Hi Matt, you don’t know me. I’m one of the hundreds, if not thousands, of WordPress project contributors who have donated time to organize community events, answer questions in the forum, persuade colleagues to trust and use WordPress, and I have made small contributions to WordPress Core.
Your unnecessary public conflict with WP Engine over licensing makes it extremely difficult for industry professionals to trust WordPress as a reliable and mature content management system that higher education, companies, and organizations can rely on to share content and information. Locking out WP Engine affiliated contributors and taking over plugins is unacceptable behavior. Your actions put into question the security and future of WordPress as a platform when you challenge dedicated contributors who question your actions to fork the project or leave.
I’m asking you to respect the contributions of everyone in our community, regardless of their employers—demanding allegiance for or against anyone is authoritarian—remove the “I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.” log-in requirement, it divides us. WP Engine employees, their clients, are dedicated and valued contributors to the project and you seem unable to comprehend why your actions are a problem.
Web professionals rely on WordPress for income and their livelihoods. Your needlessly public vendetta against Silver Lake Capital and WP Engine, no matter how well-intentioned you think it is, impacts us all. Recognize that your actions have real consequences, and don’t dismiss the community’s concerns and complaints; we work in this space and you benefit from our labor. But most importantly, you don’t own WordPress; it’s a GPL licensed project and belongs to the world. If WP Engine decides to turn off post revisions, that’s their right.
I expect you to respect us all
- Restore equal access to all .org resources, let the WP Engine drama play out in civil court.
- Restore the accounts of contributors, especially those who respectfully disagree with you.
- Remove your childish WP Engine Affiliation log-in requirement. Their employees and clients contribute to the success of WordPress even if Silver Lake will not.
- Stop taking over maintained plugins; this is an unacceptable breach of trust.
Matt, your recent actions are an absolute disappointment; the WordPress project deserves better leadership. It’s time you move on and trust WordPress to the community.
Sincerely,
Joseph Dickson, WordPress Contributor, WordCamp Organizer, and Speaker
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