Comment by phoe-krk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by phoe-krk | Hacker News Reader

> As you may have heard, I’m legally compelled to provide free labor and services to WP Engine thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers, so in order to avoid bothering the court I will say that none of the above applies to WP Engine, so if they need to bypass any of the above please just have your high-priced attorneys talk to my high-priced attorneys and we’ll arrange access, or just reach out directly to me on Slack and I’ll fix things for you.

> I hope to find the time, energy, and money to reopen all of this sometime in the new year. Right now much of the time I would spend making WordPress better is being taken up defending against WP Engine’s legal attacks. Their attacks are against Automattic, but also me individually as the owner of WordPress.org, which means if they win I can be personally liable for millions of dollars of damages.

> If you would like to fund legal attacks against me, I would encourage you to sign up for WP Engine services, they have great plans and pricing starting at $50/mo and scaling all the way up to $2,000/mo. If not, you can use literally any other web host in the world that isn’t suing me and is offering promotions and discounts for switching away from WP Engine.

This post should be named "Holiday Breakdown" rather than "Holiday Break". In particular, one thing stood out to me:

> I hope to find the time, energy, and money to reopen all of this sometime in the new year.

He can't prevent WP Engine from getting access to Automattic services, so he acts out his revenge on the rest of the world instead?

> thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers

A man worth hundreds of millions of dollars crying poverty while throwing a months-long temper tantrum. Hilarious if you don't have any stakes at play.

> If you would like to fund legal attacks against me, I would encourage you to sign up for WP Engine services, they have great plans and pricing starting at $50/mo and scaling all the way up to $2,000/mo.

Actually tempted.

I wouldn't say it's revenge, but this meant to cause a stir, so that the few people who don't know about this unfortunate legal battle will hear about it. I wouldn't be surprised if he was so delusional that he thinks this will gain him and his web of companies more sympathy.

He slaps the WordPress community in the face, out of nowhere, then he points at WP Engine, and says: "Isn't it a shame that these a*holes made me slap you... again?".

I'm just speculating in this whole comment, but this is how I interpret this current chapter of the drama.

> He can't prevent WP Engine from getting access to Automattic services, so he acts out his revenge on the rest of the world instead?

Not a fan of Mullenweg either, but let's be realistic. For anyone who isn't completely detached from reality, dealing with lawsuits is draining, emotionally and mentally.

It's easy to point fingers and assume motives, but unless you're in the trenches, it's hard to truly know what's going on in someone's head. Given the circumstances, his decision to take a break isn't exactly out of the ordinary.

Most people would probably do the same if they were in his shoes.

Sure, but he brought 100% of this on himself with his previous petty-tyrant tantrums. There was absolutely no reason he needed to be on the business end of a lawsuit.

The lawsuit exists because he repeatedly chose to force it into existence. He will almost certainly lose it because he repeatedly made bad choices which had to have been against his lawyers’ counsel. He is likely going to lose the foundation’s non-profit status because he repeatedly made bad choices.

I’m sorry for the other people affected and am amazed that he was willing to trash a reputation and business decades in the making, but it was his repeated choice to do so.

My brother in christ, he made this happen.

I'm not criticizing his personal decision of taking a break. I'm criticizing the fact that he pulled wordpress.org's functionality along with him, as if those functionalities depeneded on him personally, and the way in which that break was announced - namely, by spending most of his announcement criticizing WP Engine instead of talking about breaks.

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