'Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings' (hey.com) 46
WordPress.org has seized control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, renaming it "Secure Custom Fields" and removing commercial elements, according to WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg. The move, justified by alleged security concerns and linked to ongoing litigation between WP Engine and Automattic, marks an unprecedented forcible takeover in the WordPress ecosystem.
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, opines on the situation: For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?!
Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about.
Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.
And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them.
Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since the SCO-Linux nonsense of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted.
David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of Ruby on Rails and co-founder and chief technology officer of Basecamp-maker 37signals, opines on the situation: For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?!
Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about.
Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes.
And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them.
Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since the SCO-Linux nonsense of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted.
Want to kill the most popular web framework, Matt? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is it your goal to destroy the most popular web publishing framework in the world, Mr. Mullenweg? Because this is pretty much exactly how you would do that.
I'm beginning to think maybe the guy is going through some as yet undiagnosed mental health crisis.
Re:Want to kill the most popular web framework, Ma (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the anguish of someone else having money that could be his.
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Well, the thing with Open Source is that it cuts both ways. You can ignore the people who produce the foundation of your wealth, but they are not beholden to you and can change that foundation with no regard for your needs or even actively in opposition to your needs, especially if your contributions are non-existent. Not taking endless shit from corporations is not a sign of mental illness and insinuating mental illness in others without a hint of proof is a despicable dick move.
Re: (Score:3)
If I had been on Wordpress I would have been thinking about an exit strategy. You never know what's coming next when things like this happens.
Re:Want to kill the most popular web framework, Ma (Score:4, Insightful)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either. These have all the same pitfalls of PHP. Build a website core without a scripting language being the core dependency. Build the HTML, CSS, Javascript to use javascript webworker/drivers against your data and stop letting Wordpress keep working like it's 1999.
You always need *something* running in backend server if your website will store and display visitor-generated content, for example any sort of comments to your blog posts. Not to mention websites that handle their own user login credentials. A static web server isn't going to work. "Javascript webworker/drivers" isn't going to bypass such necessity.
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:2)
Yeah, was gonna say the same thing. You can push a LOT (if not most) of your app logic onto the client if that's your bag, but you will need SOMETHING on the server side to handle data persistence, assuming that the data in question isn't capable of being fully contained by the client or if that isn't desirable.
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:2)
The problem you have with PHP barely exists, because they maintain old versions for a reasonable period. As such you have the option to run the old thing while your framework is updated.
Drupal solves what little of this problem there is by using a smaller framework (Symphony) which handles that part.
Nobody should be trying to do it all themselves today, it's too complicated. But that seems to be what you are advocating for...
Re: (Score:2)
The problem you have with PHP barely exists, because they maintain old versions for a reasonable period.
Not only that, but most people who have to run servers for a living rely on enterprise Linux distributions - which themselves keep PHP (and pretty much everything else) patched up until the distro's EOL.
Re: (Score:2)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either.
The irony of this comment being posted on Slashdot is amazing.
What do you mean build? (Score:2)
Stop using Wordpress for serious sites. Please. Also, don't use Perl, Python, or Node either. These have all the same pitfalls of PHP. Build a website core without a scripting language being the core dependency. Build the HTML, CSS, Javascript to use javascript webworker/drivers against your data and stop letting Wordpress keep working like it's 1999.
Build a website core? Scripting languges? And what's a snake jewellery got to do with it? Does a webworker in HTML work with a point and click interface? If not, you've just lost 99% of your target audience.
People capable of doing the things you suggest are doing them. Wordpress is for the rest of the population.
Re: Want to kill the most popular web framework, M (Score:3)
Yup, my first thought was, "Welp, either the community is going to fork WordPress entirely and leave Automattic and WP Engine to rot, or everyone smart will move on to a totally different framework... amd leave Automattic and WP Engine to rot."
How to kill a framework indeed
Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the discussion was Free Software should never have a price, there comes a point when you've profited too much off something to maintain that free price. WPEngine should have absolutely paid Automatic, just as any large company that drives serious profit should kick back to the respective project, be that Angular, React, PHP, or even NPM.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Wow you really know how Free Enterprise works, or is that Open Enterprise? It's so confusing! At least we know that there is such as thing as "profiting too much", thanks for that insight.
Re:Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
And yet, a multitude of people on here and elsewhere gladly steal whatever software, music, or movies they can using every justification imaginable.
Do you honestly see no difference between pirating for-sale items and stealing an open-source project? No difference at all?
Re: (Score:3)
And yet, a multitude of people on here and elsewhere gladly steal whatever software, music, or movies they can using every justification imaginable.
Do you honestly see no difference between pirating for-sale items and stealing an open-source project? No difference at all?
How can you steal something if it's free?
Re: (Score:2)
Regarding your downloading example, if the Ice Cream shop downloads Iron Man for a screening, or a college documentary, who cares, even if the entire town c
Re: (Score:2)
We've been over this a million times on this site: a copyright violation, which doesn't even apply to this case, is not the same as stealing. Which is worse: someone stealing your only car or someone make a replica of your only car?
I agree, but the way Mr. Mu
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing.
Let's translate that:
You: "Hey, here, have this thing!"
Me: "Oh, thanks, I can use this!"
You: "You fucking thief."
This is an unhinged opinion.
Re: (Score:2)
but there comes a point when you're abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy.
. When you're big enough that you have no excuse for not contributing or compensating, that's when it's stealing.
Re: (Score:2)
That's not what I said, or even implied.
It's exactly what you implied. Open source is open source. The fact that someone makes money of it at some arbitrary profit number doesn't suddenly make using Open Source software stealing.
If you don't want people to use your code, don't publish the code with a license that permits them to. It really is that simple. Forgive me for not giving a flying fuck about your opinion that it arbitrarily becomes stealing at a certain profit.
Re: (Score:2)
fuck
you need to use more words then "fuck", you can't expect anyone to follow your point when you only use the word "fuck".
Of course you didn't say that, and I intentionally misquoted you, so I did not imply what you claimed, you misquoted me.
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing
vs
Taking an Open-Source project, profiting massively and not contributing is the same moral and ethical violation as stealing. I'm pro-Open-Source and pro-Free Software, but there comes a point when you're abusing the philosophy, harming the philosophy.
are very different statements.
Re:Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:5, Insightful)
I can assure you that Wordpress Foundation still owns Wordpress.
I'm not sure that's accurate, but even if it is it's not a crime.
I'm not sure what you're talking about. Maybe it has something to do with the trademark dispute, but I don't know how you're supposed to provide a hosting service dedicated for a specific platform without mentioning the name of that platform.
Where in the GPL does it mention anything about paying a "fair price"?
And I should have gotten a "thank you" wave when I went out of my way to make room for someone to enter my lane in traffic.
And I'm not necessarily siding with WPEngine on this. They have undoubtedly profited massively from the Wordpress project. But Matt Mullenweg appears to be going nuclear over something that didn't violate any laws. If he doesn't like the lack of contributions from corporations that use Wordpress, then change the damned license!
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
and another company effectively stole it, made billions, and felt entitled
They're providing website hosting, not selling copies of wordpress, the wordpress is free.
Re: Open Source is not the same as Free Software (Score:2)
"and another company effectively stole it"
Complete bullshit. When you give away your source code you cannot complain that someone stole what you gave away.
Re: (Score:2)
there comes a point when you've profited too much off something to maintain that free price. WPEngine should have absolutely paid Automatic, just as any large company that drives serious profit should kick back to the respective project, be that Angular, React, PHP, or even NPM.
That's the important part, when you're big enough that you have no excuse for contributing or compensating, that's when it's an issue.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the important part, when you're big enough that you have no excuse for contributing or compensating, that's when it's an issue.
They're working within the defined rules. It's not an issue.
The issue is that the rules are bad. Now they are being adjusted with hands of ham, which is causing new problems which are at least as bad as the situation already was.
Re: (Score:2)
hyperbole much? (Score:3)
I don't see the issue to be honest. Opensource was traditionally about the code being open, you know the SOURCE. Why that expanded to mean actively running services and handling distribute for hostile competitors, I am not clear on.
Repositories and shared ecosystems are nice and I am not against them but this hardly the anti-FOSS act that saying changing the license of WP so that WPEngine can't use it etc would be.
I am not sure I see what is wrong or unreasonable with "you take take take, give nothing back, actively compete with me, so I am not hosting stuff for YOUR customers for free"
"Tivo-iszation" of course inserts another wrinkle into how this argument looks but that isnt happening here either. The WP source is just as useful as it ever was to someone who wants to deploy/use/sell-wp-as-a-service for the most part being expected to stand up their own infrastructure/repositories if they can't/won't stay on good terms while NOT DENYING them any of the key things needed to do that does not seem much of breach of the FOSS social contract.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re-stating the issue: WP source is open. Automattic's repository, not so much. If WP Engine didn't want the rug pulled out from under it's popular plugin, they should have hosted it themselves.
Of course, that opens up a can of worms w.r.t. popular OS mirror sites inserting some Evil Code(tm) into its distributions. But we wnt through this with systemd and survived.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, Mullenweg has for many years pushed the concept of all plugins being primarily hosted on the main Wordpress domain - purportedly for user convenience and user trust reasons. What he didn't mention, though, is that doing so would also make it much easier for him to burn the house down.
Re: hyperbole much? (Score:3)
Right, he pushed this approach and now is altering the deal because he found out he didn't like how it was going. That's his prerogative but also won't win him any friends... Or business.
Re: (Score:3)
Nicely stated. In a lot of ways it is the same problem of if your code depends on someone else's FOSS project you really better have some control of the coupling and some notions of what you might replace those dependencies with if they go away or a plan to maintain that code on your own if need be. - if its something critical anyway.
Like what was WPEngine's plan here if the WordPress project decided to stop all PHP development and rewrite the entire CMS in Python or something. Just abandon all their cur
If Slashdot ran an open-source soap opera... (Score:3)
If Slashdot ran a serialized, open-source soap opera [wikipedia.org], (that has nothing to do with Richard M. Stallman [slashdot.org]), then this is it.
I was hoping the details of Musk running Twitter into the ground would take off as a long running series, but as a Drupal developer musing in the slashdots, I'll settle for Wordpress billionaire chaos.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you sure that SCO is dead?
We were just getting ready to switch to wordpress (Score:2)
Re: We were just getting ready to switch to wordpr (Score:3)
So run Drupal, the most popular CMS for government websites in the world. They mostly chose it over WordPress for very sensible reasons, some of which are technical and some of which have to do with the much healthier community.
FOSS is TRUE Open Source (Score:2)
I am not a lawyer and this is my opinion, based on facts, but it's not legal advice.
Free and Open Soure Software is awesome. It bring us Linux, Apache, MySQL (Maria!!), and PHP - LAMP.
Fake open source is people like Winamp, Automattic, etc. who let us view their source code but that's about it. Sure, you can fork some of these multi-billion dollar projects but still have further restrictions.
Wordpress is the highest popular framework for developing websites and it's the LEAST SECURE PIECE OF SHIT SOFTWAR
Seized control? (Score:2)
Okay I guess forking code is seizing control now. The only thing worse than stupid children throwing tantrums in the open source space, is the hyperbole posted about it.