Matt is in large part mischaracterizing, although not outright lying about, the court's ruling. If you follow the link he provided to the ruling itself, many of the dismissed claims were dismissed "with leave to amend" (basically WPEngine has to fix their allegations), and one was dismissed for the reason that it should instead be asserted "as an affirmative defense if appropriate later in this litigation." There were some claims dismissed in a way WPEngine can't fix, but not many, and others were upheld.
I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion.
Just the claims where dismissal was outright denied are also potentially (up to judge and jury at later stages) enough for some pretty devastating damages... I second that this was a loss for Matt. It wasn't even "a draw" where the plaintiffs have to try again with an amended complaint (not that they will necessarily not bother to amend).
> I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion.
I get that Matt based WordPress on open source software initially, but 99% of the work that became what WordPress (and by extension, WP Engine) is today was done by him and his company.
WP Engine contributes nothing back. They're just leaches on an open source license.
They're doing what AWS and the other hyperscalers have done. Making bank on other people's hard work because "pure" open source allows for third party commercialization without compensation. (Or even giving back, as is with WP Engine's case. IIRC, they're not a top contributor to the open source code.)
Shouldn't we be angry at the appropriators that take everything and give nothing back?
AWS is 99.999% closed source. They're taxing the industry and contributing to increased centralization. Much of what made the early web so exciting has been hoovered up by these open source thieves.
Google for taking WebKit, snatching the web, and then removing Manifest v2 amongst other crimes.
Again - I think the community is attacking the wrong person here. Matt acted immaturely, but he's the one that put in the work. Not WP Engine.
Matt cites three claims that are dismissed (antitrust, monopolization, and extortion), which based on my skim are really two claims. The first, as you say, is dismissed with leave to amend. The second is dismissed without leave to amend. The first is given the opportunity to be amended, but the dismissal demonstrates serious flaws in the legal argument that they will have difficulty recovering from. I think it's fair for him to celebrate this as a win.
I'd add that some of the WPEngine claims which have been dismissed were reaching quite a bit, e.g. that blocking WPEngine's access to wordpress.org constituted "computer hacking" under the CFAA.
The effort at https://fair.pm is well underway to cut out Matt and wordpress.org as a single point of failure and control in the community. It's a Linux Foundation project, being run by former WordPress community leaders (people who provided years of volunteer labor that directly benefited Automattic), and there's been interest from several large hosting providers, including some that are even larger than WPE. Matt is likely to find that by the time the trial actually starts, that he's already lost.
Maybe he might be winning in courts, but I will never depend on any WordPress.com service again. Don't play with your users and developers that have supported you for more than a decade this childishly. Your public image will not recover from this.
Don't worry, he's not winning in the courts as much as he seems to be trying to claim (I'm reading the legal doc, not his blog post, but going off of the context of his headline and the comments here).
I wouldn't touch Wordpress.com, ever, although I still use wordpress the software and am happy to see movement in decentralizing the plugin and core repos.
Thanks to Matt's shenanigans I discovered ClassicPress a few months ago https://www.classicpress.net/ - I had such a good experience that I ended up migrating all of my self hosted blogs to it, as a form of insurance against further madness with the WP Foundation. Note that depending on what plugins or themes you are using, ClassicPress might not work as well for you. You can consider setting up a monthly donation to support development.
I wonder sometimes what is going on over there. WordPress had a great community , nice people, seemingly successful open source with a business attached. Maybe it wasn't enough? I know talking to some of the shops that use it that their clients were asking about this turn of events.
If you have an infrastructure, stability is a good selling point.
I recently worked on a few client projects that used WP/Gutternberg.
I was pleasenetly surprised by how good the dev/editing experience has been compared to when I tried using Gutternberg a few years ago, some amazing work has gone into it.
Sadly I still have a lot of uneasiness around what has happened over the past year.
For most greenfield projects we have been using Statamic CMS
For those who still need word press, I recommend checking out the roots.io open source collective, they have done great work bringing modern PHP development practices into WP projects. Bedrock and Sage are a great starting point to any project.
If you could hypothetically turn back time to prior to what is now called the 'WordPress drama', would you personally choose this same path again, or would you do things differently?
It's been almost a year, I'm curious if there's been any serious discussions about settling this case (e.g. a proposal both sides were actually actively considering/negotiating)?
As a wordpress dev, yeah. I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core. Off the top of my head, full screen editing by default, the stupid 'howdy' that crops up in several places, and the silent user content edit that he added to translate Wordpress into WordPress in the content of every single wp install (no, really, go try it. And then listen to the guy talk about how user content is sacred, lol.)
And I say this as somebody who thinks that the block editor is... fine. I use it in a hybrid style, using ACF to create blocks that behave and perform natively but don't require directly using all the stupid build tool cruft.
>I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core
That's actually very cool. In most runtimes the "core" built-ins and standard libraries are immutable. You'd have to recompile them with your changes to get the same effect. Not so with PHP. A footgun, but in this case a useful one.
Matt’s behavior was atrocious. I’m with WP Engine on this, and I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic. I don’t pretend to know the law better than they do, but still.
The court opinion doesn't mean what he is implying, although he isn't outright lying. See my explanation in this top-level comment I just made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
Agreed about Matt, completely. It should be remembered that although it's framed as a legal win, it's not THE legal win. I am not a lawyer, but I think the practice is generally to make as many arguments as the law will support up front– but not all of them were ever going to stick. And WP Engine can still remedy any deficiencies in their pleading to try to make them stick (I'll wait for legal minds to finish reading this and explain it to me, though).
> I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic
There are 11 claims in WPE's complaint, three were dismissed, and as I understand it, only one of them decisively. Matt wants to spin it as good news, good for him. He's still potentially getting taken to the cleaners if he doesn't settle.
He didn't win. He won in the way Apple won over Epic. (Apple lost.) People seem not to understand that in a lawsuit like this the lawyers throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. WPEngine surely didn't expect all of this to fly... but some of it did.
matt relies on the passage of time and the fact that nobody really cares too much about wordpress drama. it's best that people do not forget what type of person he actually is behind the public facade when he inevitably pulls this kind of shit again later.
from literally back in 2011 when someone predicted exactly what would happen and got crucified for it:
you didnt even link to the right version of the DHH post! The original had this gem of a paragraph:
> David, perhaps it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach why you keep having these great ideas but cannot scale them beyond a handful of niche customers. I will give full credit and respect. 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small?
IIRC: guy made a CMS, built a successful company and organization and trademarks around it, decided last year that another company was using it unfairly, created lots of drama, lost his marbles
Matt is in large part mischaracterizing, although not outright lying about, the court's ruling. If you follow the link he provided to the ruling itself, many of the dismissed claims were dismissed "with leave to amend" (basically WPEngine has to fix their allegations), and one was dismissed for the reason that it should instead be asserted "as an affirmative defense if appropriate later in this litigation." There were some claims dismissed in a way WPEngine can't fix, but not many, and others were upheld.
I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion.
In case Matt removes the link to the actual ruling from his post, and also simply for HN readers' convenience, here it is: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/169/wpengine-i...
Just the claims where dismissal was outright denied are also potentially (up to judge and jury at later stages) enough for some pretty devastating damages... I second that this was a loss for Matt. It wasn't even "a draw" where the plaintiffs have to try again with an amended complaint (not that they will necessarily not bother to amend).
> I have no connection to either side here, nor am I a lawyer, but I do know how to read a legal opinion.
Describes me as well.
I really don't get the engineers on HN sometimes.
I get that Matt based WordPress on open source software initially, but 99% of the work that became what WordPress (and by extension, WP Engine) is today was done by him and his company.
WP Engine contributes nothing back. They're just leaches on an open source license.
They're doing what AWS and the other hyperscalers have done. Making bank on other people's hard work because "pure" open source allows for third party commercialization without compensation. (Or even giving back, as is with WP Engine's case. IIRC, they're not a top contributor to the open source code.)
Shouldn't we be angry at the appropriators that take everything and give nothing back?
AWS is 99.999% closed source. They're taxing the industry and contributing to increased centralization. Much of what made the early web so exciting has been hoovered up by these open source thieves.
Google for taking WebKit, snatching the web, and then removing Manifest v2 amongst other crimes.
Again - I think the community is attacking the wrong person here. Matt acted immaturely, but he's the one that put in the work. Not WP Engine.
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Matt cites three claims that are dismissed (antitrust, monopolization, and extortion), which based on my skim are really two claims. The first, as you say, is dismissed with leave to amend. The second is dismissed without leave to amend. The first is given the opportunity to be amended, but the dismissal demonstrates serious flaws in the legal argument that they will have difficulty recovering from. I think it's fair for him to celebrate this as a win.
I'd add that some of the WPEngine claims which have been dismissed were reaching quite a bit, e.g. that blocking WPEngine's access to wordpress.org constituted "computer hacking" under the CFAA.
I agree, but note that the "computer hacking" (1030(a)(5)) CFAA claim survived, outright.
Only the extortion (1030(a)(7)) CFAA claim was dismissed, and it was dismissed with leave to amend.
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This could set a very dangerous precedent if it goes through.
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Considering how obviously in the wrong he is, it might not be too off calling that a win for him.
>In case Matt removes the link
It is sad how his reputation is.
The effort at https://fair.pm is well underway to cut out Matt and wordpress.org as a single point of failure and control in the community. It's a Linux Foundation project, being run by former WordPress community leaders (people who provided years of volunteer labor that directly benefited Automattic), and there's been interest from several large hosting providers, including some that are even larger than WPE. Matt is likely to find that by the time the trial actually starts, that he's already lost.
Maybe he might be winning in courts, but I will never depend on any WordPress.com service again. Don't play with your users and developers that have supported you for more than a decade this childishly. Your public image will not recover from this.
Don't worry, he's not winning in the courts as much as he seems to be trying to claim (I'm reading the legal doc, not his blog post, but going off of the context of his headline and the comments here).
I wouldn't touch Wordpress.com, ever, although I still use wordpress the software and am happy to see movement in decentralizing the plugin and core repos.
100% agree. I don't see how I could forget what happened.
Thanks to Matt's shenanigans I discovered ClassicPress a few months ago https://www.classicpress.net/ - I had such a good experience that I ended up migrating all of my self hosted blogs to it, as a form of insurance against further madness with the WP Foundation. Note that depending on what plugins or themes you are using, ClassicPress might not work as well for you. You can consider setting up a monthly donation to support development.
Oh man, I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone lose an internet drama, only to revive it a few months later when everyone had forgotten about it.
If we’re lucky he’s still not paying attention to either expert advice or common sense, and will show up to post in this very thread.
Howdy!
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Matt had a golden goose and he decided it wasn't golden enough.
I removed/converted my last Wordpress site (commercial and otherwise) last month.
Im still using wp org, is that risky. I do like the platform.
I wonder sometimes what is going on over there. WordPress had a great community , nice people, seemingly successful open source with a business attached. Maybe it wasn't enough? I know talking to some of the shops that use it that their clients were asking about this turn of events.
If you have an infrastructure, stability is a good selling point.
Converted to what if you don't mind me asking?
I recently worked on a few client projects that used WP/Gutternberg. I was pleasenetly surprised by how good the dev/editing experience has been compared to when I tried using Gutternberg a few years ago, some amazing work has gone into it. Sadly I still have a lot of uneasiness around what has happened over the past year. For most greenfield projects we have been using Statamic CMS
For those who still need word press, I recommend checking out the roots.io open source collective, they have done great work bringing modern PHP development practices into WP projects. Bedrock and Sage are a great starting point to any project.
Happy to answer any questions from HN folks, to the extent I can. I love this community and have been here since 2007.
Do you have a response to the top comment (among others) which assert that you are mischaracterizing the ruling? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
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> to the extent I can
Taking legal advice now? Rhetorical question, more a statement: last time you were here, you didn't.
edit: For the uninitiated, page 24 is neat. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.43...
If you could hypothetically turn back time to prior to what is now called the 'WordPress drama', would you personally choose this same path again, or would you do things differently?
Differently.
If I may ask, what's your take on SSGs?
Static site generators? Not sure what you mean. A static site is appropriate in some situations. I love sites that are alive, dynamic, reactive.
It's been almost a year, I'm curious if there's been any serious discussions about settling this case (e.g. a proposal both sides were actually actively considering/negotiating)?
There was an excellent magistrate judge and a settlement proceeding, which I showed up to in good faith, but the other CEO did not.
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Just ditched my last WordPress installation in July. Good for you Matt.
This guy is unbearable.
As a wordpress dev, yeah. I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core. Off the top of my head, full screen editing by default, the stupid 'howdy' that crops up in several places, and the silent user content edit that he added to translate Wordpress into WordPress in the content of every single wp install (no, really, go try it. And then listen to the guy talk about how user content is sacred, lol.)
And I say this as somebody who thinks that the block editor is... fine. I use it in a hybrid style, using ACF to create blocks that behave and perform natively but don't require directly using all the stupid build tool cruft.
Why not share the diff so anyone can apply it :)
>I've got a small file that's almost entirely devoted to reversing stupid things he unilaterally shoved into core
That's actually very cool. In most runtimes the "core" built-ins and standard libraries are immutable. You'd have to recompile them with your changes to get the same effect. Not so with PHP. A footgun, but in this case a useful one.
thats great matt. i still wont ever use wordpress because of your choices
Perhaps it’s a legal win but the PR disaster remains.
As our company thinks about a new website vendor, WordPress is off the table because of the nonsense.
I can't imagine the professional reputational damage I'd incur if I were to recommended wordpress, or worse, wordpress.com after all of this.
Genuinely, why? What kind of visions of reputational damage does having your marketing website on wordpress.com conjure up to you?
How would anyone even know where it’s hosted?
I get the guy pissed off some php devs but I’m sure as hell not hosting that shit myself, marketing team content can be their problem.
Hans… are we the baddies!?
The controversial topics around wordpress are surreal.
Matt’s behavior was atrocious. I’m with WP Engine on this, and I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic. I don’t pretend to know the law better than they do, but still.
The court opinion doesn't mean what he is implying, although he isn't outright lying. See my explanation in this top-level comment I just made: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45228927
Agreed about Matt, completely. It should be remembered that although it's framed as a legal win, it's not THE legal win. I am not a lawyer, but I think the practice is generally to make as many arguments as the law will support up front– but not all of them were ever going to stick. And WP Engine can still remedy any deficiencies in their pleading to try to make them stick (I'll wait for legal minds to finish reading this and explain it to me, though).
> I’m appalled that the courts sided with Automattic
There are 11 claims in WPE's complaint, three were dismissed, and as I understand it, only one of them decisively. Matt wants to spin it as good news, good for him. He's still potentially getting taken to the cleaners if he doesn't settle.
The mad lad won his case, but lost his reputation.
He didn't win. He won in the way Apple won over Epic. (Apple lost.) People seem not to understand that in a lawsuit like this the lawyers throw everything at the wall and see what sticks. WPEngine surely didn't expect all of this to fly... but some of it did.
he hasnt come even slightly close to winning his case
matt relies on the passage of time and the fact that nobody really cares too much about wordpress drama. it's best that people do not forget what type of person he actually is behind the public facade when he inevitably pulls this kind of shit again later.
from literally back in 2011 when someone predicted exactly what would happen and got crucified for it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20110117190122/http://wpblogger....
https://web.archive.org/web/20110117192124/http://wpblogger....
one of his responses to DHH when the WPE thing went down:
https://archive.md/UZZit
I wrote to DHH at the time hoping the Hey World part could be open sourced or ONCE as a blogging platform. But he wasn't interested in the idea.
The guy already created immense value by his open source work. It's fine for him not to open source everything.
you didnt even link to the right version of the DHH post! The original had this gem of a paragraph:
> David, perhaps it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach why you keep having these great ideas but cannot scale them beyond a handful of niche customers. I will give full credit and respect. 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small?
https://archive.md/4yLNR
Can someone provide some context for those of us who are utterly out of the loop?
IIRC: guy made a CMS, built a successful company and organization and trademarks around it, decided last year that another company was using it unfairly, created lots of drama, lost his marbles
One of his first posts on the topic: https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/
A collection of crazy quotes and events, biased towards the other perspective: https://mullenweg.wtf/
Edit: and HN commentary: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=pastYear&page=0&prefix=fal...
I remember this to be a pretty good recap of the whole fiasco:
https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
This dude has to be one of the biggest losers in the modern tech space.
Outside of cryptocurrency yeah
http://archive.today/wfrKj
Not for a paywall, of course: personal blog he hosts. Due to editing in the past.
"Win" or, said another way, "The bullshit I started is seeing an end". Whatever works for you, buddy.
It ain't working for him, but it's all he's got.
It ain't much and it's neither honest or work!
Legal to have police harassing you none stop until you become a terrorist?
No thanks every person involved with the harassment should be tried for murder
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As someone who is not very familiar with this whole saga, it sounds like both sides lost their marbles? Which is the lesser of two evils?
i dont recommend WPE to anyone, but they have done nothing wrong.
If you care, you could learn plenty here https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7f...
you could just read the legal document, as others in this thread have, rather than rely on an "unreliable narrator"...
Surely no sane person is on WPE's side. They're just vehemently against Matt, who has proven to be a complete psychopath
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