The guy who, in the first place, came up with the idea for a fork of b2/cafelog (which would come to be known as WordPress), is Matt Mullenweg. He’s still the lead developer of the open-source WordPress project to this day, 20 years later.

It is true that Mullenweg’s company Automattic gave the WordPress trademark to the WordPress Foundation in 2010. The founder of said foundation is the very same Matt Mullenweg. It is not the case that Automattic and the Foundation “legally […] have to be separate”, that’s a choice that Automattic/Mullenweg made.

It is a fact that without Mullenweg, WordPress would not exist, period (neither .org nor .com). Mullenweg/Automattic do not only “[influence] the WP org”, they created (and still lead!) the WP org.

Of course, I’m sure WP Engine is a fine host, and all the better that they also contribute back to the WP project (that’s the power of open source!).

[+] Lord_ToRA 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] dot20 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is Red Hat a conflict of interest? MongoDB (pre-2018)? Docker? Nginx? These for-profit companies all sell proprietary software alongside their open-source offerings with the same name.

Is it a conflict of interest that Plausible Analytics profits off a hosted version of their open-source software? How about GitLab? How about Bitwarden?

If you take issue with companies selling products based on open-source software they created (and using the same name), there are a LOT more companies you should take issue with than just Automattic (who, as discussed, voluntarily spun off their trademarks into a non-profit, unlike the companies named above).

[+] Lord_ToRA 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] dot20 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

So, all the companies I named and many more, then.

Go on, go on Docker's or GitLab's website (just to name two examples), and let me know how clear the distinction between their proprietary and open-source software is.

[+] Lord_ToRA 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] dot20 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, it's worse than that.

There is a separate open source project "Docker Engine" that runs 27% of containerized applications, that the for-profit "Docker Inc." intentionally conflates with the proprietary, for-profit software "Docker Desktop" to get a major advantage over other for-profit businesses that sell tooling for "Docker Engine".

To make matters worse, "Docker Inc." still controls the "Docker Engine" project and "Docker" trademark. This contrasts with "Automattic", which spun out the "WordPress" project and trademark into a separate entity "WordPress Foundation".

It seems like you're trying to read what I am saying in a way that fits what you want me to be saying and ignoring what I am saying rather than what I am clearly communicating.

Sorry, but I think this applies to you more than it does to me.

I'll make one final attempt to spell it out. Mullenweg and Little founded "WordPress" and spun it out of Mullenweg's company "Automattic" as a separate non-profit.

Founadi, Hykes and Pahl founded "Docker Engine" and did not spin it out of their company "Docker Inc." as a separate non-profit (which is the case for MOST companies that create open-source software).

I can't put any more of a fine point on it, so this will be my last comment on the topic. Have a good day.

[+] Lord_ToRA -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] dot20 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s literally my point. Docker doesn’t pretend to be a non-profit, WordPress does.

Your ‘points’ were:

[Automattic] intentionally leads people to conflate the free and open-source software WordPress (WordPress.org) and their own proprietary and overpriced version.

[WordPress.org and WordPress.com] are not the same people.

I’ve already provided rebuttals to both points:

Most companies doing open source lead people to conflate their free and open source software with their own proprietary version.

Both are quite literally led by the same person, and have been since their founding.

Now you have strayed the discussion to another ‘point’ (while accusing me of arguing in bad faith):

WordPress ‘pretends’ to be a non-profit.

To humor you I shall also provide a rebuttal to this third point:

WordPress doesn’t pretend to be anything of the sort, because:

WP.org claims, on its homepage, to be “the open source platform that powers the web,” “built by an open source community with decades of experience,” and “community at its core.” It does not claim to be a non-profit.

WP.com claims, on its homepage, to be “WordPress, Your Way,” “the best way to WordPress,” and “lightning-fast, secure managed WordPress hosting.” It does not claim to be a non-profit.

The WordPress Foundation claims, on its homepage, to be “a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project”, because it is.

By the way… WP.org goes out of its way to recommend various hosting providers beside WP.com.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No mention of Lemmy unfortunately

[+] q47tx 13 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The comments in [email protected] mention that [email protected] works on Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

not on my mobile client unfortunately

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

The only way to know for sure is to test. I found I could subscribe to peertube channels using lemmy, but that wasn't intended and just a happy side effect of the common activitypub protocol.

I recall seeing new videos and being able to comment but not be able to create new posts that would federate since that wouldn't make a lot of sense.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

It should work, I was more commenting on another missed opportunity to bring the platform name to the mainstream audience.

Mastodon is more or less well-known nowadays thanks to articles talking about it for years, it would be nice to have the same for Lemmy

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Depends on if they expose Person actors or Group actors. (so, probably not considering it doesn't make much sense to consider a blog as a Group)

In theory a blog could xpost to a Lemmy community via mentioning it but I have no idea if Wordpress does mentions like that.

[–] dot20 2 points 1 year ago

In WordPress, one blog can have many authors, so it does make sense to consider it a group

[–] [email protected] 18 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wordpress is an ancient cursed technology, but hey this is kinda cool

[–] dot20 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Ancient cursed technology that powers 43% of all websites

(source)

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago

Ah, so blog authors will still need to enable it manually. That's a shame.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Earlier this year, WordPress.com owner Automattic acquired a plugin that allowed WordPress blogs to be followed in the fediverse — the decentralized social networks that include the Twitter rival Mastodon and others.

As a result, it launched version 1.0.0 of the plugin, allowing WordPress blogs to be followed on Mastodon and other fediverse apps.

That means anyone using the hosted version of the open-source WordPress software now has the ability to tie into the fediverse, connecting their blog to federated platforms like Mastodon, Pleroma, Friendica, and others.

By using the plugin, the blog itself can also become the user’s profile in the fediverse, instead of having to set up an account directly on a federated app, like Mastodon.

To implement the plugin on Free, Personal, and Premium WordPress.com hosted sites, you simply head into the Discussion section with Settings from the blog’s dashboard and enable the toggle titled “Enter the fediverse.” From there, you’ll make note of your default fediverse name, which references the blog’s domain (e.g. “openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com@openprotocolfanblog.wordpress.com.”) That profile can then be shared with others so they can follow it on Mastodon or other platforms.

That could expand the fediverse’s numbers, as well, given that Automattic’s own statistics indicate that over 409 million people view more than 20 billion pages each month on WordPress.com websites.

The original article contains 474 words, the summary contains 215 words. Saved 55%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been following my own wordpress site from pixelfed and mastodon for months... Why is this news?

[–] Geert 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At the time, however, WordPress.com blogs were not yet supported. But that changes today.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I wonder why the plugin was held back from their users.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, this was posted weeks ago.

[–] Geert 7 points 1 year ago

It's now available on all wordpress.com plans. The article is from the 11th.