create/update '2024-10-20-wp-and-oss.md' file

Author: ShaunaGordon

content/posts/2024-10-20-wp-and-oss.md

@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ The other half of trademark enforcement is...you know...*having* a trademark. No
 
 (If the above isn't obvious retaliation, I'm not sure what is.)
 
-Sorry Matt, a trademark can't be violated if it doesn't exist. And through all this, all signs point to the motive for this not actually being about trademark violation, anyway.
+Sorry Matt, a trademark can't be violated if it doesn't exist. And through all this, all signs point to the motive for this not actually being about trademark violation, anyway. And if "WP Engine" is so confusing, why is it only just now a problem? (Rhetorical question, I'll get to that, too.)
 
 ## His Complaints About Silver Lake Are Far Too Late
 
@@ -46,6 +46,8 @@ From what I can find, this spat ramped up this past September, starting with a k
 
 Maybe he started taking umbrage when WP Engine bought the company that created ACF? Except...they put the timeline from private talks at 18 months (so circa April 2023), and that purchase happened in June of *2022*, and since ACF and Delicious Brains' other plugins are (or *were*) hosted on wordpress.org, there's no way it wasn't known that it was under new management.
 
+The going theory seems to be that he's salty about WP Engine's success in the years since he sold his shares in the company, because he's not getting a cut of that money.
+
 ### And Kind of Hypocritical
 
 I get it, venture capital is a vulture of an industry. It often robs companies of value, arguably more than it gives them, and getting funding from them is a bit like selling one's soul to Asmodeus.
@@ -60,8 +62,14 @@ Alright, let's call it for what it is, really -- a money grab. Everything Matt h
 
 [It's particularly evident in his response to DHH](https://archive.ph/UZZit) (sorry-not-sorry, Matt, the internet is forever. If you don't want things like this to stick around, then don't post them to begin with), where he basically goes into a dick-measuring contest about company size (apparently neglecting to acknowledge or realize that the small size of DHH's businesses are an intentional decision on his part), how much DHH makes, and how much money he's supposedly leaving on the table by letting Shopify and other big Rails shops to use Rails for free. Matt...that's not the flex you seem to have thought it was, dude.
 
+### Couched In "Contribution"
+
 [From the cease and desist letter, itself](https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist.pdf):
 
 > WP Engine promotes its services as bringing “WordPress to the masses”. See https://wpengine.com/about-us/. In reality WP Engine brings almost zero aspect of WordPress to the world: **It claims to contribute 40 hours per week to WordPress** (see https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/), while, by contrast, **Automattic is contributing almost 4000 hours per week to WordPress.**
 
-Basically, he's saying "you're not investing enough into WP, so we're going to try to bully you into more." Except...that's not how open source works. The ideal of open source is that everyone contributes to the things they take value in, but that's not reality. There is *always* a large portion of any community that barely gives back anything, and a smaller portion that does most of the work. It's annoying, but it's reality.
+Basically, he's saying "you're not investing enough into WP, so we're going to try to bully you into more." Except...that's not how open source works. The ideal of open source is that everyone contributes to the things they take value in, but that's not reality. There is *always* a large portion of any community that barely gives back anything, and a smaller portion that does most of the work. It's annoying, but it's reality.
+
+But...WP Engine *is* contributing. They contribute the equivalent of a full time employee that Automattic doesn't have to pay, *in addition to* sponsoring WordCamp for *years*. That's far from nothing. 
+
+Automattic bragging about contributing 4000 hours a week to it is moot and pointless, because *Automattic functionally owns WordPress* (it's turtles all the way down and all goes back to Matt in the end, anyway)