No need for WPE to do anything for him to look like the bad guy imho
Orygin
joined 2 years ago
From what I gathered, it is absolutely a question of licensing.
Wordpress is gpl so anybody can host it and provide hosting for others. WPEngine does make money like that and that seemed to rub matt the wrong way.
So he requested more involvement from wpe, claiming they do none (factually false). Then they started trying to extort wpe using trademark as an excuse (even changing the trademark page to reflect their new stance), while also smearing them on the official channels of the project. I'm also skipping the childish behavior of blocking anybody that could be related to wpe from interacting on the official wp.org site, then using this self inflicted wound to say one of WPE plugin is insecure (because they couldn't publish the update) and doing an hostile takeover of it.
WPE is totally within their rights to use the wp software without giving a cent back to Matt. If WP wanted payment for the infrastructure they provide on the .org site, they can change the rules to require commercial entities to pay for it (which they totally could do, but that would hurt the other players in the ecosystem). If they had a (real) trademark issue it would have been resolved under closed doors by lawyers.
there’s an expectation of contributing back or, at the very least, not exploiting the resources of a non-profit.
No, there are no expectations of contributing. It would be worded in the license otherwise (the only expectation of giving back in the gpl is that you publish the changes you did to your users). And WordPress.org is not the non profit but is run by the for-profit company that Matt is the CEO of.
So let’s focus on the actual problem: a large company exploiting a shared ecosystem to run a commercial service.
Like automatic is doing with wordpress? Don't they profit from other devs/companies publishing plugins for them to use on their platform? (Actually not opposed to that, that's the game of open source, but it's a bit hypocritical to only cry when it doesn't serve them).
Edit: From your original comment:
They could have easily avoided this situation without turning it into a turf war.
Yes, then why did Matt turn this into a turf war? He totally expected the community to take his side and turned it into a shit slinging show for all of us to enjoy.
Not really. See the support page regarding this:
As a new default, your phone number will no longer be visible to everyone in Signal. You can opt to display your phone number. However, people who have your number saved in their phone’s contacts will still see your phone number, regardless of your settings, since they already know it.
They know my phone number. Which in Europe is tied to me. They absolutely hold info about who talks to who
Wait, someone edited this just to remove some hamster balls ? Weird
Yeah that's what I was wondering. Not really following us politics apart from the constant bombardment of it on Lemmy, so I'm also curious about what other candidates exist.
Just curious, which third party would you vote for ?
I don't see anyone trying to take away his achievement. The report and most commenters even recognize his contribution.
Also this goes more deeply than "not liking them", he has some morally reprehensible views. I admit I haven't read the whole report, but I have seen some of the things it touches on in the past and it's pretty damning.
I get what you mean. GitHub and friends have pushed that back to a more centralized approach. However I think that it's not too bad actually. Most projects tend to be centralized too
I mean, it's decentralized alright, but it doesn't mean it's HA or automatically replicated. You can just use a different origin server and push/pull from it instead.
It's a game of cat and mouse. I'd be willing if I needed to use win11 myself but for my parents it's either gonna be Linux or a new computer
Wow, I didn't know that being a Linux/open source contributor meant you don't have to follow your country's laws.
It's developed internationally but devs still reside somewhere and have to abide by the rules at that place. Linux in this case being represented by an US entity means they have to follow the gov's sanctions. If you want more or less of those, that's where (the government) you act.