I’ve delayed writing this for weeks. The drama is something I like to avoid. But I feel like I must get my thoughts out there, as this is seemingly a critical time in the world of WordPress, a software the presently powers 43% of the actively crawled websites on the internet. If you are unaware, the past 3 weeks has left this software in shambles, and it’s all seemingly at the hands of it’s creator. So here is my recollection of the past 3 weeks, in a series of curated posts.
Table of Contents
TL/DR
If you are a busy person, and you want a really quick overview, here it is. Essentially, the CEO of WordPress decided to take a “scorched earth nuclear approach” (his words) in what he said was a bid to return effort to the open source community. He did this by choosing one company in particular who was thriving economically. First he tried to take their CEO. When that didn’t work, he tried to demand 8% of their yearly revenue. When that didn’t work, he clearly explained his feelings at a WordCamp event, a tech event which is frequented by hundreds. This kicked off 3 weeks of what many describe as a total internet meltdown. He held interviews with tech influencers such as The Primeagen, and Theo. He spoke directly to individuals on various social media channels. His choice of words have gotten progressively less kind, and individuals seem to wonder what the breaking point is.
How it all began:
Sept 20: The first reddit thread
The very first sign I heard of any of this was a reddit post that was posted on Sept 20, 23 days ago today. And I quote:
“Just finished WordCamp US. Everyone left in a very weird mood. Matt started his talk pretty good and then it quickly turned to him name dropping WP Engine and their parent company. He showed the CEO on screen and suggested that people leave WP Engine. Honestly, whether they deserve it or not, it felt like the wrong time to do it. The whole place immediately picked sides. I understand that no one likes the big investor. I understand they don’t have the project or the customer in mind. But, is open source. They can do whatever they want. It sucks that they are squeezing customers and using the open source software that we all love but, it comes with the territory. I just saw it live a few minutes ago and I really don’t know how I feel. I just don’t feel like I left wordCamp on a high note this year. Not the best feeling.”
3 weeks later I’d say this is still the general consensus.
The video was posted to YouTube. In it, Matt encourages people to “watch this presentation, and that when their renewal time comes up, they think about that.”
Sept 21: WPE is not WordPress blog
The official WordPress blog releases an article because Matt’s mom was confused.
The community responds in memes:
Including me:
Sept 25: WPE members blocked from official WordPress repo
Sept 25: Core contributors considering options
Sept 25: Speculation begins as to when people will start to be removed for disagreement (Spoiler alert: not long)
Sept 26: my first thoughts
I am not a user of WPE, but this really upset me. I can’t imagine the heart attack this would have caused me if I was running all my websites on WPE. What about the families who use their services to make ends meet?
Sept 26: Host-agnostic criticism
Sept 26: The Primeagen interviews MM
The interview with Prime is, I think, the first public interview he did after the incident at WordCamp. It is a pretty good interview, and one I would recommend you watch. It’s only half an hour long. In it, some things get clarified in the beginning about Matt’s account of things. In the end, I feel like Prime was trying to give him a chance to explain his POV and how he thinks he might be in the right, but that’s not how it came off to me.
Sept 26: Community members begin asking for MM’s resignation
Sept 26: WordPress founders discuss how to future proof from MM
Sept 26: Speculation about ulterior motives begin
Sept 26: WPE responds
Sept 26: WooCom Plugin creator responds
Sept 26: my thoughts
Sept 29: Theo and MM interview
I shared my thoughts on it in this thread:
Matt replied:
Oct 2: Former Automattic employee speaks out
Oct 2: MM tried to get the CEO of WPE to come work for him
My thoughts:
People didn’t even think it was real:
Oct 2: MM on Hacker News
Oct 2: WP loses no matter what 🙁
Oct 3: Automattic retains Neal Katyal
Neal’s previous work history:
Oct 3: wp .com removed from .org
Oct 4: Executive director of WordPress resigns
Oct 4: Why isn’t wp .com renamed?
Oct 6: WP using official account to discuss WPE
Oct 7: guy who wrote the wp rest api gets banned from wp slack
Oct 8: WordPress .org gets sign in affiliation checkbox
Now when you sign into WordPress to maintain plugins or other tasks, you must submit that you are not affiliated with WPE. This is still up as of Oct 13. WP Tavern wrote about it further. The community was not happy.
Many memes ensued….
Oct 8: great blog by DHH
DHH created Ruby on Rails. He wrote a really insightful blog:
Oct 9: WordPress core contributors banned from Slack
Oct 10: Tech Crunch wrote a good article on the subject
If you read one article on the topic, I’d read this one. It does a good job of summarizing things fairly well.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/10/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained
Oct 12: ACF takeover
Oct 12: WC organizer banned for clicking an emoji
Oct 12: Someone bought securecustomfields .com
Oct 13: WP Fusion files a cease and desist against MM & a8c
Oct 13: Founder of Hey Rosie asks for MM to resign
Oct 13: WordPress accessibility team is locked out
Oct 12: contributor asks to remove plugin, instead they keep the code
Oct 12: Current situation in meme
Oct 12: the official WP account acting very rude to contributors
Oct 12: 7 less plugins in the .org repo
Oct 12: what could have been
Oct 13: A summary
Oct 12: JetPack does the same thing as WPE…
One of the claims made by MM is that WPE does not do backups by default, and, according to him, this goes against WordPress core principals. He used really colourful language to describe this, in fact.
The issue is that JetPack, a plugin that his company Automattic created and maintains, does the same thing:
Oct 12: Daniel Roe is blocked by WP
Daniel Roe leads the Nuxt core team, and his open source work has focus in the Vue.js and Nuxt ecosystems. Read more about him here.
Oct 13: hilariously accurate meme
Oct 13: A repo of MM related news
Oct 13: MM’s mom may not be the best source of info
Oct 13: WP deleting reviews
Oct 13: 2 million sites at potential risk
Oct 13: DHH writes article about MM
Oct 14: accusations over dark pr firm
Oct 14: core contributor terminates contributions
Oct 14: blackrock removed from a8c investors
Oct 14: MM replies to DHH
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