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Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

(torment-nexus.mathewingram.com)
154 points davidandgoliath | 18 comments | 17 Oct 24 18:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source | bottom
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codegeek ◴[17 Oct 24 20:55 UTC] No.41873704[source]▶
Mullenweg just keeps digging. He is the only person I have ever seen interacting in such a petty manner that he made a company backed by Private Equity look like a victim. If Trademark was the issue, why did it take him over a decade ? Why is he not going after all the other gazillion WP providers that use similar phrase on their website ? We all know the answer. The only company (WP Engine) that beat his for profit company (wordpress.com). He is just salty.
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1. throwawaymaths ◴[17 Oct 24 21:05 UTC] No.41873785[source]▶
Well charitably I would suspect that for the first question, he probably didn't want to rock the open source community too much. Look at the trouble the rust foundation got into for trademark enforcement, and it hasn't really been a decade. In general, there's no good time to start flexing on your trademark.

For your second question, Matt claims that it's partly because WP engine disabled core features of WordPress. I can imagine a world where you are inundated with complaints that your software doesn't do X basic thing (because the top provider has disabled it) but ITS BEEN THERE THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME TIME STOP COMPLAINING (put a smile on and explain calmly). You get my point. And then you snap.

No idea if that's what is in his mind but I have some sympathy for Matt. In principle. (This is me steelmanning Matt)

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2. ceejayoz ◴[17 Oct 24 21:16 UTC] No.41873882[source]▶
Disabling/limiting revisions is built in to WordPress.

All WP Engine did is add:

define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', false );

to their configs.

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3. swores ◴[17 Oct 24 21:34 UTC] No.41874058[source]▶
Even if they had literally disabled 80% of the functionality of wordpress, would that still be the concern of anyone other than WP Engine and their customers?

Why would anyone using open source software be required to use 100% of the functionality that the software is capable of providing?

replies(1): >>41874479 #
4. apocalyptic0n3 ◴[17 Oct 24 21:38 UTC] No.41874089[source]▶
Which is also something done by his own hosting companies (unsure if it's in all cases, but at least some).
5. throwawaymaths ◴[17 Oct 24 22:32 UTC] No.41874479{3}[source]▶
Trademark is exactly supposed to protect the reputation of WordPress. If people confuse WPEngine for WordPress, and assume if WPEngine doesn't have it, WordPress doesn't then that's damaging to WordPress. Except that WordPress doesn't (and legally can't) claim "WP". I'd be frustrated.

This is like asking what is it a concern of McDonald's if you open up your own restaurant call McDonald in your town and make it a dump

replies(1): >>41874552 #
6. ceejayoz ◴[17 Oct 24 22:41 UTC] No.41874552{4}[source]▶
If McDonalds for years had a page on their website that said “you can use McD any way you want, it isn’t trademarked”, that would be a good analogy.
replies(1): >>41874659 #
7. foco_tubi ◴[17 Oct 24 22:44 UTC] No.41874573[source]▶
Who cares if WP Engine disables revisions. Wordpress.com disables the use of plugins, arguably a core feature of WordPress, unless you pony up $300 a year for a "Business" tier account.
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8. throwawaymaths ◴[17 Oct 24 22:58 UTC] No.41874659{5}[source]▶
I don't know about three letters but two letters cannot be trademarked. The exact point is that WordPress cannot do anything legally, and that's understandably frustrating.
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9. throwawaymaths ◴[17 Oct 24 23:00 UTC] No.41874671[source]▶
I don't know about you but I would be more frustrated not being able to revise posts? It's bad enough on twitter I can't update my posts, I have to delete and repost
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10. ceejayoz ◴[17 Oct 24 23:00 UTC] No.41874673{6}[source]▶
But until the last few weeks the Wordpress site enthusiastically endorsed its use by third parties.

It wasn’t “we really wish you wouldn’t”.

replies(1): >>41875975 #
11. jeltz ◴[17 Oct 24 23:05 UTC] No.41874703{3}[source]▶
Every WordPress installation I have seen has had plugins. And likely used revisions too. So I would say about the same, both are mandatory features for most users.
12. Kye ◴[17 Oct 24 23:31 UTC] No.41874876{3}[source]▶
Revisions in this discussion is a copy of revisions you've made so you can reference or revert to one. You can still update posts all you want.
13. chucky123 ◴[17 Oct 24 23:40 UTC] No.41874938{3}[source]▶
I can't speak for blogging usecases, but for agency websites we would disable revisions and a bunch of other things for every single wordpress installation(even the blog posts that show up on the main admin area)

Heck even Jetpack, Automattics official plugin, recommends limiting revisions: https://jetpack.com/blog/wordpress-revisions/

Lastly, Wpengine never fully disabled post revisions, they just limited it to 2-3.

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14. lolinder ◴[18 Oct 24 02:55 UTC] No.41875975{7}[source]▶
Yep. This is what it said on September 19, the day before Matt launched his nuclear war:

> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.

It was changed to its current spiteful text on September 25.

http://web.archive.org/web/20240919043912/https://wordpressf...

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15. gitaarik ◴[18 Oct 24 03:47 UTC] No.41876179[source]▶
Well isn't that the thing about open-source software, that you can change the code and redistribute it? What is wrong about that? The WP Engine customers can ask WP Engine about that, it has nothing to do with Automattic.

Or WP Engine customers don't understand and are coming to Automattic for this? Well you can answer to refer to the WP Engine docs? You don't have to give them support if they're not your customer.

16. throwawaymaths ◴[18 Oct 24 05:17 UTC] No.41876540{8}[source]▶
Doesn't this serve as evidence that my speculation that Matt is frustrated with the behavior of WP engine? Please and spiteful language is not legally binding.
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17. ceejayoz ◴[18 Oct 24 13:26 UTC] No.41879250{9}[source]▶
I don't think "Matt is frustrated with WP Engine" is speculation. That much is abundantly clear.

What's not clear is if they did anything wrong to deserve it.

18. ceejayoz ◴[18 Oct 24 14:04 UTC] No.41879584{4}[source]▶
> Lastly, Wpengine never fully disabled post revisions, they just limited it to 2-3.

Not quite. https://wpengine.com/support/platform-settings/#Post_Revisio...

"Every WP Engine site has WordPress revisions disabled by default... Revisions can only be enabled by contacting Support... Support can help you enable 3 revisions for your posts to start. Revisions should not exceed 5."