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Can someone explain what this means? Isnt the whole wordpress stack open source? What relevance does this guy have?
Have the same question. It seems to be open source but if they wanted to they could make it closed source for sure..
They cannot make WordPress closed source because it’s released under the GPL, which means that any closed implementation cannot use this code.
With that said, the linked article is about access to wordpress.org, which is different from the source code of the project. I’m not entirely sure what this is about.
They can, but only if all contributors agree or their work is removed entirely, and only future releases (code released prior to that is still GPL).
It's like Nestle taking water and selling it for profit. Except, this watering hole was built and maintained by everyone. Now, we all have to do more work to build and maintain, so Nestle can take more water. Matt, the guy who kinda invited everyone to the watering hole, is like "they gotta help maintain this watering hole, obviously!"
This is basically about the infrastructure for plugin update checks and similar centralized services.
I don't know what the governance setup is like, but in theory the owners of the project can change the license to whatever they like at any time.
The catch is that this doesn't affect old versions, which remain available under the old license. So they could make WP closed-source or make the license more restrictive, but WP-engine or any portion of the community could make a fork and maintain the open source version from there. It wouldn't have the features added by the mainline WP project since the license change (and they'd likely have to change the branding), but that's about all that would be lost.
Similar things have happened in the past: see OpenOffice becoming LibreOffice for example.
Nope. This is GPL. To change the license they would need entirely new code.
Nah wordpress would instantly die if it went closed source. So many businesses only function the way they do because wordpress is easily customizable.
It would just get forked by some big webhosting company.
Imo, the problem is that wpengine is a direct competitor to mullenberg's own commercial exploitation of the open source stack WordPress. He also owns automattic, which offers WordPress hosting, just like wpengine. If you ask me, the owner of the open source stack shouldn't also be able to dictate which other companies make money of it, when he does this himself with automattic, aka WordPress.com.
Then again I'm only involved through my profession. Privately I enjoy ghost.org.
Do you know about how Android is open source, but Google has moved a bunch of important functionality to Google Services which makes Android less desirable without them?
From my understanding it's not nearly as bad as that with WordPress, but similar in that some functionality relies on non-open source stuff that this guy Matt and his company automatic control.
He's mad that competitor company WP Engine doesn't contribute back to the project, so he's making a lot of noise and making moves to limit their access.
The comparison with Android and Google, I'd argue it's worse on android.
You can absolutely host your own open-source WordPress, and get plugins and core features using a mirrored server. It's a bit harder, but if you're anti-Matt, then you're technically competent already to do this. And the experience is pretty straightforward.
For Android development, many features that are really nice-to-haves require Google services. Yes, there are workarounds. But it's reinventing the wheel, creating your own systems, and can be a inconsistent experience for users.
Btw, I'm on the "Fuck Matt" train, because as a open-source contributors, he's making devs lives harder with his meltdown. But I also giving double middle fingers to WP Engine.
There's a strong current of people who believe the WP fight with WPEngine is bad on this guy's behalf. He's megalomaniacal, he's being a spoiled rich guy, stuff like that.
Personally I don't see it, but I may not know enough about it. But I see this as a part of that conversation. Someone's arguing that fighting with a private corporate business whose model depends on exploiting the software they have no intention of supporting is outrageous and he's Gone Too Far.
Matt has muddled the waters on open-source.
He owns a for-profit company, and has a lot of power on the non-profit open-source version. And he's making decisions that affect both.
Open-source contributors who only want to help the nonprofit are now being forced to opting in/agreeing to be part of the lawsuit. Everything in the WP slack where volunteers participate is now part of legal evidence.
All of this only benefits Matt.
1/10th of his company resigned. Volunteers are pulled in and having to decide if contributing to open-source is worth all of this.
I currently have WP running on a VPS. It utilizes neither wordpress.org (nor wordpress.com) nor wpengine infrastructure. I'm not getting how this means they can do anything about that.
Edited to add - I did dig up this article which has helped me to understand the situation a bit better FWIW: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-org-wp-engine
He can't. Mullenweg is just having a really bad, prolonged meltdown over a hosting company making (morally questionable, but legally clear) money and threatening to burn it all down.
It's kinda funny because although I enjoy selfhosting, I wasn't going to self-host wordpress until I saw how ridiculous the prices are through Wordpress.com for any actual functionality. I've got a decent VPS and have paid for a couple of key (to me) "premium" 3rd-party plugins and it's still costing far less than it would have hosting it all through Wordpress.com. Their pricing seems frankly astronomical to me (or did when I was making my decision.)
I did dig up this article which has helped me to understand the situation a bit better FWIW: https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-org-wp-engine
I think this whole spat is about wordpress.com not .org
Mullenweg has been blocking WP Engine hosting’s access to .org resources, and even stripping them of access to plugins they distribute there. Not the biggest fan of WP Engine from what I saw in their Advanced Custom Fields plugin buyout (they messed with the existing licensing and focused on monetizing the crap out of it), but things aren’t alright in the WP universe.
I specified org because that's what's in OP, but honestly my comment is the same either way. :D
Where do you get your updates from? Theoretically they could change the license for newer versions or switched to a paid model or any number of things. Your only choice would be a fork or nothing, the latter which would suck if there’s a security hole. As others have mentioned look what happen with OpenOffice
What happened with OpenOffice? iirc Oracle bought them then made it open source and abandoned it, so it became LibreOffice, still free and awesome.
Your only choice would be a fork or nothing,
I've been down this road before, that doesn't really scare me. Something this big, there will be a good fork if that happens.
Happily using LibreOffice instead of OpenOffice for like a decade now, and there's also a reason I've got Jellyfin instead of Emby running on the server in the basement.
Still, good point, I was trying to figure out how his current, immediate meltdown was related to self-hosting generically, and it sounds like it's not.
For background LWN has some articles on this https://lwn.net/Articles/993895/ and the other one linked as the first link in that one.
I always get confused by the names. Who tf named a hosting service "Engine"? It's not an Engine you fucking morron! WordPress hosted at wordpress.org is the engine. Fuck you, whoever named that.
As someone who has no knowledge of the ecosystem: Why would people who self-host wordpress care about access to wordpress.org? Isn't the point of self-hostung to use your own infrastructure?
The mechanisms built into Wordpress for auto-updates and plugin updates use that infrastructure.
Convenience.
Imagine buying a iPhone and not having access to the App Store.
Sure there are ways around it. But the average iPhone user would have a melt down.