The Inquisitr » matt mullenweg

Boo-Hoo: Mullenweg calls foul while continuing to ignore WordPress Automattic Conflict of Interest

Duncan Riley — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:28:21 +0000

WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has called foul today while dodging issues on the ongoing conflict of interest between his involvement at Automattic and WordPress.

Several sites, including this one, published stories today suggesting that WordPress.com was moving to Microsoft’s Azure cloud hosting platform based on Mullenweg deciding to plug Azure at a Microsoft event. We’ve amended that earlier post, and we are the first to admit that the post was based on false reports elsewhere. I mentioned in the original copy that I hadn’t seen the transcript and in retrospect I should have waited for it, and it was my mistake entirely.

Unlike Mullenweg though I know that I’m fallible and can make the occasional mistake, and I’m happy to admit it. Mullenweg though continues to take a highly hypocritical role between his role at Automattic and his role behind the WordPress open source effort.

For those who aren’t up to speed: Mullenweg has undertaken a jihad of sorts for several years against commercial operators in the WordPress community. Mullenweg argues that anything that links in to WordPress must itself be offered open source (and be offered by extension for free,) a position that has punished unfairly many of the early supporters Mullenweg had behind WordPress in its early days as it took over from MovableType as the most popular self-hosted blogging platform.

In more recent times, Mullenweg has decided to take on James Farmer, one of Australia’s strongest WordPress supporters, and the founder of sites including Edublogs (perhaps the biggest WordPress education blog network) and the WPMU site and related entities.

James’ crime according to Mullenweg is that he both offers money for the development of, and sells (be it via a membership) premium WordPress plugins. We documented part of the spat here, and James has now been completely banned from WordPress.org sites (link.)

Let me make it clear at this point (particularly to the army of Mullenweg fans who immediately comment in his favor anytime I write about this): I have ZERO problem with him making money from Automattic. What I have a problem with is the conflict between him arbitrarily controlling who WordPress.org likes or dislikes based on how open source they are, when negative decisions are often made against competitors to Automattic and by extension WordPress.com.

You can’t have it both ways: either you’re an open source purist who hates commercial applications, or you aren’t. You can’t say you hate commercial operations except where they involve the company I founded off the very same code.

I appeal to all supporters of WordPress: put a stop to this ongoing hypocrisy. If Automattic wants to support the code base, that’s fine. But put the decision making for WordPress in independent hands with people who irrespective of whether they are pro or against commercial use of WordPress at least maintain the same policy for all, not just some. That is the only way that the open source effort behind WordPress can ultimately be beyond reproach.

A Very Wordpress World

Kyle Brady — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 07:05:52 +0000

Since 2003, an open source, Internet-oriented software package has done what is exceedingly rare within that community: becoming not only immensely popular and wildly loved, but also profitable. Matt Mullenweg has managed to turn what began as a fork of an aging content management system (CMS) into a worldwide empire that doesn’t even technically have a central office – Automattic’s Wordpress.

And there’s more coming.

Wordpress has evolved into one of the leading CMS packages in the world, in large part thanks to its many features and intense focus. Over the years it’s morphed from a rough-around-the-edges, but useful, software tool into a fully featured and easy-to-use content management endpoint with de facto deployment status. With built-in features like automatic upgrade, an increasingly intelligent editing interface, and an extensive plugin system, it’s easy to see why, and viewing the list of features in the upcoming 2.9 release is evidence enough that they’re moving toward a singular goal, given their prior history.

One of the complaints with Wordpress has always been relatively simple: while it’s easier to use than Drupal or Joomla for non-programmers, a basic familiarity with programming and advanced “Internet skills” are necessary to establish an enjoyable and highly functional site/blog. Themes use direct PHP references, plugins (until recently) had to be uploaded via FTP, and content was typically written externally – none of these facets of software lend themselves to attracting the proverbial Grandma as a user. Yes, the interface is more slick and friendly than their competitors’, but the Wordpress team still has far to go.

Wordpress 2.9 will supposedly see public access to easier rich-media embedding, inline image editing, and an operating system-like Trashcan – these are the most standout features of the impending upgrade, and they are definitively GUI- and Grandma-oriented. For some time now, Automattic has been playing both sides of the coin by enhancing the software backend and functionality while simultaneously smoothing over the user experience for the world-at-large, and this is admirable. It is, therefore, not a significant stretch to assume that Wordpress is intended to one day have rich functionality and extensibility, but with an interface that caters to the general public – the Gmail, Facebook, or Firefox of CMS packages.

There is, however, a problem.

Unless a user chooses the watered-down, hosted version, a site/blog using Wordpress in any fashion still requires significant setup and configuration – hosting, databases, and the initial software setup are all required elements to achieving functionality, and they all require some technological knowledge. Even worse are those sites that use Wordpress and begin to see traffic, because there is still a significant memory/load issue at its very core. The Inquisitr uses Wordpress, and I’ve always used it for my own site, business, and clients, but it is almost always heavily modified for any popular or load-bearing use.

All of us use some sort of content caching option, but a step further is still required: in my case, all sites are hosted with MediaTemple’s (gridserver) plan, with extra database-only memory resources, but in the case of the Inquisitr, an extensive hosting solution, involving Amazon’s AWS products, was necessary for the site to remain functional. How is this still a problem for Wordpress installations?

For Wordpress to achieve its high-minded goals, it needs to begin work on the core immediately. Given that Automattic has been slowly acquiring plugins and other software that advances its ideals, it would make more sense for Wordpress to come prepackaged with certain features, not as plugins, in order to enhance its basic usability – page caching should be first on the list.

Matt Mullenweg, Automattic, and Wordpress, I salute you. You’ve done an admirable job and the world generally loves you – but it’s time to step up to what you’ve created, and do things right.

You don’t want to become the Microsoft of content management systems, do you?

Kyle Brady is a contributing columnist for the Inquisitr, an entrepreneur, and has a future in science fiction. He can be found at his blog, via email, or on Twitter.

More Hypocrisy from Mullenweg and WordPress with new themes jihad

Duncan Riley — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 22:21:36 +0000

WordPress has removed over 200 themes from the WordPress theme directory for the crime of the themes linking back to the sites and people that created them.

The jihad against themes started last year with Automattic’s Matt Mullenweg declaring there was no place for non-GPL licensed themes on the WordPress Themes directory.

I wrote at the time of the original jihad about the gross hypocrisy of Mullenweg in a post to TechCrunch that gained a lot of flack, including from Arrington, but it stands true today: Mullenweg has an issue with people profiting from WordPress despite the fact that he’s the one person who profits from it the most. It’s all very well and good wanting to be a open source purist, but you don’t get to play legitimate purist when you’re making money from it yourself.

The issue last year, as it seems to be this time around is primarily links out on themes to other sites. Mullenweg likes to call all links SEO scams, and while I’ll agree that some themes do meet this criteria, many don’t, and a simple link back in a theme to the person or organization who wrote the theme is hardly a scam nor by any stretch of the imagination unfair.

What’s interesting in the new round, having purged non GPL (open source) themes last year, is that Mullenweg is now purging open source themes for the link crime. The number isn’t insignificant either: 200 themes is around 35% of the themes on the WordPress Themes site. As one site put it: the decision is similar to Apple pulling apps from the iPhone App store, with the same loss of custom for theme creators.

This is yet another case of Mullenweg biting the hand that feeds him. WordPress theme designers were one of the backbones of WordPress’ spectacular rise from obscurity to the powerhouse it is today. Those same designers help drive use of WordPress, and they are continually treated with little or no respect.

I use WordPress today due to familiarity and availability of extensions, and the lack of a easy to switch to alternative (there are some, but they lack the community, features or ease of use). I can say though that I don’t use WordPress as a mark of support for the direction WordPress has taken since Automattic took over the show: there is zero church and state seperation between WordPress open source and Automattic the commercial enterprise, and until there is this great idea of an open source and free platform is a running joke. Mullenweg should excuse himself from decisions within the WordPress community while he continues to profit from Automattic if he truly believes in open source and that WordPress.org and supporting sites should maintain a strict ethos in that directions. That is the only way this decision could possibly be delivered with any authority and trust.

(via Pro Blogging/ Alistair Cameron. img credit: Duanestory)