this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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208
Executive Director Of WordPress Resigns. (www.searchenginejournal.com)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/technology
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[–] Cris_Color 59 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Man, it's really hard to follow what's going on with that situation.

If anyone happens to have a TLDR I'd really appreciate it

[–] [email protected] 122 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

TL;DR: Cofounder of open source project says super popular platform using their project needs to pay up for inane reasons. Chaos ensues.

In summary:

WP Engine is one of the most popular third party platforms built on top of WordPress.

They have a link and images on their webpage referencing that they are built on top of Wordpress (this is legal).

The former cofounder of Wordpress said that they are illegally using the Wordpress trademark.

WP Engine sends Cease and Desist.

WordPress Cofounder doubles down, blocks WP Engine and demanded WP Engine pay licensing fees for using their branding.

This pissed off a lot of people.

WP Engine sues. For a lot, including extortion, abuse of power, and asserts the cofounder of WordPress has criminally made false statements to the IRS.

The Executive Director for Wordpress resigns, presumably in solidarity with WP Engine and the community.

[–] Cris_Color 23 points 1 month ago

This is a very helpful summary, thank you!

[–] [email protected] 53 points 1 month ago

The problem is Matt Mullenweg, he’s the source of all the drama (and to quote someone else, he’s Musk, but coded in php lol).

There’s a good long form write up here: https://joshcollinsworth.com/blog/fire-matt (Sorry, not exactly a tldr, but I found this article this interesting)

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Company runs a hosted Wordpress service that competes with wordpress.com. Wordpress (i.e. CEO Matt Mullenweg) wants a cut and is trying to strong-arm them. People are upset with this.

[–] sirboozebum 4 points 1 month ago

Totally out of the loop on this one.

[–] picandocodigo 41 points 1 month ago

popcorn

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

The deal is kinda nice to resign.

6 months of pay or $30k to resign, whatever is higher.

I support open-source and understand Matt. But dude, what a fucking wrong way to approach this.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I am still confused who this is and why they felt the need to resign?

[–] mesamunefire 3 points 1 month ago

That's big news! Wow. This whole saga is getting to be a big deal.