WordPress Chief Quits Community Forum After Court Loss (404media.co) 133
Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg abruptly left a key WordPress community platform after a federal court ordered his company to restore rival WP Engine's access to WordPress.org and remove a controversial login requirement. The preliminary injunction mandates Automattic eliminate a checkbox that forced users to declare they had no connection to WP Engine before accessing the platform.
Mullenweg departed the Post Status Slack forum following the ruling, writing he was "sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor" to WP Engine, according to 404 Media. "It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," he added. The order gives Automattic 72 hours to comply, including reinstating WP Engine's employee credentials and plugin access. The ruling marks a significant development in an escalating dispute between the WordPress parent company and the web hosting provider.
Mullenweg departed the Post Status Slack forum following the ruling, writing he was "sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor" to WP Engine, according to 404 Media. "It's hard to imagine wanting to continue to working on WordPress after this," he added. The order gives Automattic 72 hours to comply, including reinstating WP Engine's employee credentials and plugin access. The ruling marks a significant development in an escalating dispute between the WordPress parent company and the web hosting provider.
wat (Score:4, Insightful)
"sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor"
What? He did labor to try to prevent them from accessing the software everyone is allowed to access due to the license.
Just another chump who is unhappy with a license. Who chose that license anyway?
Re:wat (Score:5, Interesting)
a license shouldn't be able to compel service. if software (code) is subject to a license, the limit of that license should be the software in question, not access to a platform to download it. you shouldn't be legally compelled to deliver the software as well.
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Except that WP is licensed under GPL, which requires that you provide that.
GPL: No warranty, support, updates, or services (Score:5, Informative)
No.
Nothing in the GPL requires that you provide support, updates, or any sort of service. (Indeed, it explicitly states the complete opposite in numerous places. Check my post history if you want chapter and verse quotes; I can't be bothered to look this up again)
The only thing the GPL requires is that you, as the distributor, deliver the "complete corresponding source code" to any binaries you supply. As wordpress is already distributed in source code form (by virtue of being written in PHP), if you have it, any obligations under the GPL have already been satisfied by the party you received it from. If you don't already have it, you don't have any inherent right to get it from anyone, least of all Automattic.
Under the GPL, Automattic is under no obligations to supply wordpress itself (much less any over-the-top services) to anyone they don't want to. What Automattic can't do (again under the GPL) is prevent someone _else_ from supplying wordpress (or their own services) to those same excluded parties.
This ruling is an utter travesty, and in any sane jurisdiction will get overturned (on purely 1st amendment grounds!) should Automattic try to fight it.
(Note: While Automattic has the *right* to act in a doucetastic manner, it doesn't mean this this is a terribly wise thing to do in the longer run)
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You're right in spirit, although not as many specifics of the 42 page long order [courtlistener.com] which had to justify this extreme measure with a standard four prong test. (It's very well written and potentially worth the time to read, it lays everything out so someone new to all this, like an appeals court panel, can start right in.)
One of the things WPE is suing about is promissory estoppel [wikipedia.org], which does not require the implied intent to later switch in bait-and-switch, but does require you to not rugpull someone who's de
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As WordPress is GPL and source is freely available, WPE can easily replace hardcoded links and replace with their own... They don't do that because they 1. don't want to do the work (but still want money from their customers) and 2. they want to profit from the free repo hosting on wordpress.org
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WordPress.org is a de-facto monopoly on what? On accessing the plugins and themes hosted on its own resources? Is their website and their repo and those cost money to run.
WPE provide their customers with a modified wordpress package, they can modify it further to use a different repo.
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This is not about code but about the leecher WP Engine using server resources paid by Automattic: free hosting, free repo access, free forums and such
Re:wat (Score:5, Informative)
WordPress is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2. That means WordPress must provide access to their version of the source-code at no cost, or for a nominal fee that covers the cost of providing the code.
In the pre-internet days, that was the cost of purchasing, recording, and shipping a magnetic tape to anyone who asked. Nowadays the cost is trivial if the code is available on a server. Perhaps a supplier could charge a nominal fee for downloading the source from a server they pay to maintain, but I'm not aware of anyone doing that.
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Yeah, not really sure why, if everything is open source, WPE couldn't just alter the source of the code that they are running so that it downloads content from their own servers rather than relying on a competitor's servers (without compensation). Bandwidth and hosting are cheap, but not free. It doesn't seem right that someone can be compelled to give away things that cost money to support another for-profit business.
I get it, GPL, but that just means the code is freely available to all. It's the old adage
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Had they been given notice, WP Engine could've quite easily moved to a private distribution channel (as they were forced to do). But Automattic locked them out of their accounts, prevented any updates being released and performed a hostile takeover of their products, forcing their hijacked versions on unsuspecting users.
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The necessity to get updates through wordpress.org is hardcoded into Wordpress and was continually recommended for ALL developers as a distribution channel without charge.
Is hardcoded, but the code is Free and Open Source php, trivial to replace and hardcoded links.
Had they been given notice, WP Engine could've quite easily moved to a private distribution channel (as they were forced to do).
By now they had plenty of time, this drama is dragging for months already
But Automattic locked them out of their accounts, prevented any updates being released and performed a hostile takeover of their products, forcing their hijacked versions on unsuspecting users.
So what? WPE customers are running WordPress instances hosted on WPE servers, WPE can control the software residing on their own hardware.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
WordPress is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2. That means WordPress must provide access to their version of the source-code at no cost, or for a nominal fee that covers the cost of providing the code.
That obligation only attaches to parties that are distributing *binaries*, assuming you didn't comply with the source code requirements in another way.
Meanwhile, Wordpress is PHP, so all distributions are already in source form. In other words, if you have it, you already have everything the GPL covers.
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You seem to have misunderstood the GPL badly. It is the distribution of work (in binary or code form) to another party that triggers the obligation to distribute to all parties. i.e. the distributor only has the ability to distribute the software to any one other party by virtue of the GPL, if they refuse to distribute it to anyone else, they lose their right to distribute it in the first place. By common practice, the sole remediation required is for that entity to cease distribution entirely. This is
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FYI, Pizza seems to have a very good handle on the GPL.
It is the distribution of work (in binary or code form) to another party that triggers the obligation to distribute to all parties.
IANAL, but I don't think that's accurate. How do those other parties get involved in this?? I'm fairly certain that, if you distribute to one party, then your requirement is to offer access to the source from the same place to that party - not to the rest of the world. If that one guy gives it to someone else, they're required to pass on the same offer, and they're required to fulfill that offer themselves.
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/o... [gnu.org]
I downloaded just the binary from the net. If I distribute copies, do I have to get the source and distribute that too?
Yes. The general rule is, if you distribute binaries, you must distribute the complete corresponding source code too. The exception for the case where you received a written offer for source code is quite limited.
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It depends. If Automattic owns the copyright to all of WordPress, then it does not have to comply with the GPL. After all, it's the copyright holder and can do what it wants.
If any WordPress code is GPL's and not owned by Automattic, then yes... Automattic has to comply with the GPL. But that could include offering to mail a CD containing the source code for $50. There's nothing in the GPL that says source code has to be made available online. Just that it has to be made available at a nominal cost,
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It depends. If Automattic owns the copyright to all of WordPress, then it does not have to comply with the GPL. After all, it's the copyright holder and can do what it wants.
But it's in Automattic's interest to do so. That way, they can encourage a community of developers to contribute to their product and enjoy the improvements, along with everyone else. If Automattic decides not to follow the GPL (that I assume they chose) then someone forks their code, and the community waves goodbye to Automattic. I'm kind of surprised that hasn't happened already.
If any WordPress code is GPL's and not owned by Automattic, then yes... Automattic has to comply with the GPL. But that could include offering to mail a CD containing the source code for $50. There's nothing in the GPL that says source code has to be made available online. Just that it has to be made available at a nominal cost, and I think it'd be easy to justify $50 as the cost to burn and mail a CD.
Correct. That's also how I read the GPL.
Most developers who use the GPL want to see their source-code distributed widely. Automa
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Correct. That's also how I read the GPL.
Most developers who use the GPL want to see their source-code distributed widely. Automattic appears to be an anomaly.
You are mistaken, all the WordPress source code is freely and unrestrictedly available at wordpress.org [wordpress.org]. WordPress wants free and unrestricted access to server resources
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But that could include offering to mail a CD containing the source code for $50. There's nothing in the GPL that says source code has to be made available online. Just that it has to be made available at a nominal cost, and I think it'd be easy to justify $50 as the cost to burn and mail a CD.
That had been my understanding as well, but I just ran into this FAQ on the GPLv2.0:
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/o... [gnu.org]
The GPL says you must offer access to copy the source code “from the same place”; that is, next to the binaries. ...
This one is more on the nose though, and seems to say what you had said (which has been my understanding as well):
https://www.gnu.org/licenses/o... [gnu.org]
I want to make binaries available for anonymous FTP, but send sources only to people who order them. ...
If you want to distribute binaries by anonymous FTP, you still have to provide source through one of the options listed in section 3. This should not be hard. You can provide a written offer for source if you want; section 3(b) allows this.
That said, it feels like that section could be labeled, "If you wanna be a dick about it, I guess you could," LOL.
I'm really curious if the source has much of anything to do with it even. If WPEngine already grabbed a copy, and it's PHP, then the
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GPLv2 does not say you have to provide access to the source "from the same place" as the binaries. It says that if you do, then it counts as making the source available.
GPLv3 also says that one of the options is to make the source available "from the same place" as the binaries, but it's not the only option, though it is the only practical option if you distribute the binaries from a network server.
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Thanks for the clarification!
GPLv2 does not say you have to provide access to the source "from the same place" as the binaries. It says that if you do, then it counts as making the source available.
Reading the license now, I think you're right. But I'm surprised that the FAQ on gnu.org seems to say otherwise. Seems that FAQ entry may be a bit misleading: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/o... [gnu.org]
I found the "from the same place" quote in the GPLv2.0, and it's what you said:
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.
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And WordPress source code is available in the same place [wordpress.org]. What else do you want?
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"and I think it'd be easy to justify $50 as the cost to burn and mail a CD."
I don't. Not when AOHell was sending out millions of them for coasters for FREE for YEARS,
$5 would be more in line with reality.
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But this is NOT a GPL issue, source code for WordPress is freely available under GPL. WPE ask for free access to wordpress.org repos for plugins and themes.
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OK, if that's the case, then yes... unless the original developers assigned copyright to the WP Foundation. Wikipedia wasn't clear about this.
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I can't believe B2 is still around!
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"That means WordPress must provide access to their version of the source-code at no cost, or for a nominal fee that covers the cost of providing the code."
Nope. Only if you have the binaries must they provide access. Since the binaries are the code in this case, they aren't liable to provide access to the code to anyone who doesn't already have it.
And since if you already have it, you already have it, they don't need provide access to another copy.
This ruling wasn't strictly about the GPL at all.
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WordPress is licensed under the GNU GPL version 2. That means WordPress must provide access to their version of the source-code at no cost, or for a nominal fee that covers the cost of providing the code.
And WordPress is doing that fully. WPE want to receive free access to wordpress.org repo of plugins and themes, which then they resell to their customers.
Re: wat (Score:4, Informative)
The remedy for not wanting to follow the terms of the GPL is to cease all distribution. IOW he could prevent distribution to everyone, but not to any one party.
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But this is not at all about GPL, WordPress comply fully with GPL, source code is freely available
Re: wat (Score:2)
I don't know the full story behind this one, but I could see the guy saying "we have to make the code available, but we don't have to make it easily available"
The guy seems to have a legit gripe... he's worked his ass off on the software, and there's a group that offers cheap hosting because they can use his work for free.
In a way this reminds me of the complaint about Tivo decades ago... folks complained that because they used linux, they had to release their work for others to use... but the Tivo folks re
Re: wat (Score:3)
"The guy seems to have a legit gripe..."
Who chose the license?
Re: wat (Score:5, Informative)
"In a way this reminds me of the complaint about Tivo decades ago... folks complained that because they used linux, they had to release their work for others to use... but the Tivo folks released it in such a way that it was impossible for anyone to actually use it."
This is utterly false and gratuitously inflammatory. Tivo fully complied with GPL, without "folks complaints", and did absolutely nothing to prevent use of source code. It "reminds" you of Tivo because you don't understand these things very well.
Tivo prevented people from running modified software ON THEIR HARDWARE, hardware that was not covered by the GPL. BTW, that sort of behavior occurs all the time today, it's just that Stallman doesn't make an issue about it, particularly when Linus doesn't support RMS's fascist tactics.
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Whether it's a flaw or not depends on your purposes. BSD is a perfectly fine license, and for certain purposes is the best. For *my* purposes the AGPL3 is the best license I'm aware of.
But I don't believe that the GPL3 means that you need to make available any libraries used with the GPL3 code. I think someone was pushing to see what they could get, and someone else didn't want to risk it being taken to court. People often claim licenses mean things that they don't actually mean.
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Why was parent downmodded?
This is a flaw in the GPLv2, fixed by v3.
Richard Stallman coined the term "Tivoization". The GPLv3 was created as a direct reaction to it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Meanwhile, the Linux Kernel does NOT use the standard GPLv2.0 boilerplate text that includes, "either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version;" It's GPLv2.0 only, which still allows actions like TiVo's.
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To be clear they followed the letter of the GPLv2. As a result of this controversy led to the GPLv3.
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Firstly, the dude is already a multi-millionaire.
Secondly, the Wordpress codebase is built from the contributions of thousands of people, many of them volunteers who believed they were contributing to an open-source codebase.
Thirdly, Wordpress itself is also dependant of dozens of other open-source projects like jQuery, Lodash, React, the PHP language et. al. Automattic does not pay the amounts they claim from others to those projects.
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The wordpress.org website states that “ ‘[t]he WordPress 21community should emphasize that the freedoms in the [General Public License] help provide high 22quality software.’ ” Id. 10. In addition to the four core freedoms, the wordpress.org website 23also promises: “free hosting to anyone who wishes to develop a plugin in our directory.”2
wordpress.org promised "free hosting to anyone who wishes to develop a plugin in our directory". By shutting off WP Engine developers from access to the plugin directory, wordpress.org violated their own promise, not the GPL. Read also what wordpress.org did to the Ad
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wordpress.org promised "free hosting to anyone who wishes to develop a plugin in our directory". By shutting off WP Engine developers from access to the plugin directory, wordpress.org violated their own promise, not the GPL. Read also what wordpress.org did to the Advanced Custom Fields plugin that WP Engine developed. They prevented WP Engine developers from updating the plugin, and instead, wordpress.org updated the plugin to automatically migrate to a fork of the plugin that now belongs to wordpress.org instead of WP Engine.
Sounds more like wordpress.org stole the plugin.
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Unless you knew the news, you'd have no idea that your plugin had been hijacked.
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wordpress.org forked the plugin, said plugin is licensed under GPL.
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a license shouldn't be able to compel service. if software (code) is subject to a license, the limit of that license should be the software in question, not access to a platform to download it. you shouldn't be legally compelled to deliver the software as well.
Well then, it seems to me that the GPL does indeed compel you to provide a service. If you modify a GPL product and distribute the modified product, you must distribute the source-code also. If you don't do that, you're out of compliance with the license. Now, there are various ways one could distribute the source code (provide a downloading platform, mail a CD or USB for a nominal fee, etc.) but they all sound like a "service" to me.
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Source code for WordPress is freely available to download at wordpress.org
Re: wat (Score:2)
The OP is not correct. The issue is not about license. There are two issues Mullenweg cannot overcome:
1. Wordpress.org has always claimed to be the public face of the WordPress foundation, and their mission statement is to provide WordPress and plugins for free.
2. Mullenweg is attempting to leverage this nonprofit to benefit a for-profit company that he owns. He has gotten away with that for years because it is not necessarily illegal, but when you attempt to leverage the ostensible nonprofit to destroy com
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In his head everyone actually was agreeing to a second, unlisted license that says you have to do a bunch of good-will things. He is mad they didn't adhere to the terms of this secret-law-of-karma license as well.
In his head it's totally fine to do it this way if you keep a nice separation. He use that legal license to attract a bunch of people, but they are also forced to honor his license of karma and goodwill even though it's not really mentioned other than a light suggestion somewhere.
This way he is sti
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LOL. The most famous FOSS license was born when Stallman LOST a fight to compel others to give him their source code to a printer.
No. The most famous FOSS license was born when AT&T decided that they don't distribute UNIX source code anymore, and threatened to sue everyone doing it on their own while at the same time also pointing to the license and threatened to sue everyone who had coded extensions or improvements based on UNIX source code and was willing to distribute his extensions and improvements.
Richard Stallman wanted a license which prevented both: retroactively taking away source code you already provided, and also sto
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What a baby. (Score:3, Funny)
"I lost and I don't want to show my face to others now! I'll just hide in my ivory tower with my money and ignore what anyone says about me online."
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He didn't lose. There's no ruling on the merits yet. He was simply required to restore access to status quo until ruling is made.
What probably happened is that his lawyers finally sat him down and explained that he should shut the fuck up about the case in public until its ran its course. In large part because judge shoved a lot of screenshots of his public messages into the ruling on why judge believes this case has a very good chance of being won by WPEngine (which is what judge needs to articulate to gra
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He was simply required to restore access to status quo until ruling is made.
But, to Matt Mullenwang's tiny, idiotic brain, that is losing.
Can someone eli5 this WP thing (Score:2)
Re: Can someone eli5 this WP thing (Score:3)
There are no heroes in this story.
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Having read the injunction text, I think judge presiding is an absolute hero. Having to go through so many childish messages, and then having to lay out the case in great detail on how this midwit just fucked himself all on his own with his own public messaging, while citing precedents for every single way that he's likely going to get fucked in court without just writing in "defendant's lawyers, why didn't you tell him to STFU much earlier?!" must've taken a great amount of restraint.
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I'm not much more familiar with it than you are, but I'll bet you a steak dinner there are no good guys on any side.
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Hurt egos. And it's mostly Matt who's in the wrong.
WP engine has a working business using GPL code and Matt seems to be unhappy about other people making money with his GPL software.
Things like hosting an own mirror of the plugin registry would most likely be something they could have discussed, but Matt wasn't discussing actual issues like traffic for plugin installations or similar points that might be reasonable to talk about when a large company offers Wordpress installations.
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WordPress is a large community project, released under GPL. Behind WordPress development there are many developers, but the larges one is Automattic, the company founded by Matt Mullenweg, who started the project by forking it from b2/cafelog and then hugely improving it. Automattic pays developers and for hosting the project and its repository of plugins and themes, they make money from offering WordPress hosting at wordpress.com.
WordPress Engine (known as WPE) is a third party hosting company who sells Wo
His lawyers finally told him to STFU (Score:5, Insightful)
Having read the injunction text, what almost certainly happened is one of Mullenweg's lawyers sat him down. Look deep into his eyes. And then spent an hour or two bitching him out for the fact that about every other argument they could make for him, opposition just posted screenshots of Mullenweg BRAGGING about doing the obvious tortious interference.
Seriously look at this ruling:
https://www.documentcloud.org/... [documentcloud.org]
It's choke full of screenshots of Mullenweg digging a massive hole for himself. And then WPEngine lawyers just pointing at the hole, and judge putting him in it.
I can almost see judge typing this order out while shaking his head "how dumb is this guy to literally brag about doing the very shit his lawyers are trying to argue he's not doing".
Not gonna lie, i like this drama (Score:3)
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As a developer who works with Wordpress on a *daily* basis because of specific clients needs, I feel very sad for you. I've been developing for more than 30 years, and I fucking love WordPress. We switched our large site from Drupal to WP and have not looked back.
Re: Not gonna lie, i like this drama (Score:2)
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I was about to ask how on god's earth could anyone say ... but then I saw you switched from Drupal.
Yes. I can see now perfectly well why you like WP so much. I too would fucking love it in that case.
My first reaction (Score:2)
Thank you for your contributions and past hard work, Matt... but honestly, at this point in time, you've made it obvious that Wordpress would now be better off without you.
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Thank you for your contributions and past hard work, Matt... but honestly, at this point in time, you've made it obvious that Wordpress would now be better off without you.
...You do realize that this injunction _forces_ Matt to continue contributing/working/paying to keep Wordpress going? ...Indeed, this ruling is a very strong counterpoint that wordpress is "better off without him" --
After all, instead of standing up and maintaining their own servers/services, WP Engine chose to go to court to compel Matt to keep providing them with free services.
Re: My first reaction (Score:2)
I think you are way way off on this one.
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Doesn't it just _force_ Matt to treat all community members the same, regardless of their association with a specific company?
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Which is why the smart move - to be really obstinate - is to cease all support for all clients, and fork it to a new org that isn't bound by the previous org's obligations.
Start the 'No Homers Club' of WordPress.
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... and watch no one follow you to the new org.
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Everyone you're currently supporting, promised the same terms without interruption would likely be motivated.
At this point, you're either sympathetic to the guy stomping his feet and holding his breath or you're not. You're either trying to bail or you're not. If you're OK staying, I doubt you care what org name the guy uses.
Re: My first reaction (Score:2)
It is unlikely that the IRS would grant tax exempt status to such an organization, and equally unlikely that if Auttomatic made this WordPress fork highly restricted they would continue to enjoy their enormous user base.
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Mullenweg -personally- owns wordpress.org. Automattic owns wordpress.com. The Wordpress Foundation owns the trademarks and the IP. Mullenweg is the founder and ceo of Automattic. Mullenweg also founded the Wordpress Foundation -I am not sure if he is still in charge there as well.
It gets complicated because the resource in use is not company property, but his personal property. Getting rid of him without losing access to wordpress.org might be difficult.
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It gets complicated because the resource in use is not company property, but his personal property. Getting rid of him without losing access to wordpress.org might be difficult.
Automattic is a privately held company. The only way to "get rid of him" is to convince a majority of the shareholders to oust him. Given that Mullenweg likely outright owns a controlling share in Automattic (and effectively controls the foundation) that is going to be exceptionally difficult to achieve.
now now (Score:2)
Little boys and their pissing matches... tsk tsk tsk
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Isn't there only one boy in this fight?
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WP Engine is run by Heather Brunner who has stayed remarkably mature throughout what can only be described as a "mid-life toddler tantrum".
Summary title is wrong. (Score:2)
It should read something like "WordPress CEO throws toys out of cot"
GOOD (Score:3)
Good, now resign, from ALL related positions and never come back so that eventually, trust in Wordpress as a platform can be restored.
WP is like google: free service exchanged for data (Score:2)
Re: WP is like google: free service exchanged for (Score:2)
Not really. WordPress is crippleware. The free product is only useful for small blogs. Scale up or use advanced features and you will pay a lot for plugins. Automattic made a point of locking down the ecommerce aspects (Woo) so that is where they make most of their money.
Everything costs, even things you would expect to be core features of a modern CMS. Sometimes you pay third-parties, but Automattic plugins receive preferential treatment.
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Happy Now? (Score:2)
Well, how can the creators of WordPress complain?
They chose to use a licence, which is explicitly created by people who hate the idea of software costing any money.
And as a happy side-effect, allows non-creators to package and distribute it, with added services, without any development or support costs.
Now the courts have upheld, as desired by copy-left, the terms of the licence, preventing measures to block the downstream parasites.
Open-source slavery!
But all of this is a choice. If they don't like it, the
Repeat after me: Software is NOT service (Score:2)
And as a happy side-effect, allows non-creators to package and distribute it, with added services, without any development or support costs.
Except for the minor detail that this isn't about software licenses. WP Engine went to court to (so far, successfully) force Automattic to continue provide hosting and update services to WP Engine, for free. Services that absolutely do cost money to provide and maintain.
Providing software under the GPL (or any other "open source" license) doesn't place _any_ obligations on you to provide independent services to everyone under the sun. Also, just because you did this in the past doesn't make you obligated
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That all too common tech bro conceit turns out not to be true as this case is demonstrating, it's just not normally worth going to court over instead of swit
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What a load of nonsense. The Wordpress software forces users to use that channel and ALL developers are recommended to use it free-of-charge.
If Matt was really bothered, he could provide an easily overridable variable for the update/install channel, but he has deliberately hardcore the URL in hundreds of places, making NOT using wordpress.org impossible without forking the software or re-implementing the update functio
Didn't Elasticsearch do this and AWS forked it? (Score:2)
Didn't Elasticsearch do this years ago and AWS forked it into OpenSearch?
Now they're both great friends but we still have Elasticsearch vs. OpenSearch.
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Things like this is why I think it's a good idea to not go into Wordpress.
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Wordpress is terrible. Do not use it.
Like I'm not going to pooh-pooh people who were tricked into using it because it was free, but it's barely functional on it's own and most of it's functionality is provided by plugins that are not free, especially ones that are essential like anti-spam and caching.
As such installing wordpress on free operating systems, often require using non-free tools to maintain it. Cpanel and WPEngine have tools to maintain wordpress, they are not free.
Users often disable wordpress u
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not only that, WordPress.com depreciates and abandons free themes like Piano Black in an attempt to force free users to upgrade. There's no real information about earning potential but all this talk about 'monetization' which is misleading, as it takes a sustained 100K in views per year in adsense revenue just to pay for the site, which they won't pay out until you have a $100 'credit'
users are posting content, not get paid for it and capitalizing WordPress
the support tries hard but their hands are tied and
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I fundamentally disagree with you. We run a major site and switched from Drupal to WP, and have not looked back since. It is *by far* the easiest, most secure CMS I have worked with, out of the box. If you want it to do anything special, yes you need plugins, but because there are so many it is easy to find the ones you need. There are some that are vectors for malicious actors, but because there's simply so many plugins this is to be expected. We are fine paying for quality; you get what you pay for.
W
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As such installing wordpress on free operating systems, often require using non-free tools to maintain it.
Maintaining WordPress don't require anything else beyond the basic LAMP stack. cPanel is more about maintaining your hosting than WordPress.
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He can always fork the project, and start charging for the new version if he wants to do so.
I doubt that he's going to get a lot of takers for "PayPress", though. The real power of WordPress is the various free plugins you can use to extend the functionality of the site, and I doubt that they'll put much effort to support the new forked version.
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The real power of WordPress is the various free plugins you can use to extend the functionality of the site
You say plugin. The rest of the world says malware.
WordPress+"Free plugin" == everyone gets to have a bad day. May as well say aggressive melanoma and be done with it.
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There is a huge amount of free and quality plugins, not all members of the WordPress community are greedy bastards.
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There is a huge amount of free and quality plugins
Unless you personally review the code and keep an eye on the stewardship of the source, this claim is bogus and the primary reason why WP sites are such infectious garbage.
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So anything derived from that has to also be GPL licenced and the terms of the licence can only be changed with the signatures of every single contributor from any part of the codebase.
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Why the main developer would fork his own project only to get rid of some leecher (WPE)?