This is currently flagged, but I don't think it should be.

Yes, it's unlikely to result in any constructive discussion here. At best we could remark that the author appears to be unwell and that taking this down could save him some face.

However, the author is also an adult who is capable of taking responsibility for their own actions. In addition they are presenting themselves genuinely and sincerely here, which IMO is an important consideration for anyone who uses or is thinking about using WordPress.

So yes, it's drama, but it's highly relevant drama to people who are making decisions of what stacks to build on. This is information that people to deserve to have, even if, perhaps, it's not the interpretation that the author intended to evoke.

> Rails, finally some open source! Looks like ~943k lines of code, 143k from Basecamp org. Automattic publishes 6.58M lines of open source code, 6.9x more than you. Yet, we’re “doing open source dirty”?

Wait, did he just use lines of code as a success metric unironically?

Rich people arguing on the internet. We've only got one life to live, it's just not worth the time to follow this soap opera.

Been watching this episode unfold on Twitter and has read about Matt’s domain hijacking of thesis, etc.

It seems to me like Matt is the type of person who likes to hide behind character and other ad hominem attacks rather than addressing actual issues at hand. Perhaps this is because of a psychological issue but I can’t really know. Normally I would think the community would be repulsed by this and would find an alternative.

What is remarkable is that there has not been enough community animus to fork relative to Terraform and OpenTofu. It shows the power of the underlying GPL license and “plugin” approach. Something to think about for other companies that may be thinking about relicensing versus just building a durable ecosystem around their proprietary brand and assets.

I have no idea what is the point of this article.

> Looks like ~943k lines of code, 143k from Basecamp org. Automattic publishes 6.58M lines of open source code, 6.9x more than you. Yet, we’re “doing open source dirty”?

Whaaat! Since when is LoC metric of “dirtiness”? Your hostility towards community Matt is what makes you and Automattic “dirty”, your toxic leadership.

Matt is clearly having a mental breakdown. I hope investors force him out.

>> "And you can arbitrarily cut off anyone publishing with Hey, they have no open source rights."

This is not a serious person. This is not a self-aware person.

"I’ll just remind everyone at the start that this is a respectful debate", proceeds to insult the guy in every paragraph

In this particular case, it's helpful to remember that two people can be wrong.

I was pretty neutral,but man this guy just can't stop. It's not gonna end nicely for you bro, just enjoy your wealth instead of destroying your health and reputation by literally annoying the entire world

I don't even know how to describe this: https://x.com/ThePrimeagen/status/1845851330063028718

Isn't the nuance / difference that wordpress hosting between wp engine and wordpress.org are competitors v. creating a platform/environment like rails that is by default meant to be used to create other things?

It would be more like if rails had an arm that made money and someone cloned it and also tried to make money? I.e., the whole company was about rails and rails hosting and not about creating things with rails (basecamp) and worrying about other people who create things with rails (shopify, etc.) - that's a very different thing. I can see how then there'd be more pressure to look at trademark differences when the service provided is more similar? Or am I missing something?

Genuine question, is Matt ok? I hope nothing bad is happening in his personal life.

This is just sad to watch

I feel sad saying this, but at this point I hope Matt falls hard over this whole episode. He's wilfully oblivious to how wrong he is - I find it hard to believe he can come back from this.

Suggesting that DHH should seek therapy is way out of line.

> I’m unsure why you felt you had to insert yourself into this fight with Silver Lake / WP Engine and take their side, but here we are.

It seems that the fight has been made public with photomatt's constant commentary, at least on HN.

Unconvincing.

"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."

This is kind of intriguing to me too...

DHH has responded on Twitter: https://x.com/dhh/status/1845887043748221421

What is the endgoal for WpEngine.I am not following the drama closely.

1.Are they legally in the clear?(Note:Legally)

2.Can they rebrand to something other than Wp?

Lol, what a bunch of garbage talk. He just attacks dhh on random things like why he bought a car, not talking about any of dhh's points in his article. Matt trying hard to kill WordPress

DHH has replied in his blog (14 Oct): https://world.hey.com/dhh/capture-less-than-you-create-c30e4...

> DHH claims to be an expert on open source, but his toxic personality and inability to scale teams means that although he has invented about half a trillion dollars worth of good ideas, most of the value has been captured by others.

Just wondering about ruby, linux, etc.

Poor Linus.

> It's even more outrageous that Automattic has chosen trademarks as their method to get their "Al Capone" ... I give you a gift of code, you accept the terms of the license. There cannot be a second set of shadow obligations...

Except there is a second set of obligations, specifically designed to help avoid business confusion: trademarks. It's not clear why trademarks are considered outrageous. Rails™ matters to DHH, WordPress™ matters to Matt.

“This is a respectful debate” in paragraph one. Okay that’s good.

“DHH has a toxic personality” in paragraph three. Uh oh.

> you should question why you can’t scale teams.

They can afford not to.

This is less a response to the points that DHH raised than a personal attack against him.

Missed out ", age 4" from the title.

This is one of those moments where you make your opponent look really good and you're too blind to see it.

I never took much issue with DHH and now I feel I just side with him. Talk about being out of touch with everything Matt.

I read half of the blog post and it's revolting. Wtf?

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?

Gonna go out on a limb here and say that following this paragraph with links to DHH's $2MM sports cars and his home office that costs an integer multiple of what my entire house costs sort of undercuts his argument.

This article tries to provide cover for slamming DHH by opening with "this is a respectful debate".

DHH, like anybody else, is imperfect. But the author acts like he is superior. He isn't.

But I will say there is not much worse than a person who feigns respect and then goes on to say things like:

"toxic personality and inability to scale teams"

"it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach" (therapist really being the dig, here)

"Why are you still so small?"

"Instead of bragging about your beautiful office in the clouds, you should question why you can’t scale teams."

If your respect for DHH was real, you would have given your feedback in a respectful way instead of writing some blog post with such incendiary comments.

>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?

I'm just going to tell a little story here.

A long time ago, I worked on a recolorable Drupal theme, which was to be the new default look (Garland). It was completed and awaiting the next major release. Before that happened though, Matt Mullenweg grabbed the theme and the assets from our repo, ported it to Wordpress, and offered it as a theme on wp dot com to his customers.

When this was pointed out as being in extremely poor taste, he hid behind the GPL as the justification. WP was large enough already at the time that they could get away with stuff like this without suffering too much PR damage.

In short, if he's bragging about how much money he's making, it's because he has few scruples and doesn't actually care about credit and respect.

> I was surprised someone as smart as DHH would fall for WP Engine’s lame deferral to make this about “GPL code” or forking, rather than trademarks. We have no problem with their use of GPL code, our beef is with their trademark abuse.

Ah yes, defending trademarks. Really the rallying cry of the people. That's what everyone cares about here. Nice motte and bailey you have there.

Also, Matt is not even reading Ruby on Rail's trademark clause that he posted: "You may use these marks to refer to Ruby on Rails in a way where it’s clear that you’re simply referring to the project, not claiming endorsement or association."

Also, also Matt: If you are going to throw down over people about not donating enough to charity, you should really tell people what charities you are donating to. It better not turn out your charitable donations are to your own Wordpress org which we now know is little more than a marketing/PR department for Automattic.

I never thought Matt's unhinged behavior would make DHH look sane, and private equity look reasonable, but here we are.

I guess it's a good thing I moved to Hugo a year ago.

Saying nothing is always an option. It’s too bad that Automattic won’t consider that option because over the last 24 hours this has gone from embarrassing to nasty.

I didn’t expect a supply chain attack yesterday. And sure didn’t expect Mullenweg’s reply to DHH to be so childish.

abolish copyright and move on

This is starting to get clownish.

At this point I wonder when will Matt Mullenweg will start closing wordpress.com account owned by people that don't align with his opinions.

There already is a checkbox to check for people affiliated in any way with wpengine, i wouldn't be surprised to see a checkbox for a field like "i agree with our lord an savior Matt Mullenweg in the WordPress vs WPEngine case".

tldr: I make more money than you so your points don't matter

What's really embarrassing is the same few Automattic employees arguing for Matt online.

TLDR:

DHH doesn't make kilo-millions so his ideas suck.

[flagged]

This trolling is unworthy of Hackernews, IMHO. It is just mudslinging without content.