Zeldman, Bowman, Molly, ppk are the ones I remember reading and learning from back in the IE6, pre-firefox days.

Legends indeed.

Thank you for this — I was uninformed.

Nah. Or at least, not entirely. (I'm not really writing about Automattic here).

Contracts -- and law in general -- describe in detail what kinds of actions will allow another to bring legal force into play against you or vice-versa.

But there's all kinds of actions that I can legally take that don't conform to norms that will invite condemnation and reprisal through means other than the legal sphere.

Not every obligation should be given legal force; not every action that's strictly legal will turn out to be socially okay or consequence free.

It's I think sort of clear from everything that Automattic's leadership doesn't seem to understand that running a business means you're running a business. You're not making a side project, working on a hobby or running a non-profit. You're running a for-profit business which means others will treat you as such and you can't make excuses for it.

>We should be suspicious of people who try to claim that there are additional unwritten obligations for reusing source code.

There are additional and unwritten obligations in everything, that's just what a culture is. And open source culture has always relied on a general goodwill extended to strangers, it is what keeps it alive. If we only abide by the letter of the law and take as much as we can and give as little as possible open source is just dead, I mean you already see this with large open source contributors moving towards more restrictive licenses.

Saying that the conclusion of this is that licenses were too generous and that we ought to be suspicious of people because they take the underling ethos seriously is... strange to say the least.

I would argue that the taking is the point of open source. By providing software free to use and copy and modify to the world, you’re making it a better place. You won’t be financially rewarded for that. That isn’t the point. Mongo, Redis, Elastic, HashiCorp, Automattic, and many others have forgotten that.

Obviously I agree that current licenses do permit this. However: What are the long-term implications if everyone behaves this way?

They are that less open source software will be created and made available to everyone with permissive licensing. More software will be produced either commercially, or with more restrictive licensing. Less software will be produced overall, because of the overhead costs of enforcing these restrictions. The culture will shift from a norm of "Here, use this thing I made if you want!" towards "You'd better not be using this thing I made without paying me."

This formalisation of norms into explicit contracts backed by legal enforcement would not necessarily be a bad thing overall, and it may be a necessary thing in a "society" where there are too many people for everyone to know everyone else personally and establish trust that way. But it will be different. There will be winners and losers.

I believe in the work they do. The web would be much sadder without standalone blogs and websites, they mostly power the diverse smaller outfits. Hate to see the entire world gobbled up and milked dry by some single-digit combo of youtube, insta, x, whatever.

Thats an interesting sentiment to me. I dont have much trouble believing in the work, even in for-profit companies. For me, it is about the end product, and if it makes the world a better place or not. If it is net positive, than the work (as a whole), is meaningful. Everything beyond that is just degrees of efficiency.

I conceptually like non-profits, but that seems tangential. Why would I discount my work due to comparison with a hypothetical alternative that is more efficient at doing good.

>especially one that just makes blogs

What's wrong with blogs? I like blogs.

100% agreed - given that they published this under their own name though, I wonder how much of that was just echoing the corporate mission statement of Automattic for the sake of any colleagues who happen to stumble across the blog.

> especially one that just makes blogs

Uhm, that's pretty reductive. Perhaps that's the difference?

Is it really that easy to just leave and find a company/work you vibe with? It seems just as hard as trying to find a quality partner

Come on, pretty much all work is hurting the world now by furthering unsustainable capitalism. I have yet to find a job that truly helps people in the tech line of work.

For those of us of a certain age, the phrase "can't we all just get along" connects quite naturally to Rodney King. So if you heard it, or for some other reason wanted to use it in a written piece ...

I was going to say this too. I’m guessing PR didn’t get to vet this post.

I suspect that the current fashion for JavaScript-driven mega-sites, as well as most CMSes, is what happened.

His whole Web design system was based on a hand-coded methodology that made standard HTML/CSS sites work optimally.

That doesn't really scale too well, into the current world.

I was unaware that the company (and conferences) closed. I am sad to hear about his medical issues. They can really clobber you.

Wow, I didn't know this either. I loved their titles. That's a hard business to be in, in 2024.

Zeldman would have zero trouble getting hired anywhere tomorrow if he indicated that he was available.

This isn't the case for most people, but he is anything but most people.

They are definitely not the first place I've heard that term. I know System76 has been using it as a title for some time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoL4gqjaWnY

I doubt it originated there, either.

As if the title of engineer couldn't get any more diluted. Reminds me of how everyone now is a "specialist".

Call Flow Optimization Specialist - Works at the front desk answering the telephone

Yeah, it's a cutesy title for customer support because you can't take yourself too seriously in jobs like this. Put very simply, people are fucking ass holes (and yes - you have to acknowledge this to excel at being a "Happiness Engineer" - it's not cynical to recognize that people have angry outbursts, because you have to know how to calm them down; pretending that people aren't mean is a one-way ticket to burnout). Even "nice" people can be ass holes; humans are complex and represent a whole spectrum of emotions [0]. Sometimes they don't know they're doing it, sometimes they do. There are social differences (what someone on the West Coast thinks is rude is not the same as what someone on the East Coast thinks is rude, and there are even difference between "microcultures" on the rules of social engagement; these rules might be intersubjective, but differ) that have to be negotiated often in one-time ephemeral interactions. Negativity is contagious and I cringe at the times that I unnecessarily injected negativity into an interaction where the other person/people didn't do anything to deserve it.

I think there is maybe one other "weird" job title in that list, but otherwise they're all pretty normal, so this is probably one of the last things I'd criticize Automattic for. The fact that they describe customer support as "Happiness Engineering" suggests the nature of the title - we have to be a little goofy to help people.

As a final note, for anyone thinking "I work in customer support and I don't like this yada yada", it's just not for you, and that's OK. No need to think up a huge rebuttal, it's just a different philosophy for those of us who like to help people and have a little bit of fun at the same time.

I don't work at Automattic, but I like WordPress and don't really care too much about this drama.

[0]: https://feelingswheel.com/

George Orwell is kicking himself for not thinking up that name first.

> Automattic is the unambiguous bad guy.

I wouldn't say that's what people are saying. I've been a vocal critic of Matt's actions in these threads, and my perspective is basically this:

WP Engine may be exactly as bad as Matt says it is. They may be contributing too little and taking too much. I've seen enough of corporations to believe that that can happen.

None of that matters any more after Matt's actions in September. WP Engine has put forward convincing evidence that Matt attempted to extort them into paying tens of millions per year to Matt's for profit under threat of launching a smear campaign. Matt then demonstrated that the boundaries between Automattic (the for profit) and the open source project don't exist by locking millions of WordPress users out of the plugin ecosystem over this dispute with the for profit.

That plugin ecosystem is the WordPress project. By messing about with that ecosystem Matt showed that he is both able and willing to singlehandedly screw over anyone who uses WordPress because he has a dispute with their hosting provider.

That's the issue now. I don't see WP Engine as white knights fighting a villain, but Matt turned what could have been a united effort to improve the WordPress ecosystem into a battle between greedy corporations and it's Matt who showed that he doesn't care who gets caught in the crossfire. The issue isn't that Automattic is the unambiguous bad guy in this suit, it's that Matt has demonstrated he has more power than he can be trusted with.

It is a complex story and "unambiguous bad guy," probably not. But if you had to draw sides... well, in most fairy tales the Good Guys don't try to extort and blackmail the Bad Guys with personal threats aimed directly at their livelihood:

> The filing also includes a purported job offer from Mullenweg to WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner saying that if she declines to join Automattic, he’d tell the CEO of Silver Lake — the private equity firm that owns WP Engine. WP Engine referred us to the lawsuit when asked for comment.

(via https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-w...)

> WP Engine seems like it is entirely a mercenary operation.

WP Engine also acquired and maintains Advanced Custom Fields [1] and Local [2] from their subsidiary Flywheel [3].

[1] https://deliciousbrains.com/wp-engine-acquisition/

[2] https://wpengine.com/blog/better-together-wp-engine-and-flyw...

[3] https://wpengine.com/blog/wp-engine-to-acquire-flywheel/

Automattic previously prevented 1.5 million sites from receiving security updates.

Their latest move (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41751776) is announcing a security hole in ACF, a WP Engine plugin, and preventing them from deploying a fix for it. This places 2+ million users at risk.

Good guys wouldn't do either of these things. The sooner Matt is replaced or Automattic goes under the better.

As critical as I am of Mullenweg, I am sure Automattic is obeying the Affordable Care Act and giving employees health insurance. It would be a dumb thing to save money on when you're paying competitive wages!

This seemed like an adequate explanation without needing any details:

> incurred by the closing of my conference and publishing businesses.

It’s an alignment layoff “I’m an asshole and if you aren't on board GTFO”. It’s right out of Musk’s playbook. Although I think Musk does it better.

"It's not the rats who first abandon a sinking ship. It's the crew members who know how to swim." - Antonio Garcia Martinez, Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley

LOL

When you spend 8 hours a day around folks and become friends with them, it's natural to miss them when they leave. It's OK if you don't have any meaningful relationships with your co-workers, but, to me, that sounds unhealthy.

I worked at Automattic and the connections you could develop with your coworkers were fantastic. Almost everyone was kind, helpful, and encouraging, and I did my best to bring a positive attitude every day. Nearly everything being written communication makes that easier! (Eg you won’t seem standoffish one day if external circumstances have you in a poor mood.)

While you aren’t seeing people every day (the company is distributed), the relatively frequent meetups in cool places are a massive highlight, and just make your relationships that much stronger.

There are a lot of folks who have been around for ages — even if you aren’t working with someone directly anymore, you’ll frequently see a familiar face (and helping hand!) on the other side of the company.

So the grief of leaving these relationships is acute, especially if you’ve been around for a while. Processing that grief is healthy — and I might suggest that not having any kind of relationship with your coworkers is unhealthy. Or at least speaks to a cold culture somewhere.

Why are you spending your finite life working with people who you wouldn't fight for?

This might not be a "them" problem.

I'm not advocating that your coworkers have to be at the same rung as your family or [in-group X] but it's weird/sad to many reading this that you're okay not caring about the people you spend your days working towards a common goal with.

Is it possible for you to understand why others might feel this way about their colleagues and work?