[outsomnia]

The guy has some kind of point (for which he was flamed in the comments, and respect for acknowledging his gratitude to the maintainer) but the maintainer did the work, and by dint of ignoring this guy, did another 15 years of work on WP which has been made available under the gpl for free... that's a win for everyone as far as it goes, right?

If he just gave up in 2010 so there was no "conflict of interest" to satisfy this guy, who is actually better off?

[ookblah]

this is faulty logic. you are taking two overlapping issues and framing them as an either/or. matt could easily have removed the conflict interest while not "giving up" on wordpress and continuing to contribute. it's about anticipating any future issues that could arise through governance, not that matt should just stop working on wordpress altogether.

so yes, absolutely WP would be in a better place now had he just removed that aspect of his involvement. by 2010 WP was an ecosystem that was more than just the founder. and ben cook isn't just "some guy".

and more historical context if you want to see what happened to mr. cook and the pattern of retaliation by matt.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231004222821/https://wpblogger...

the funny thing is i didn't even really care about who ran WP since a few months ago, but due to all the drama u can easily dig this stuff up now and it's not pretty.

[outsomnia]

... "faulty logic"... the Maintainer runs a business and makes a lot of money and he should give that up, but is invited to keep working as before for nothing. It is left to others to make the money on his work, but he should keep striving away for other's benefit like a slave.

It's quite crazy to say if the last 15 years of work was not done by the paid devs and the maintainer, WP would be in a "better place". It just goes to show how partisan this topic is, trying to argue this seems rational to you at the moment.

[hn_throwaway_99]

Wut??

None of your comments make any sense: "the Maintainer runs a business and makes a lot of money and he should give that up" - literally nobody is saying that. They author obviously knows he would stay as CEO of Automattic, so he is arguing to give up leadership of the foundation.

[outsomnia]

> literally nobody is saying that

From the article: "it’s time for Matt to resign from either the WordPress Foundation or Automattic."

Can I gently suggest to you that posting under a throwaway leads you to post - and downvote - in a way you wouldn't normally, that is not helpful for the discussion?

[ookblah]

i don't think you read the article or understand the current context.

he has two entities, a private business (Automattic) which is separate from the WP.org side which he has said since the beginning as being "community run", but is now apparently his personal property and we were all just playing his garden.

you keep talking as if WP in its current form is only because of paid devs and the maintainer. thousands of other contributors made it what it is today, all with the assumption that it was governed a certain way.

all OSS has this inherent issue. the for-profit gatekeeps what goes into core or can steer/block things to keep things advantageous only to them. it's why the questions around governance are even being asked. if you can't understand why this conflict could be a problem then i'm not sure what to say.

[hn_throwaway_99]

> If he just gave up in 2010 so there was no "conflict of interest" to satisfy this guy, who is actually better off?

Holy strawman, Batman! The author wasn't asking Matt to "give up", he was asking him to choose either head of Automattic or the WordPress Foundation.

In retrospect, the author was spot on, incredibly prescient, and the comments denigrating his post have aged like milk.

[outsomnia]

So it turned out, there was an option 3, where random internet guy was ignored and the maintainer both made money from his work, and continued with the public good of donating work to his GPL'd project.

WP Engine is truly upset with the money they were able to make from WP being in good shape for free the last 15 years? According to the maintainer it's hundreds of millions of dollars. Before Mullenweg complaining about their not chipping in, they seemed very happy to go on.