Perfect way to kill the project [LWN.net]

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 10, 2025 16:33 UTC (Fri) by Sesse (subscriber, #53779)
In reply to: Perfect way to kill the project by cen
Parent article: Automattic reduces WordPress contributions

They keep on sounding so… hurt?

“Automatticians who contributed to core will instead focus on for-profit projects within Automattic, such as WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce. Members of the “community” have said that working on these sorts of things should count as a contribution to WordPress.”

Like, what? “Community” in scare quotes, weasel words, it all sounds like they're bitter at something someone said about something WP Engine did at some point. They really don't come across well.

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Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 10, 2025 17:32 UTC (Fri) by mattdm (subscriber, #18) [Link] (1 responses)

> Like, what? “Community” in scare quotes, weasel words, it all sounds like they're bitter at something someone said about something WP Engine did at some point. They really don't come across well.

Yeah. I feel like the basic position is pretty sympathetic: "Hey, this is open source, but it costs a lot to run these important supporting services. We need other companies who are benefiting from them commercially to kick in and help!" ... but the communications and actions make it pretty hard to _stay_ sympathetic.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 10, 2025 18:52 UTC (Fri) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

The thing is that contributions to wordpress.org shared infrastructure from all the vendors in the WordPress ecosystem would be a lot more likely if wordpress.org/WordPress Foundation were an actual independent entity and all the vendors were peers rather than the personal plaything of MM. The inability to let go of control (and stunning emotional immaturity, will to dominate) has created all this unnecessary drama. I guess I expect that given the obvious technical risks involved for all the vendors/users in the WordPress ecosystem that it will be effectively forked into Autommatic and everyone-else variants. I see a lot of parallels with Canonical proposing infrastructure components that don't become canonical, because of the licensing and inability to act as a peer among vendors.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 22, 2025 20:07 UTC (Wed) by chexo4 (subscriber, #169500) [Link] (7 responses)

This reads like Matt’s writing

What a loser

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 22, 2025 20:55 UTC (Wed) by daroc (editor, #160859) [Link] (6 responses)

No matter how much one disagrees with Automattic's recent decisions, that comment was not polite or informative; when criticizing people in LWN's comments, please make complaints interesting.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 13, 2025 5:29 UTC (Thu) by chexo4 (subscriber, #169500) [Link] (5 responses)

My apologies

Matt is screwing with thousands, perhaps millions of people’s livelihoods, over his ego and hypocrisy.

He has spent basically the entirety of the whole scandal doubling, tripling, quadrupling, pentupling, down, etc.

He could have literally done nothing and had a better outcome than this deliberate and continued tarnishing of his legacy and work.

Hence, the previous comment.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 13, 2025 13:36 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (4 responses)

> Matt is screwing with thousands, perhaps millions of people’s livelihoods, over his ego and hypocrisy.

Ah, so it's okay for others to screw with Matt's (and Automattic's) livelihood, just not the other way around?

Seriously, the entitlement is breathtaking here.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 13, 2025 15:17 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (3 responses)

In case you didn't notice: there's a material difference between saying "hey, community, this isn't sustainable, everybody please contribute" and selectively going after one single hosting provider who isn't even responsible for the majority of traffic.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 13, 2025 15:27 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> In case you didn't notice: there's a material difference between saying "hey, community, this isn't sustainable, everybody please contribute" and selectively going after one single hosting provider who isn't even responsible for the majority of traffic.

Automattic isn't legally (or morally) responsible for anyone's customers but their own.

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 14, 2025 10:07 UTC (Fri) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (1 responses)

I didn't say that. OF COURSE they are not responsible for anybody's customers.

However, neither is WPE, who is (for the most part) simply offering tailored hosting.

So I do wonder what exactly he expected to accomplish by going after them specifically … other than to throw the whole community into a massive black hole of FUD?

Re: Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Mar 14, 2025 12:05 UTC (Fri) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> However, neither is WPE, who is (for the most part) simply offering tailored hosting.

So you're saying WPE isn't morally and legally responsible for providing "tailored hosting" to its customers? (ie the ones paying it?)

Relatedly, what gives random customers of WPE the right to expect, much less demand, anything of Automattic? After all, they're paying WPE, not Automattic.

> So I do wonder what exactly he expected to accomplish by going after them specifically …

What is Automattic supposed to do, if not go after the commercial entity with whom they have a legitimate dispute?

(I'll repeat yet again -- Just because Automattic has a legit beef and has the right to seek some sort of relief doesn't mean that they haven't gone about it in a particularly boneheaded manner)