I'm out of the loop, what is WP Engine and why is the rich weirdo in control of WordPress being so weird about it?
this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2024
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WordPress is open source, there's a foundation and stuff. The Matt Mullenweg, the guy that started the software and CEO of Automatic (which is the main company) is super upset that WP Engine (another company) is using the software without contributing much to the foundation.
I mean it's a valid gripe, but there's not much anyone can do about it. But Matt Mullenweg is, like you say, being super weird about it.
Based on entries to his personal blog and social media posts, Mullenweg has been on safari in Africa this week. Mullenweg did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Cherry on top, lmao. Of course he's off doing rich white CEO things.
Homeboy going to shoot a Giraffe for the trophy room.
I lived through the time when every other website was a malware farm because of that POS platform.
I don't think there is a single other piece of software that inspire me so much hate as wordpress so I'm really rooting for a complete implosion of anything WP related and that Mullenweg end up forced to sell his body for food in Pattaya.
I'd just like to point out that WordPress is GPL, so anyone could do whatever they want with the code, including Auttomatic. If people using the software in a way that, although uncool, is totally something they agreed to, the best bet would be to leave WordPress as-is and spin continued development into a new product with a new license. Would people like it? No. Do people like this, though? Hell no.
The GPL is not a "whatever" license.
No, but it’s basically a “I can use it to build my billion-dollar business and keep the profits if I want” license. The only real catch is that if I decide to modify the code and distribute it, I’m required by the license to share those changes with whoever gets the modified version. There’s nothing in the GPL that stops me from being a downstream freeloader, and I can stay on whatever version I like—no one’s forcing me to update to newer ones with terms I don’t agree with. Forking and modifying for my own needs is totally fine, as long as I slap the same GPL on the changes if I hand them out.
“I’m not affiliated with WP Engine” is this nerd generation’s “I’m 18 or older, let me in.”
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Luckily I moved to Hugo static site generator 3 years ago.. peweff.. I love PHP, but boy Wordpress was going down hill back then. And still is to this day. Introducing "features" nobody asked for. And at the same time makes your site slow.
As someone that made enough money to make a freelance career from moving people off of awful WordPress sites, WP's reputation has been in the toilet for a decade, easily. The CMS market has been strong for a long time, and there are countless better options out there.
With the push towards API backends and static sites, WP should have died years ago. I still cannot believe it's so popular.
Which other options would you recommend?
If you want a standard CMS, you can't really go wrong with Umbraco. Some people are turned off by .NET, but for developer experience alone it's the best I've ever worked with.
There are many good choices, if you're looking for something more lightweight. Kirby, IndieKit, Concrete5, even Ghost are all solid. I also remember hearing about ClassicPress a while back, that was a fork of WP made during some technical and business decisions that some in the community didn't agree with - never used it though, and it's a fork of a time when the WP codebase was a joke.
Isn't Umbraco the one that struggled loading a page that didn't exist, taking several seconds to load the PageNotFound page and causing very high CPU load in the meantime? Like, an issue they had for years?
Somehow I don't have great faith in that solution, but perhaps it's improved in recent years.
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I notice you didn't mention Drupal or Joomla, and last time I did any webdev (11 years ago as an intern) it seemed like those were some of the big ones (though my perspective was probably very limited back then). Are they no good, have they fallen out of favour?
I actually used Drupal a year ago, so it's definitely still around! Joomla isn't a name I've heard for a while though. To be fair, I mostly work in AI now, so I'm removed from the web dev world also.
I think flat file and API based CMS's have become more popular now, especially with many people questioning why so many CMS's were built on relational data stores for largely non-relational data. For many, the ability to drop a CMS in and have it "just work" is why some of the newer ones are growing in popularity.
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.NET? .. yea no .. if you really need a CMS, try https://ghost.org/
It's not early 2000's Slashdot. .NET and C# have been solid choices for software development for years, and Umbraco in particular is open source and probably the most welcoming CMS I've known when it comes to contributions.
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I mean these all sound like textbook qualities of enshittification. Everyone hates WP but begrudgingly uses it anyway. WP doesn't care that their reputation is in the toilet because people still give them money.
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Haven’t used anything related to Wordpress in 15 years. Seems I’ll make that a permanent decision now.
I run a WordPress site but I'm not a developer.
It seems like automatticuses the community for free development and profits from it. They in turn develop and support it, heck they created it.
However, with foss its free for WP engine to use and they dont like it. So they are throwing a hissy fit and making out its about the community and giving back. BS.
I assume it will fork.
I assume people will actually leave to other platforms, maybe Ghost, maybe Hugo or Jekyll.
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Do you condemn WordpressEngine?!
** Church organ music intensifies...
"I do renounce him."
Priest: and all his works?
"I do renounce them."
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You have to check the box to log in if you want to delete your account
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100% of wordpress™ users in recent poll agree that...
Are you now, or have you ever been... a WP Engine customer?
Nope. I have used WordPress on a blog or two, but I didn't know what WP Engine was until a couple of weeks ago.
Sorry if you took that as a literal accusation, it was meant to be some light-hearted McCarthyism satire cast upon this whole sad state of affairs.
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