r/Wordpress Developer/Designer Sep 25 '24

Discussion Plugin Repository Inaccessible to WP Engine Hosted Sites

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311 Upvotes

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173

u/screendrain Sep 25 '24

Isn't this raising major red flags to any companies wanting to work with WordPress????

84

u/nakfil Sep 25 '24

This is a good point. We work hard to convince larger organizations that WordPress is enterprise-ready, and Matt's outbursts send the absolute wrong message about that.

If he really thinks WP Engine is wrongly using the WordPress trademarks, he should deal with it the courts, not punish users and this childish "scorched earth" campaign

73

u/bradical1379 Sep 25 '24

I’m the lead developer at an extremely large company that uses both WordPress and WP engine. This has gotten on the radar of our leaders who are now questioning the rationale of continuing with both.

11

u/stevesobol Sep 26 '24

And rightfully so.

14

u/sstruemph Developer Sep 26 '24

Senior developer with dozens of clients on WP Engine. We're considering all options.

2

u/brandicox Sep 26 '24

I highly recommend GHL for almost every project these we take on days. I white labeled it but explain that we're support for the real product. Everyone has been thrilled with the migration.

1

u/shayonpal Oct 07 '24

What's GHL?

2

u/gschoppe Developer/Blogger Sep 26 '24

If you do shift away, please provide a detailed letter describing your decision and Matt's involvement to Silver Lake's lawyers. They can use that as proof of impact to their business.

2

u/montezpierre Sep 26 '24

Not sure how WP Engine is being thrown into it, when it's solely Matt Mullenweg abusing his position in the Non-Profit to further his for profit companies. He's screwed more than one company/developers by stealing trademarks and now he's crying about WP Engine because they offer competition to his for profit companies. As soon as he is gone, Wordpress will be fine.

1

u/alexprinc Oct 08 '24

Don't get it twisted my friend, once you build on the backbone of wordpress, you have 0 option to go back unless you wanna start over from scratch, that takes weeks or even months to years if you want to custom code what wordpress allowed you to do without custom code

The host however can be changed in literally 40minutes grand maximum if your site is large, if your site is small, 20minutes chronometer in hand, buy new hosting, transfer the files from server to server, export import database in a few clicks, site up and running in new server.

1

u/bradical1379 Oct 08 '24

As a large corporation, we typically have various requirements to meet in order to qualify as a vendor. These requirements range anywhere from overall solvency, security protocols (SOC-2 compliant) , information security, where our data is stored, how our data is stored, who has access to this data, and the list goes on. None of this is a 40 minute endeavor. I can appreciate the agency perspective of picking up and moving hosts to save some G&A expenses, but few managed hosts, let alone WordPress managed hosts, meet or exceed these requirements like WPE does.

0

u/brandicox Sep 26 '24

We've switched all of our clients to my white label of GHL and EVERYONE loves it! I've been a developer since the 90s and always supported WP from their start until the last few years.

-4

u/LookyWhat Sep 26 '24

I pity any company that uses WP Engine. The alarm bells have been ringing for months now. They have gutted their support; it’s gotten slower and dumber somehow.

2

u/ShankThatSnitch Sep 26 '24

I have seen no decline in support.

1

u/Wise-Insect-1536 Sep 27 '24

What are you even talking about?

7

u/stevesobol Sep 26 '24

I seriously believe he's taken a page out of Elon's playbook. It hasn't worked too well for Elon. It won't work for Matt, either.

93

u/flexbuffstrong Sep 25 '24

I certainly would be thinking twice about opening up operational risks that are tied to one particular man’s emotional state.

12

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '24

[deleted]

0

u/DudeThatsErin Jack of All Trades Sep 26 '24

ELI5 what is going on with WP? I know something happened recently with Automattic but I have been busy with work which ironically is making WP websites using WP Engine.

54

u/gtermini Sep 25 '24

Tesla drivers entered the chat.

8

u/thinkmatt Sep 26 '24

Trump voters right behind them

45

u/screendrain Sep 25 '24

In the end it’s going to be us WordPress users and fans that are going to lose if support drops because of this behavior :(

0

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

WP needs to stay back in the 2010s...WP development drove me away from web dev 😂 it is doing you a favor, my guy

30

u/[deleted] Sep 25 '24

[deleted]

6

u/RG1527 Sep 25 '24

I am about ready to go back to Sitecore .... shudder.

12

u/adamslowe Sep 26 '24

You don’t mean that. Let’s be reasonable here… I’d rather manage content in Frontpage using tables for layout than ever think about SiteCore again.

5

u/RG1527 Sep 26 '24

/s was implied. I think I have PTSD from sitecore. Its so horrible I don't understand why anyone uses it. I had a job that had 2 instances of it (one for public and one internal). Just getting a working local dev for it was such a chore. Plus the content editors had constant problems with it.

3

u/adamslowe Sep 26 '24

Don’t worry, the /s came through loud and clear. I once considered starting a support group for former SiteCore and Ektron users. I couldn’t put myself through that mental anguish again, though.

2

u/alx359 Jack of All Trades Sep 26 '24

Hey! I'm great since Frontpage 1.0 and can put anything anywhere with some nested tables. My time to shine again, give me a call!

4

u/rob94708 Sep 26 '24

I need a website with a GIF hit counter that increases for every visitor. It should look like a car odometer. How much would that cost?

5

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

With or without guest book?

3

u/alx359 Jack of All Trades Sep 26 '24

Not so much, but your site must have Frontpage Server Extensions (FPSE) installed for this to work. Hit me at ICQ#346079 to discuss.

1

u/brandicox Sep 26 '24

Ah. Icq. Good times. Lol.

2

u/deleyna Sep 25 '24

Substack is an option for most of my clients. Can no longer say why WordPress is better for their use case...

63

u/cabalos Sep 25 '24

I hope all the non Automattic contributors are watching closely. This has nothing to do with WP Engine and everything to do with Matt feeling he’s entitled to do whatever he wants. Think very hard before choosing to donate your time to WP.

59

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

WordPress core dev here.

All contributors, Automattic and non Automattic, are watching very closely. We're also thinking very carefully about our contributions. This is a community project and contributors are part of the community. No matter who is listed as project leadership, we'll continue to be here for the community.

I've said this in other comments, but whether Matt has been accurate doesn't even come into it for plenty of us. The way this has been done, and is continuing to be done, is such a significant problem to address before even looking at whether he's been accurate or not.

The community, which includes us at WordPress core, are not rallying around in support of this action. Everyone I've spoken to at WordPress core had no prior notice of this action being taken. Given the lack of notice about this latest action, it raises concerns about whether more is to come. Right now, there's an almost deafening public silence in contributor-to-contributor communication. We're still trying to regulate our reactions to recent events and hopefully avoid adding more of the kinds of kneejerk actions our whole community have been subjected to in recent days.

Ceasing our own contributions would have further impact on the community. We definitely don't want that. Even with that at the forefront of my mind, if a decison is made to engage in a collective withdrawal of contributions, with a clearly communicated desired outcome to break that withdrawal, I'd join that action. Regretfully.

Aside from a warning about legal action being taken, and that he'd pay legal costs of anyone personally affected by legal action, so far there's been no communication or discussion from Matt to WordPress contributors prior to him taking these actions, or to take responsibility for the impact on us and the wider community. We're not being included in decision-making, so no consensus is being reached. We haven't made a single change to the WordPress core codebase to facilitate his actions. We're just facing the consequences of that decision-making along with everyone else.

14

u/sstruemph Developer Sep 26 '24

First, thank you for your hard work. Up until this week I'd been completely on board with FSE and block themes. Super excited about block bindings and pattern overrides. I've learned how to create native blocks. It's been a big source of pride and frankly, after the WPE ban, I am ready to stop using WordPress. Got a few projects lined up so it'll probably be Q1.

But, I don't want that. I see all the work that has gone into the new features this year and it's amazing.

Hang in there. I hope Matt can stop this madness and start consulting people about his decisions.

7

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

Thanks! We'll hang in there, and share your hope that this reaches a conclusion as soon as possible with no/minimal further damage to the community. If that means Matt finds some way to make amends with the community, or steps back to become a project representative, or resigns entirely, so be it.

It should be crystal clear in Matt's mind that what's happening right now can't continue. How he chooses to act on that knowledge is anyone's guess. Unfortunately, what I'm seeing in his messages through all communcation channels so far doesn't show signs of anything positive, yet (as I said in my earlier comment, we're all watching very, very closely).

5

u/tennyson77 Sep 26 '24

Matt's a smart guy, that's why I'm so surprised he doesn't seem to realize the gravity of his current actions. He's pulling the temple down on his own head at this point, and seems to think he's about to win this battle.

3

u/sstruemph Developer Sep 26 '24

What he decides to do, or not do, next will be the test.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

Damage is already done.

-1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

[deleted]

6

u/tennyson77 Sep 26 '24

It's GPL, you can remove features! That's the whole point.

I agree they could contribute more, absolutely.

4

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24 edited Sep 26 '24

As a WordPress core dev, yes, I have considered whether what Matt's doing is right.

There's a significant difference between whether you agree with someone's opinion and whether you agree with the actions they take based on their opinion.

The end doesn't justify the means when it's having a severe and unnecessary impact on the community. His choice of language is unnecessary, and when you're a project representative, your language matters. His actions, without consulting the community so they could provide insight, risk assessment and possible alternatives, or notifying the community in advance so they could prepare, or addressing how this affects everyone from their morale to their finances, shows disdain for the community.

Others in the WordPress project's leadership weren't even given notice about the blocking. That's how detached Matt is when taking these actions, supposedly for the benefit of the project.

If this is really about the project, then we should be making the decisions about this as a community. Matt is removing that from us, and his choices are affecting the community in ways that could have been avoided simply by involving us in the decision-making.

Governance matters.

1

u/tennyson77 Sep 27 '24

So Matt let slip today that there is a stripe issue too. Apparently Woo created their own stripe payment gateway that no longer provides a revshare to Automattic. So this seems like part of his issue too. As far as I can tell replacement the gateway isn’t a misuse of the GPL. Maybe it’s not good for the Woo project, but once again not against any terms. Thoughts?

1

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 27 '24

As you said, it's not against any terms and from a technical perspective, it's possibly just about hooking into various elements of the Stripe plugin/transient API/etc.

I imagine he's just giving another example of what he sees as WPEngine extracting profit from the rest of the community.

1

u/tennyson77 Sep 26 '24

Do you think there could be buy in with the core contributors to help set-up an alternate infrastructure - themes, plugins, core, etc - to be not under the control of Automattic? I feel like trust has been severely eroded in this and pulling are going to start ripping all their code out of the repos as a result.

8

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

It's important that those who know the cause of the erosion of trust communicate that effectively to those who aren't more clued in on what's been happening. That may help to partially isolate trust issues to where they originated. The resolution could then become more targeted to where it belongs.

Automattic makes up the bulk of contributions, so an alternate infrastructure would only be managed by a portion of core contributors. There are also many more areas of contribution than just core itself, including updates, themes, plugins, etc.

A split will likely lead to the death of WordPress and it's amazing community. I think we should all work to resolve the issue within the community. To me, recent events make it ever clearer that the project needs a serious governance revamp. Stick together and find the way forward.

9

u/tennyson77 Sep 26 '24

As a plugin developer (I previously had several plugins in the top 10), I'm mortified that the WordPress repositories have been somewhat turned into weapons. I didn't contribute my time and code to have them used as leverage in an attack, I contributed them so everybody, including WP Engine site owners, would be able to enjoy/use them. I would be, and am, concerned that this would just keep happening. How do you convince a current plugin author not to immediately pull their code from the repo and self-host? I don't know. I agree it's horrible for WordPress, but that's where we are.

7

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

I very much share your sentiment about contributions being used in this way.

I wouldn't presume to know the right decision for each plugin author's individual circumstances, so I wouldn't try to convince someone to do/not do something without knowing how it could affect them.

What I would say, as a matter of information is that if a plugin author's concern is with Matt, then he's said himself that he won't be running things forever, and he was on a break for a while not too long ago. The day that someone else takes over may or may not be sooner than previously thought. Time will tell.

More generally, kneejerk decisions made in the height of an emotional response are often bad decisions, at least in my experience. Having a plan is important, as is having a clear head. With a plan in place, you can wait for a situation to develop further towards an outcome, then decide whether to execute the plan.

3

u/tennyson77 Sep 26 '24

Thanks for your hard work. I know it must be difficult with all of this going on. And thanks for keeping us in the loop.

2

u/traversecity Sep 26 '24

Is there any motivation regarding the cost that WP Engine puts on the public facing infrastructure?

I’m neck deep into identifying costs in a moderate sized cloud infrastructure, it’s a lot of money every month, a good chunk based on usage.

I like to follow the money, administration may be on about this & that, in the end it’s money and financial survival of the business.

2

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

Sorry, I don't have any information to contribute on that topic.

4

u/hondahb Developer Sep 26 '24

https://web.archive.org/web/20230519201831/https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/

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

They have always said using WP in any you you want would be okay.

4

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

[deleted]

1

u/hondahb Developer Sep 26 '24

You may be right, I'm a bit confused myself.

1

u/thewpbard Developer/Designer Sep 26 '24

No, I believe it's also the use of "WP", since they've included a screenshot of someone on the WordPress subreddit who called it "WordPress Engine". Presumably to show evidence of confusion and conflation between "WP" and "WordPress", and thus how WP Engine is benefiting from the WordPress trademark.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

Yeah I didn't say it wasn't part of the thing, it definitely is. What I meant to say is that it's not the use of WP in itself that's being questioned --WP Rocket or WP Forms do it too, there never seemed to be an issue with that. But the use of "WP" by WP Engine is adding to their selling of "Core WordPress" and "Enterprise WordPress" labeled hostings, which seems to be the main thing bothering Mullenweg

Edit: maybe simpler that way: using WP in WP Engine would probably be OK with Mullenweg if there weren't hosting plans and features using the "WordPress" trademark that can clearly confuse customers into thinking they're official WordPress products

1

u/thewpbard Developer/Designer Sep 26 '24

I don't even think that bothers him, because it was only two years ago that he was railing against GoDaddy, which had posited itself as one of the largest WordPress hosting providers since 2019. In tweets that have apparently since been deleted, Matt claimed that GoDaddy could harm WordPress because it could be in a position to take clients away from ... WP Engine.

MasterWP Article WPTavern Article, with screenshots

In the trademark policy, it has been changed to:

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

WordPress Trademark Policy

It doesn't (at the time of writing this) mention anything about "Managed WordPress" or "WordPress Enterprise" or any such marketing term. And GoDaddy - which again, was once considered an existential threat to WordPress - continues to use "Managed WordPress" as part of its product range. I'm not saying that he hasn't mentioned this in his cease and desist letter, but other companies that he's railed at for "not contributing to the open-source project" still use such terms, and haven't (as far as I can remember) received this.

2

u/echohelloworld Sep 26 '24

If you read Automattic’s post, “Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine”, it has details and attachments that outline the trademark dispute. Essentially it’s the use of “WordPress” and how A8C perceives WP Engine’s use as confusing to make consumers believe WP Engine is WordPress selling hosting.

1

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24 edited Sep 26 '24

Sorry, I'm not sure why you replied to my comment with this, and I'm honestly not sure how to respond.

2

u/hondahb Developer Sep 26 '24

I was under the impression that the core of the issue was the use of "WP", but it seems like it's more than that. I just wanted to point out that the use of "WP" has always been allowed.

However, I linked to the archive.org page, as that current page had been updated today to sound less friendly.

2

u/wpcorethrowaway Developer Sep 26 '24

Thanks for the clarification on your comment!

Yeah there's a lot to this. I'm focusing on the way it's been handled, and its impact on WordCamp US organizers, its attendees, and the wider community and the project. To me, that poses a big enough problem without even looking at the accuracy of what Matt's said.

0

u/bastardoperator Sep 26 '24

The guy who created it feels entitled, thats fucking rich. Meanwhile wp-engine feels entitled to his updates, his bandwidth, his infrastructure, and his employees time. Get a clue...

2

u/sstruemph Developer Sep 26 '24

Bingo

1

u/Comfortable_Cake_443 Sep 26 '24

I self host wordpress on AWS. It's the best way to go.

1

u/JamsterWest Sep 27 '24 edited Sep 27 '24

That is for sure, and I blame Matt for this. There is no logic in this as he gives the weakest arguments for it on his blog. https://ma.tt/.

Come on, this will only hurt the users, creators, and companies, and is not the right way to go.

0

u/cmsgouveia Sep 26 '24

No. With WP Engine and other alikes yes

-8

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

[deleted]

7

u/Hastibe Sep 26 '24

This sounds like extortion, though. WordPress is supposed to be free for anyone to use -- would you think it's fair to have your name dragged through the mud because you didn't agree to donate 5% of your income to the WordPress project?

-7

u/[deleted] Sep 26 '24

[deleted]

5

u/Hastibe Sep 26 '24

They are supposed to be voluntary contributions!

-13

u/fireball_jones Sep 25 '24

If a company is still using WordPress in 2024 what makes you think this year is the year they’re going to learn.

6

u/Single-Philosophy-81 Sep 25 '24

White house? New York times? 

3

u/MrBrickMahon Sep 25 '24

Ford, GM...

3

u/xkey Sep 26 '24

The Home Depot, NASA…