I'm likely not the only dev for enterprise level corporations with multiple WordPress websites, both single and multisite installs.
Yesterday, I had to write a stupidly annoying email summarizing these actions and how they're currently impacting our sites, specificallu how an author of a few free plugins we use cannot access their plugins for routine maintenance anymore, including ACF and Better Search Replace.
When they asked me questions I didn't have the answers to, I had to say things like, "we all knew Matt could because he's the owner, but we never thought he would"
They asked questions like what other plugins are affected and I had to list off all the plugins under the now banned account of WP Engine.
When giving them options on how to move forward, do you know which one wins in the Fast vs Easy vs Cheap for a business of this level?
Fast and easy.
Today, I installed pro versions of ACF and Better Search Replace on so many sites. They purchased the licenses for unlimited sites. They scoffed at a $99/yr price tag in the meeting and was like, "well that's the obvious choice!"
Corporations don't really care about the ethics or your own legal battles. They care about their bottom line and it just got tampered with.
So… It's not just small time devs, startups, nonprofits, small businesses, and hobbyists that use WordPress. Matt actively put money in WP Engine's pockets… annually now going forward.
Good, now they will have enough to give back to the community. Right?
The only people winning here are the lawyers.
Great, now he’ll ask for more money
It isn’t a hijack, it is a fork.
A fork is not starting fresh, a fork is you grab an already made plugin and make changes.
It’s easy to use the non-pro versions and still get updates straight to dashboard as usual, just need to fiddle with it once to download a version from their website, u just wasted a lot of money for ur clients didn’t u?
Is Matt galaxy braining this by making himself suuuuch a bad guy he forces WP Engine to swoop in and become the saviors of the open source community, causing them to be major contributors longer term? Is he galaxy-brain forcing the community to find its weak spots and form a governance model that goes beyond the single point of failure (him)?.
Or is he just being a jerk?
Good for them
I didn’t even think about BSR. I use it daily…well, maybe not daily, but multiple times per week. Fortunately, it’s not something I keep around. Install it, use it, uninstall it.
I think this will cause a lot of people to choose the premium only model, like gravity forms. I just hope it doesn’t lead to something awful, like envato, becoming the defacto marketplace.
Gergely Orosz made a similar point yesterday on Twitter, in reference to enterprise use of WordPress:
>out of all managed WordPress providers the most trustworthy remains one that did not take part in this supply chain attack: WP Engine
sauce: [https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1846236511672410451](https://x.com/GergelyOrosz/status/1846236511672410451)
I genuinely wonder if WP Engine is now the safest place for a WP site, because they’re sheltered from Matt’s nonsense.
Even Mark Zuckerberg was far more dignified with the Winkevoss twins compared to how Matt is behaving right now.
99/yr is absolutely nothing. I spent that today on items that I’m pretty sure we have, but can’t find – our vendor can find them quicker than I can. The difference between 0/yr and 99/yr isn’t having a budget, it’s having a reason.
When did better search and replace get banned?