Fuck Matt and fuck Automattic
this post was submitted on 30 May 2025
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Programming
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Marketing-speak, not saying much at all. Not even a hint in what they "discovered", what they plan to change, or plan to do. No acknowledgement of previous issues, making me doubt the "working with the incredible global community" as pure marketing-speak.
Did Wordpress ever fork our have people just been migrating to alternatives?
Forks have already existed. Like ClassicPress or Bedrock. The biggest hurdle is getting the average user to use it. But that will never happen unless WordPress becomes difficult enough to use that alternatives are easier. People use WordPress because it's convenient, not because it's good.
IIRC automatic controls important pieces of infrastructure that made a fork very difficult, and they also sabotage people who attempted to fork
Did they resolve their issue with that other company? I can't remember what was going on but the owner of automattic was pissed about them not contributing back or something? Did something change?
WP Engine?
Rather than go back into that abusive relationship, people should take a look at Ghost for their next open source CMS.
Just like with US politics, I think (hope) this was a wake up call that alternatives are needed and that maybe so much heavy use of one platform controlled by one nutbag CEO isn’t a good thing. It has been a pretty good platform overall (has its warts, but is very flexible, has a huge developer community, and actively developed/maintained), but the drama over the past year has been the nail in the coffin for me. It’s not something I’m ever going to recommend to my superiors or potential clients as a solid, long term solution to content management.