Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

One important people to keep in mind as they read this post, the linked Google Doc, and tweets from the past day where a bunch of people are receiving unsolicited DMs[1] from Automattic with grammar that matches Matt's:

- Matt, under various guises, is shifting blame to different entities that are effectively himself.

- Automattic is Matt. Matt is the CEO of Automattic.

- The WordPress Foundation is, effectively, Matt.

- The problem is Matt. Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous.

1. https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1846448485979107824

"Maybe he's right about WP Engine, but the way he has and continues to handle everything has been disastrous."

This is the best single line distillation of the current lunacy. I mean with every passing day, it all becomes more and more unhinged, and I see no good outcome in the long term. The overall damage to the ecosystem I think begins it's death spiral now.

It's a boon for competitors I suppose, but that's about it.

Well, he's not right about WP Engine.

Wordpress is an open source project. If he's "right" about WP Engine, then he's "right" about basically every user of every open source project, and there ceases to be any such thing. OS is take-it-or-leave-it, if he wants contributions back, put it in the licence and also offer support.

He's right about every user of every open source project. The license gives you code, it doesn't give you trademarks, infrastructure support or moral support.

I am amused to see the usual HN vibe both complaining that commercial entities crowding out creators with their own software is violating the "spirit of open source," and insisting that FOSS maintainers don't owe you anything morph into commercial entities don't owe the FOSS maintainers of the software users anything, and are owed trademarks and access to infrastructure.

WP Engine is a hedge fund spinning money out of FOSS. It's fine, it makes more choices available for people. But the idea that Automattic has to acknowledge them, and that acknowledgement cannot be hostile, that's not in the license.