somewhat unclear. In the most charitable interpretation, he was unhappy with how little WPEngine was contributing to WordPress, and intended to create a pressure campaign to get them to do more, which backfired considerably. In a less charitable interpretation, this was merely an extortion campaign which turned out to be unsuccessful.
Matt claims that this is all in defense of open source, but I'm disinclined to believe him when the legal filings in his defense essentially amount to WordPress (whether the .com, the .org, the Foundation, the trademarks, the code itself, etc.) is entirely his personal property for him to do whatever the hell he wants with and we're all blubbering idiots for thinking that any action he'd ever taken (like setting up a foundation expressly to keep it from being one person's personal property) could ever change that.
WP Engine showed they will be irreparably harmed, which in this case, means harmed in a way that cash can't fix. Thus the judge is preserving the status quo ante while the suit is worked out. (see 31:52 [1]).
edit: requires
1. likelihood (not more likely than not to win, but must show a decent chance);
2. w/o relief, will suffer irreparable harm (as discussed above: can't fix w/ money)
3. balance of equities favors you (more fair to freeze);
4. public interest supports injunction
3 - 4 are, per Mike, fuzzy and "result driven". The most critical factors are success and harm.
Separately, there is a thing called "Promissory estoppel" where, even though you don't have a contract, you make a promise (Matt: wp.org is free forever to anyone), someone (WP Engine) relies on that promise to their detriment, and the plaintiff's reliance on that promise was reasonable. Discussion of promissory estoppel at 44:17 in [1]
[1] A discussion by attorney Mike Dunford, or so: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdwiZEhRS3o
@dang could it be fixed?
(Submitted title was "Matt Mullenweg keeps digging his own grave". It's possible that the article originally had that as its headline, but if not, then it was editorialized, which is against the rules - "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)