[bawolff]

Wow this sounds so entitled. The more i read posts from the pro-automattic side, the more it sounds WPEngine is in the right.

Yes its nice if people contribute back. It is however optional. Not just in the well-technically sense, but in the broader moral sense.

If you give something away for free, wait for someone to build a business around it, and then say, well actually its not free, there are strings: that is unethical. That is a bait and switch.

If you want to sell a project, than you should sell it. If you want to make it open source, then don't be surprised when people use it as such. You can't just change the terms of the deal because one of the companies using your open source product happens to make a bunch of money.

[nl]

But access to the autoupdates infrastructure isn't part of that deal.

If wp-engine want to change customers for access to that it's not unreasonable to expect a contribution.

[bawolff]

> But access to the autoupdates infrastructure isn't part of that deal. If wp-engine want to change customers for access to that it's not unreasonable to expect a contribution.

If they went about it in a fair and equal manner, sure. So far the public evidence looks like the access denial is retalitory or perhaps even an attempt at extortion over the larger dispute.

The api may not be part of tje GPL, but it still seems like they offered it freely and encouraged people to use it with no expectation of anything in return. Encouraging someone to use X, then getting mad at them over something unrelated, and abruptly cutting off X with no public notice is pretty unprofessional. Given their corporate structure, maybe even illegal.

[sharphall]

Reposting something I posted in another thread but I think it's more relevant to this comment:

Would it be a good or bad look for the Fedora project if they went after a popular and commercially ruthless hosting provider offering "Fedora Hosting" for trademark infringement, while cutting off repo and update access to that provider specifically, unless they paid up some % of revenue?

Regardless of if Fedora was justified or not, it would totally destroy trust in the ecosystem and people would start to talk about seeking alternatives, which is exactly what is happening with WordPress.

[tzs]

Suppose I want to have a Wordpress site, and am considering the following options.

1. I create an Amazon Lightsail server set up using the Wordpress image as described here [1].

2. I get a virtual server somewhere, install Debian, do "apt install wordpress curl apache2 mariadb-server", and configure things as described here [2].

3. I get a shared hosting account at some place that includes cPanel or something similar, and install Wordpress through that.

4. I get a server, maybe virtual or maybe physical, install a Linux distribution, and install Wordpress by downloading the zip file from https://wordpress.org/download/ and following the install instructions linked that page.

5. I get an account at WP Engine and use their hosting service.

How much variation is there between these different ways I might set up a Wordpress site when it comes to how much load my site places on the Wordpress autoupdates infrastructure?

[1] https://aws.amazon.com/getting-started/hands-on/launch-a-wor...

[2] https://wiki.debian.org/WordPress

[chuckadams]

They're all going to hit wordpress.org for plugins and themes. I would definitely stay away from Debian's packages, which are outdated the moment they're installed, and the setup looks painfully fiddly and manual anyway.

An alternative to wp.org's infrastructure would be the likes of https://roots.io/bedrock, which uses composer to install and update plugins and themes along with wordpress itself. The infrastructure it uses is called WordPress Packagist, which is run by outlandish.com using github as the distribution infrastructure. The whole thing is open source, so you could run your own wpackagist service if you like.

Using bedrock in a container, I upgrade the site by building and uploading a new container image. Anything goes wrong, I roll back to the previous image. Cattle, not pets.

[graeme]

The Wordpress infrastructure is baked into Wordpress code. And wordpress users will use that infrastructure no matter which host they are with.

[mdasen]

I think a big issue here is that it looks like Automattic (WordPress.com) is controlling the independent WordPress Foundation to harm one of Automattic's competitors.

If a commercial entity is allowed to control a non-profit and direct it toward ends that gain it profits, that isn't really a non-profit. Is the WordPress Foundation taking actions in accordance with its mission or is it taking actions at the behest of Automattic? If it's the latter, that seems like a breach of its non-profit status. It's not a non-profit if it's just a division of Automattic set up to further Automattic's profits.

Yes, infrastructure costs money and if the WordPress Foundation wanted to charge for access, that could certainly be reasonable. However, the charges would need to be reasonable and consistent with its non-profit mission and not created in a way to harm one of Automattic's competitors, not to benefit Automattic, etc.

And the current actions feel like a major breach of the WordPress Foundation's missions and statements. Literally, their website still tells people to use "WP" as a generic term. "For various reasons related to our WordPress trademark, we ask if you’re going to start a site about WordPress or related to it that you not use “WordPress” in the domain name. Try using “wp” instead, or another variation" (https://wordpress.org/about/domains/). They'd explicitly disclaimed any ownership of "WP" as a trademark.

And now Automattic is directing the WordPress Foundation to harm a competitor that Automattic thinks is taking profits from them. To me, it seems like the government needs to look into whether Automattic's relationship with the WordPress Foundation is legal. IANAL, but it seems like the WordPress Foundation is violating its non-profit status. If I created a non-profit whose mission was to make money for my for-profit company and harm my competitors, that doesn't seem legitimate.

Mullenweg started criticizing WP Engine. Those criticisms have some legitimacy. WP Engine wants to be a free-rider on the ecosystem - just as AWS wants to take popular open source projects and offer them as a service while taking profits from those actually developing the software. WP Engine sent a cease and desist to Automattic and Automattic sent one back. But now Automattic is using the WordPress Foundation to punish WP Engine. The WordPress Foundation should be supporting its non-profit mission, not the profit motives of Automattic.

I get Mullenweg's position: WP Engine is trying to make lots of money off the software that Automattic has been putting the hard work into. But that's what happens with open-source. You get free riders. I think it's fine to try and publicly shame them. However, it feels like they've crossed a line by essentially making the WordPress Foundation an arm of Automattic's for-profit. Maybe it's legal (IANAL), but then what's the point of any software foundation if it can just be controlled by a for-profit company to help the for-profit and harm competitors? Shouldn't the non-profit have to take actions that further its non-profit mission?

In fact, Automattic's letter to WP Engine doesn't say that WP Engine should be paying the WordPress Foundation. It says that WP Engine should be paying tens of millions a year to Automattic.

I hate defending WP Engine because Mullenweg's criticism has legitimacy. Free riders making tons of money are crappy actors in open-source communities. At the same time, the WordPress Foundation shouldn't be an arm of Automattic and it's hugely problematic for the foundation to punish WP Engine like this.

[2Gkashmiri]

People are conflating two things.

One is contributing back, which is not required by any license and second is rate limits

[bawolff]

If they just implemented rate limits (in a fair fashion) like a normal person, i don't think anyone would complain.

I think the big issue is the way they went about this feels a bit like extortion.

[hackerbeat]

Nonsense. It goes much deeper than that. WordPress is no little app some dude maintains in his free time. It's a massive powerhouse that powers 40%+ of the whole web. WP Engine can't just leech on it while adding zero value.

[dangrossman]

Why can 40%+ of the web leech on it while adding zero value except the <1% hosted by WPE?

[hackerbeat]

Cause they're not raking in hundreds of millions of dollars every year, as WPE does, without giving back or adding any value whatsoever.

Here are some big and popular hosts that actually do give back. https://wordpress.org/hosting/

In the future, please inform yourself more before siding with the bad guys.

[dangrossman]

There are approximately 330,000 web hosting companies not listed there, including a very long list that are larger than WPE, generate an order of magnitude more revenue than WPE, and host more WP installs than WPE.

WP Engine has contributed full-time developer hours to the core WordPress code base for over 10 years, is a current Five for the Future contributing member, sponsors WordCamp events globally, produces the DE{CODE} series of conferences for WordPress developers, and maintains some of WordPress's most essential and popular plugins.

To say "without giving back or adding any value whatsoever" is libel. It's defamatory and deeply untrue. You're committing one of several crimes Matt committed to start all this drama. Maybe you'll get to meet the "good guys" in person when you respond to the lawsuits in the same court system.