Wordpress Drama

[RobinHood]

That was pretty funny

LInk

 

[Forsaken]

There is now an "official" tracker from Automattic with a full downloadable csv list of thousands of domains of sites they say have migrated away from WP Engine

WP Engine Tracker

Tracking how many websites have left WP Engine and found a new home since September 21, 2024.

wordpressenginetracker.com

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Twitter link


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The number of sites is bloated, as it included various stages of development (beta, dev, staging etc), and it has led to a lot of sites being "doxed" (don't necessarily agree due to nuance, but close enough for purposes of the complaint),

The lawsuit against Wordpress has also been amended, mostly with things Matt has said or shown, so I really have to wonder if their lawyer is regretting taking him on as a client, as they may lose their winning streak against WPEngines lawyer.

 

[RobinHood]

Yeah, Matt retweeting that image someone mocked up showing how reliant the entire WP ecosystem is on wordpress.org certainly isn't helping his case

Amended Complaint:

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.437474/gov.uscourts.cand.437474.51.0.pdf

Docket:

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/wpengine-inc-v-automattic-inc/

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[TLDR]

Also, here's the original, CC-BY-NC-licensed comic.

Dependency

xkcd.com

And I mean, call me a nitpicker, but Matt BY'd the wrong author (for the original work, at least).

 

[Wildcat Media]

There is now an "official" tracker from Automattic with a full downloadable csv list of thousands of domains of sites they say have migrated away from WP Engine

Matt's digging WP's grave for them.

How do we know this page is even legit, and these aren't just random numbers or calculations pulled out of thin air? We know it's from Automattic but there's no explanation of methodology, other than a link to Github. And who's to say that, if WP is sending out a bot to spider for WP Engine sites, some sites aren't now blocking their bot? I certainly would. (This also makes me wonder if WP Engine uses Jetpack--that's an open door for Automattic to see what's going on.)

BTW, I found further stupidity earlier this week--I had to use their terrible forum to ask a plugin developer a question. The login has a checkbox to certify that I am not part of WP Engine.

I don't want to sound an alarm, but who knows how much longer WP will be around? Matt could decide to pick up his toys and go home and shut it down. Or kill it off with his antics to the point where it becomes part of history. We might also end up having to jump through hoops to use the license if he suddenly decides he doesn't like other WP hosts.

I just wish I could find something easy to set up that works exactly the same way. Honestly, I'd rather get another XF license and make some changes to use it as a blogging platform vs. a forum. I'm almost getting to that point...

 

[Ricsca]

but do you really believe that a cms used on millions of sites "is in the grave" because 4/5 plugin developers have decided to no longer use the wp library to offer them?
I'll give you an example:
ACF is no longer on WP but you have to download it directly from their site... those who still use it and will use it will not stop using WP so the only ones who lose out are the ACF developers!

Not having their plugins on the Wp library is only a disadvantage for plugin developers, not for wp which is now a "huge ecosystem"...

 

[Arantor]

BTW, I found further stupidity earlier this week--I had to use their terrible forum to ask a plugin developer a question. The login has a checkbox to certify that I am not part of WP Engine.

Sadly this isn't new. And a number of people have walked away because of it.

but who knows how much longer WP will be around? Matt could decide to pick up his toys and go home and shut it down.

There's enough money on the table, enough people depending on it that it won't go away any time soon.

WordPress, the core software, is GPL-based, forking is entirely possible and I rather suspect if Matt takes his toys and goes home, the community will do something about it. (More or less successfully, that is. ClassicPress's existence proves that forking needs to have more of a goal than 'not this' where the majority adopted WordPress with Gutenberg, rather than ignoring it in favour of sticking with the classic editor.)

What, however, is very up for debate is the ecosystem. Matt has made it clear that wordpress.org is owned by him, personally - not the WP Foundation. He can take his ball and go home and pull all of that down overnight. And that is a much more significant question. WP's continued adoption relies predominantly on its ecosystem, and if you fragment that by making people have to go to different places to get updates, that's going to be problematic.

Now, the community has already recognised this and efforts are already underway to do something about this (see AspirePress) but the general mood seems to be that this is going to go to court and Matt is going to have his butt handed to him, and he'll take the hint. That's the hope, anyway.

WPE don't even have to say or do much at this point - never interrupt your enemy while they're in the middle of making mistakes. And the last filing that went in just kept pointing out the latest things Matt was saying, because he is absolutely his own worst enemy here.

 

[Arantor]

ACF is no longer on WP but you have to download it directly from their site... those who still use it and will use it will not stop using WP so the only ones who lose out are the ACF developers!

Or you can have the version downloadable from https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/ - note the URL - which is the plugin entry for ACF, until it was forcibly taken over by WordPress and the stuff about paid upgrades was removed.

Plugin authors are rightly concerned that WordPress will come after them, especially if they have a paid upgrade.

 

[Wildcat Media]

Didn't say it was in the grave, but the tide could be turning. Enough of us might get disgusted enough with Matt's antics that this could turn many developers towards something else, rather than get caught up in Matt's personal grudges.

I've wanted to get away from it for years, but I still haven't found one that's easy to install, and even easier to edit with. I want to write, not dink around with code, or Gutenberg's stupid "blocks" which are the most creator-hostile thing I've ever seen for an editor.

If XF were a blog, I'd already have a license...

 

[Wildcat Media]

What, however, is very up for debate is the ecosystem. Matt has made it clear that wordpress.org is owned by him, personally - not the WP Foundation. He can take his ball and go home and pull all of that down overnight. And that is a much more significant question. WP's continued adoption relies predominantly on its ecosystem, and if you fragment that by making people have to go to different places to get updates, that's going to be problematic.

That's my concern. My remaining sites still work fine, but they can't remain on old versions forever if he decides to take his toys and go home. His recent decisions are a bit unstable, to put it mildly. (And yes, I'm liking how he's digging his own grave re: the lawsuit.)

Now, the community has already recognised this and efforts are already underway to do something about this (see AspirePress) but the general mood seems to be that this is going to go to court and Matt is going to have his butt handed to him, and he'll take the hint. That's the hope, anyway.

I just checked out AspirePress. I like their spirit and their ideas.

 

[Digital Doctor]

any wordpress "forks" or alternative projects will be gone / dead 2 years after the dust settles.

!remindme 2 years.

 

[Arantor]

Gutenberg's stupid "blocks" which are the most creator-hostile thing I've ever seen for an editor

Eh, there is validity to the idea. After all, it's largely how Wix works...

If you're doing anything that isn't just a blog, where you want pages that have pre-rolled widgets with configurable content... it's actually an improvement over the classic editor. Unless you want to use bbcode shortcode.

For just writing the blog, it's not wildly different (unless you want to use bullet point lists in which case, get stuffed because Gutenberg can't actually do that)

 

[Arantor]

any wordpress "forks" or alternative projects will be gone / dead 2 years after the dust settles.

!remindme 2 years.

ClassicPress thinks it's not dead (chuckle) <insert Ralph Wiggum laugh>

 

[Arantor]

Holy heck.

It looks like Automattic has taken the pro version of ACF, rebranded it as SCF and published it to the directory under the SCF slug (note the URL is now https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/ rather than /advanced-custom-fields/)

And it has features that only the pro version has, which means this is at least in part the pro version.

Yes, in theory this could have always been done (because the GPL), but it was always tacitly agreed that Automattic wouldn't allow this. The fact that this plugin also seems to violate other rules of w.org's plugin directory is immaterial (it's fine if Automattic does it but no-one else, obviously)

It's not even subtle: there's a folder inside it called pro, with files named like acf-pro.php in it.

In fact, a quick glance through it suggests it is little more than just straight up taking ACF Pro and filing off the copyright and some branding (which is a violation of the GPL) because it doesn't even rename the classes to SCF.

Jeesh, Matt, how dense are you? WPE's lawyers are going to love this.


In case anyone sees this as a win for folks wanting a paid thing for free, it's really not: this is just a signal to anyone in the creator ecosystem that if you don't toe the line, don't pay the WP tax etc. Matt can and potentially will come after you if you are big enough to be worth the effort. This is not a good thing for the health of the platform, not at all.

 

[Wildcat Media]

For just writing the blog, it's not wildly different (unless you want to use bullet point lists in which case, get stuffed because Gutenberg can't actually do that)

I use that often, plus editing content is a nightmare when elements on the page start shifting around. There is nothing wrong with the simple "word processor" editor like we're using here in XF--it's what users like me have used for over 30 years.

Gutenberg does make laying out static pages a little simpler, so I'll give it that. But even there, a couple of simple formatting tasks required hours of CSS modifications to make it lay out properly.

I never liked the idea that it was forced on us, with no other option but to install the Classic Editor plugin that will work until they decide we otherwise have to use Gutenberg all the time. I'm still waiting for that shoe to drop.

In case anyone sees this as a win for folks wanting a paid thing for free, it's really not: this is just a signal to anyone in the creator ecosystem that if you don't toe the line, don't pay the WP tax etc. Matt can and potentially will come after you if you are big enough to be worth the effort. This is not a good thing for the health of the platform, not at all.

This hints at turning into a much wider problem than "Matt is pissed at WP Engine." Part of the collateral damage is that now, hosting companies and developers in the ecosystem are going to be hesitant about moving forward with new projects and products. They don't want to be the next "WP Engine" and the target of his wrath.

I don't know when the hearing or trial is (I'm not keeping up enough to know its legal status), but I'd be interested to read the judge's decision after this all goes down.

 

[Arantor]

There is nothing wrong with the simple "word processor" editor like we're using here in XF--it's what users like me have used for over 30 years.

People who just want to go in and change the content without needing to learn arcane syntax really benefit.

I do a fair amount of marketing websites professionally - Gutenberg vs Classic is an actual no-brainer for them because their pages are straight up blocks that are pre-formatted where they can just plug the content into, and we’re talking things like “here I have a block of 4 things that are radial dials that animate from 0 to whatever percent” which would be a nightmare for them in shortcode and using raw HTML is entirely out for them, because these are people who aren’t technical, their focus is not on spending time on this but paying an agency to make it easy for them. (And they certainly don’t have 30 years of experience to draw on)

This is where Gutenberg truly shines - when you have a designed layout that isn’t just a blog, when you have have a dozen or more custom post types flying around on a single page, and when you want to put in safety rails for people to just come in and do content.

I.e. the Wix level of customer, which is who this was built to target in the first place, since Wordpress.com is really the focus on WP dev, as directed by Matt.

 

[Wildcat Media]

People who just want to go in and change the content without needing to learn arcane syntax really benefit.

I find nothing arcane about it. Ctrl-I is italic, Ctrl-B is bold. Ctrl-V pastes in content. Click a button if I need a bullet list or an indent. For someone actually writing content (blogging, I guess?), the classic editor does everything needed. Same as XenForo's editor here. It's made for content creation. These online text editors have decades of precedence in the many word processing applications we've all had since the WYSIWYG era of desktop computing. It's efficient and prone to few if any distractions.

Short version: If I have to take my hands off the keyboard while I'm writing (italics especially--it's used heavily for titles), a text editor is a failure.

I found Gutenberg unsuitable for day-to-day use. It's like using a desktop publishing platform to write an essay--the two are not the same. It can work, but it's inefficient, clunky, and unsuitable for the task of creating content. It has its place, but writing without interruption is not one of them; been there, done that. It's a crutch for the lazy IMHO.

Just my two cents worth. And you know how much that buys a person these days.

 

[Arantor]

If you're just writing bold, italics and stuff, sure, but honestly... the average corporate marketing site doesn't.

They'll be doing things like quotes, multi-column layouts with text and images alongside each other, images with captions, or as I said, more complex widgets. They'll have carousels of testimonials (which are usually image + quote + name + job title), they'll have carousels of brand images of people they work with. And doing all that responsively.

I'd show you the last couple of websites I built which my clients still update, but I don't particularly want to dox myself in so doing. But I absolutely guarantee they're not maintaining it with a WYSIWYG editor.

But I think we're talking at cross-purposes, your content needs are not their content needs, and vice versa.

What I will also note is that WYSIWYG is not nearly the solved problem you're suggesting and one of the reasons folks prefer having guide rails is so they can't break it in ways you absolutely can in a WYSIWYG editor... our dev team have been doing WordPress sites for a decade and Gutenberg + ACF was the best thing that ever happened for us.

 

[RobinHood]

Preliminary hearing going on now.

Someone is live tweeting watching the zoom stream, which is impossible to get into as it's full

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[Forsaken]

So Wordpress ended up completely ripping ACF Pro and releasing it... Which is something they literally sued someone else over.