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WordPress, which powers around half of the world's websites, is quickly becoming a cautionary tale to those who provide free labor to open-source projects or seek to build their business around one. At the end of the day, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg owns WordPress and can apparently do as he wishes. In this case, he is using his power to crush a competitor who has outshined his own success. Unfortunately, this has also had substantial negative impacts on a large proportion of Wordpress users (and the entire Wordpress ecosystem) as well. Mullenweg's competitor, the popular WordPress hosting platform WP Engine has had their access to the WordPress platform revoked, and now they've had their highly popular Advanced Custom Fields plugin stolen and taken over by Mullenweg. This may sound unimportant to the casual Wordpress user, but it's essential to understand that the entire social contract between Mullenweg and the Wordpress ecosystem has been set on fire. Without the developer community, WordPress is nothing. This is reminiscent of Elon Musk's changes at Twitter/X, which were followed by a deluge of glitches, spam bots and hate speech, prompting the exodus of reputable advertisers. For those seeking alternatives to Wordpress, you're in a tough spot because the Wordpress catalog of plugins and add-ons is unmatched by any other open-source software. But if you're open to a corporate product, one company that has built a robust plugin marketplace is Wix, which I've become quite a fan of over the last few years. The great thing about Wix is that you don't have to be an IT professional to edit it, and if you don't touch it for a while, it doesn't decay like a WordPress site because the Wix team sends out constant updates that don't break your site. https://lnkd.in/gpPExMju

There has a been a lot of drama in the Wordpress community the last couple of weeks. At my past agencies I've worked on my share of Wordpress sites for clients, it powers a lot of the web. In case you aren't familiar with what's going on, there is a feud going on between the CEO and Founder of Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, which maintains the the Wordpress open source project and also owns the paid Wordpress.com and a company called WP Engine which is one of the largest hosting providers for Wordpress. Matt is using the weapon of trademark ownership to extort WP Engine for a licensing payment. The Wordpress platform is open source, WP Engine is under no obligation to contribute back. It would be nice, but it's not required. Matt called out WP Engine during the WordCamp 2024 conference publicly and now Wordpress.org is blocking WP Engine from being able to update the site's they host with security updates through the normal channels as well as putting up childish things like calling out WP Engine in their wordpress.org login screen. WP Engine is now suing. I'd really like to be on the side of Wordpress but their actions are not in line with the ethos of open source. If they wanted to keep a piece of WP Engine's revenue maybe their shouldn't have sold their stake in the WP Engine. This feud is going to end up causing harm to the community. If they wanted to enforce a licensing fee structure that should have happened from the start, trying to extort companies through back channels is not the way to approach this. Story on the whole situations is available at The Verge https://lnkd.in/g9de6c-e

The more I learn about this WordPress vs WP Engine feud, the more it shapes my opinion of Matt Mullenweg. So let's break this down. Matt is bothered about WP Engine removing a widget from the WP dashboard (yes the crap news widget everyone hides or removes), and streamlining WordPress within the WP Engine platform. Yet, the WordPress bill of rights says: - The freedom to run the program, for any purpose. - The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish. - The freedom to redistribute. - The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. Then he was bothered about WP Engine using the term 'WP' or confusing people that WP Engine is part of WordPress. WordPress do not trademark 'WP'. I run WPGO, so should we grow to a sizeable service, could we get targeted? Next, Matt had thetrademark explanation changed to publicly name and shame WP Engine, even though they've done nothing wrong here either. Then, Matt setup a landing page on Pressable, a hosting company he owns to target WP Engine customers that are having issues running updates, because he blocked them. Next... the cherry on the cake, Matt filed in July to trademark the terms; 'Managed WordPress' and 'Hosted WordPress'. Which if they are granted, will have huge implications for any business that has built itself on providing services for WordPress. Just like he targeted GoDaddy & Elementor in previous years. I don't like this at all. You don't build an open source platform, then attack your community if they get too successful. Whether you think they should have contributed more or not. It's underhanded. A sad day for WordPress in my opinion and those impacted are WordPress' end users. Real people running businesses on WordPress. What are your thoughts?

One of the most interesting Trademark bunfights ever! Having been through a Trademark battle ourselves last year (yes we won 🍾 ), we can see why WordPress is so miffed (is that a legal term? 🤣 ) with WP Engine. #wordpress #webhosting #websites

There is an ongoing dispute between hosting company WpEngine and the Wordpress project/Automattic, resulting in changes to two of WpEngine's plugins (Advanced Custom Fields and NitroPack) on the Wordpress plugin registry made without WpEngine's permission. These changes were pushed to users. These changes may surprise users/administrators of Wordpress sites and Wordpress developers may want to consider reverting those changes and switching back to the official versions of these plugins. For those with the technical ability, consider disabling automated updates for Wordpress core and plugins. Manually review updates until the dispute is resolved. However, if you disable automated updates make sure to frequently check for any updates as there may be legitimate security updates for plugins. Considering the situation, I strongly recommend users of wordpress.com or Pressable hosting (both of which are operated by Automattic) explore alternative options. Automattic's actions have severely impacted trust within the Wordpress community. Read more about the dispute here: https://lnkd.in/d59t-B3U

The world of WordPress has been going through an interesting time lately. I wanted to write a quick but important post to briefly explain what is happening, how your website could be affected and importantly, what you can do about it to remain secure. If your website is run on WordPress, I would suggest having a quick read on my blog using the link below. https://lnkd.in/epVPXRqJ Need help? Drop a comment on this post to start a conversation.

The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained. Well sort of because you need to pay close attention to know who is WordPress and who is WP Engine. The summary is as following: 1. WP Engine is not WordPress 2. WP Engine is Hosting Service Platform and has nothing to do with WordPress. 3. You can host your WordPress website on any platform you like, which is the point of being "Open Source". 4. The main fight is over Trademark, and WP Engine use of language that confuses website owners to think they are using WordPress hosting. #wordpress #webhosting #websites https://lnkd.in/dkePhHzi

In this post, I have compiled the TOP 20 Must Have WordPress Plugins. Choosing the best plugin for your WordPress site will help make your day-to-day life easier and deliver a better experience for your users as well. https://lnkd.in/dY3pjKG

Having used WordPress for many years, I know that errors are unavoidable and sometimes really annoying. Anyone who runs a WordPress website will encounter problems sooner or later. But luckily there are solutions. In this article, I'll show you how to fix the most common WordPress errors.

I think it's great that WordPress.org is pushing back against WordPress.com, a long time ago when I was trying to setup a website I got confused between the two, it's obvious WordPress.com makes full use of the confusing name similarities to land new users to use their premium/subscription based model and mudying the waters to obfuscate the awareness that WordPress.org is free to use and develop with. Keeping in mind that people approaching these things for the first time may even com from 0 knowledge of Website development backgrounds looking for quick-start solutions. https://lnkd.in/gx_bNXsc