Comment on Matt Mullenweg temporarily shuts down some Wordpress.org functions
zante@slrpnk.net 1 day ago
People are saying he’s lost the plot, but he has a point doesn’t he ?
I don’t know the details, but as I see it, he put a powerful tool in the hands of the people, for free. The ecosystem grew, money was made - in the case of WPengine plenty of money - But they weren’t prepared to kick back
Whilst it’s permitted under the license, if they haven’t made any contribution to the project, it’s pretty shitty
He used to own a stake, sold it, tried to create a competitor, then tried to make life harder for his competition.
There was a decision pathway where he didn’t make himself look like a fool. Making people log in and confirm their business is not affiliated with wp engine was the most cringe business move.
A judge told him to stop using his nonprofit to actively sabotage a competitor to his business and he goes crying to everyone that it’s “free labor” to not block them.
jonathan@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
It doesn’t matter anymore if he had a point.
Matt Mullenweg thinks he is Wordpress. He has been leveraging his position for his own financial gain for 20 years. He’s been pulling egotistical power moves like this the whole time, just against much weaker opponents. But now he’s taken on a private equity venture with more financial backing than him, and he’s about to get wrecked because he’s been a complete amateur trying to extort them.
My prediction is this will finally dethrone him and shift Wordpress to a true community run model.