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Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress contributor accounts over alleged fork plans (techcrunch.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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In amongst all this, key figures from within the wider WordPress community have stepped forward. Joost de Valk — creator of WordPress-focused SEO tool Yoast (and former marketing and communications’ lead for the WordPress Foundation) — last month published his “vision for a new WordPress era,” where he discussed the potential for “federated and independent repositories.” Karim Marucchi, CEO of enterprise web consulting firm Crowd Favorite, echoed similar thoughts in a separate blog post.

WP Engine, meanwhile, indicated it was on standby to lend a corporate hand.

Earlier this week, Automattic announced it would reduce its contribution to the core WordPress open source project to align with WP Engine’s own contribution, a metric measured in weekly hours. This spurred de Valk to take to X on Friday to indicate that he was willing to lead on the next release of WordPress, with Marucchi adding that his “team stands ready.”

Collectively, de Valk and Marucchi contribute around 10 hours per week to various aspects of the WordPress open source project. However, Mullenweg said that to give their independent effort the “push it needs to get off the ground,” he was deactivating their WordPress.org accounts.

“I strongly encourage anyone who wants to try different leadership models or align with WP Engine to join up with their new effort,” Mullenweg wrote.

At the same time, Mullenweg revealed he was also deactivating the accounts of three other people, with little explanation given: Sé Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen. Reed, it’s worth noting, is president and CEO of a newly incorporated non-profit called the WP Community Collective, which is setting out to serve as a “neutral home for collaboration, contribution, and resources” around WordPress and the broader open source ecosystem.

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[–] [email protected] 67 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (1 children)

I know of no faster way to relegate your project to the dustbin of history.

It happened with X. XFree86 was the graphics system you used on Linux. One developer had constant friction with the core XFree86 people, but he was also a guy who kept coming up with good and innovative ideas and making them happen, and had a lot of respect from the wider community, and so for a long time there was this uneasy tension. Finally, things came to a head:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/dispute-divides-key-open-source-group/

I think it took about a week after that before Keith was leading a new core group of developers and sensible people, and everyone was simply totally ignoring XFree86. All the distributions switched to Keith's fork, xorg, which they continued to use for about 15 years, until Wayland came along.

It stands alongside Larry McVoy telling the Linux developers they needed to jump through hoops to use his version control system, because they had no alternative, in the absolute hall of fame of completely unforced own-goals that changed the landscape of software in ways that are still felt today.

Edit: Typo

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

"Thank you, Larry McVoy" by Richard Stallman

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago

McVoy first blustered and threatened, but ultimately chose to go home and take his ball with him: he withdrew permission for gratis use by free software projects, and Linux developers will move to other software.

If I remember it right, he did a lot more than that. He tried to say that one particular kernel developer who he viewed as disobedient to him would be punished by no longer being allowed to use the software. When people pointed out that this behavior was insane and would cause significant disruption to the project, he didn't care. Then, they made the absolutely predictable choice to abandon him. Then he took his ball and went home, after everyone had already moved to a nearby park and started a new game without him.

I might be misremembering, but that's how I remember it happening. Instead of using git, we could all be using BitKeeper, and paying McVoy our $5/month or whatever for the privilege, because it was just as much better than everything else as git is now. But he didn't want that, if it involved not having everything exactly the way he wanted it.