Comment by bedroom_jabroni
3 hours ago
WP Engine didn't make ACF, they acquired the company that acquired the OG creator of the plugin.
Their contribution to the plugin was a switch to a subscription-based model and they also started reaching out privately to theme authors with ambiguously-worded emails that could be interpreted as them forcing you to stop bundling the plugin with your theme (we had a lifetime license) and directing customers to their sales. Personally I chose not to engage with that communication.
The fight between Matt and WP Engine was messy and I agree with most of your points but I also do think that forking ACF into SCF was a net positive for the community.
He didn't say they made it, he said they _own_ it.
The issue was not that forking of ACF in and of itself was controversial. It was that they hijacked and repurposed the original WordPress Community page and distribution to point to their own, including any subscribers to the existing project in the name of "security".
One could argue that because WP Engine was banned from accessing the WordPress.org infrastructure, it could technically be seen as a form of supply chain attack and brought up questions about trust and possibly monopolistic and anti-competitive behavior.
I wasn't correcting the parent post. I was being sceptical regarding them contributing by owning ACF because they just bought the plugin with the intention to squeeze its userbase for more money for a product that was more or less complete at the moment of acquisition. Or, to paraphrase it, they hijacked and repurposed the original ACF pricing :)
The supply chain attack was shitty and uncalled for but still very tame. I think launching a fork as a separate entry would have been sufficient and less drama.
Surprisingly two wrongs made a right and the average customer got a little bit unfucked by not having to pay for the ACF PRO subscription if they don't want to.
> but I also do think that forking ACF into SCF was a net positive for the community.
I think you can make the case that in principle this fork was a good idea. (Though I personally feel ACF is architecturally bad)
What I think is unarguable is that the way that fork happened, including the commandeering of the slug to pervert the auto-update mechanism, was both improper and self-destructive, and was pretty indicative of the impairment of Matt’s decisionmaking and seriousness.
I agree, introducing it into the core should have and could have been a constructive move way before given how important the plugin is in the WP ecosystem.
When and how it happened was a hilarious plot twist nobody expected.