Being offended is a posture that sells likes and clicks nowadays. It looks so legitimate and genuine.
The herd that cries over the WordPress drama, against Matt Mullenweg and his properties, are nothing but absolute babies and should feel ashamed of their own drama.
You guys did NOT suffer any harm; you’re just taking an opportunity to appear as good people in front of the public eye, and falsely claim to be against a supposedly toxic man.
Even worse is when you publicly call someone out for reaching mental health for legitimate business moves that will, in the long term, benefit the community. Or at least, stop the cancer.
Yes, some popular streamers took the opportunity to make themselves even more visible and appear as mediators, while their true intention was just to reach more audience, exploit a story and ride on a wave to get more viewers. That’s their job; they are YouTubers. In fact, they don’t care at all about WordPress.
Things take a nasty turn when it becomes a wokish crusade, and if we believe some protagonists who should probably themselves reach for mental help, we would now allegedly be in front of a patriarchal misogynistic sexist abuser threatening the world… that’s absolute nonsense.
I’m always wary of crowd movements that are unanimously on one side of the medal and call for public shame using dogwhistles all over the place. This is what’s happening right now.
Reality is, Matt is the facto WordPress trademark owner, and has to protect not only his brand but also the community from bad actors who take all the benefits without giving anything in return.
The real point isn’t even that, but a trademark and infrastructure abuse that has lasted way too long by a company interested only in maximizing profits over others’ work is a huge problem.
Matt’s behavior may seem harsh (and Automattic and other entities’), but it is what it takes to tackle the situation.
If I were a company owner (which I am, by the way) and another company was benefiting from all my work without giving a penny in exchange, declining to cooperate over years of negotiation, even after a last and final warning, yes I would definitely go into a nuclear war against them myself. Be warned!
It’s not always pretty, but that’s what needs to be done. Any company using an open-source product as the basis for their business knows it: there is a risk of someday the software going bankrupt or dying. Equally, a risk of being sued for trademark issues whenever the trademark owner decides to enforce its legitimate duty. WP Engine seems not to have reacted properly to the signs and now they’re paying for it. Or at least, they should be.
Right now, Matt is taking all the heat and blame, but I expect that, in the long term, things may settle slowly and people will come to their senses.
For sure, developers can fork the WordPress software as they wish and try to make it a new community. I sincerely wish them good luck and will keep an eye on these projects and initiatives.
But for the rest of you, please stop tearing apart the WordPress community, because let’s be honest : the real damage is this smear campaign that you’re participating in, knowingly or not, benefiting a private equity company and splitting the community instead of showing solidarity for a cause.