Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings  ## Metadata - Author: [[hey.com]] - Full Title: Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#open-source, #wordpress, #acf, #wpeengine, #plugin-fork] Author: David Heinemeier Hansson Source: [Hey World](https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-a8f79d16) Reference: [Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings](https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-a8f79d16) date created: 2024-10-14 10:45 --- # Title: Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings ## Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [🗣️ Paraphrase](#-paraphrase) - [📰 Newsletter](#-newsletter) - [✅ Action Items](#-action-items) - [🧪 Hypotheses](#-hypotheses) - [📊 Methodology](#-methodology) - [❓ Questions](#-questions) - [🔮 Future Research](#-future-research) - [💡 Implications](#-implications) - [🧠 Learning Styles Assessment](#-learning-styles-assessment) - [📊 Accessibility Assessment](#-accessibility-assessment) - [🌍 DEIB Assessment](#-deib-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-belonging-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#-logical-validity) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: David Heinemeier Hansson critiques the power dynamics within open-source projects, using the conflict between WordPress and WP Engine as an example. He expresses concerns over the forced takeover of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin by WordPress, calling it a dangerous precedent that could disrupt the stability of open-source ecosystems. ## 📖 Main Content: Hansson warns about the risks of governance shifts within open-source projects when dominant figures, like Matt Mullenweg, use their influence to enforce control. The ACF plugin's expropriation reflects deeper issues within the WordPress ecosystem, including tension over governance, control, and the risks of weaponizing community assets for commercial disputes. ### 🗒️ Notes: - **Governance Issues**: Hansson supports the Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) model but warns it can go too far. - **ACF Conflict**: The ACF plugin takeover is linked to a legal dispute between Automattic and WP Engine. - **Community Risks**: Weaponizing open-source repositories could set a dangerous precedent. ## 📖 References: - [Hey World: Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings](https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-a8f79d16) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: 1. Open-source governance benefits from decisive leaders, but unchecked power can harm the community, as seen in the ACF dispute. 2. Weaponizing plugin registries to resolve business disputes jeopardizes the neutrality of open-source platforms, a risk that could ripple across other ecosystems. ## 📰 Newsletter: **Open Source in Crisis?** In this week’s newsletter, we explore the fallout from WordPress taking over the ACF plugin, a decision that has raised alarms across the community. We discuss the balance between governance and control, recent WordPress updates, and new security tools for developers. Stay updated to keep your WordPress projects secure! ## ✅ Action Items: - **Open-Source Advocacy**: This article reinforces the need for transparent governance models—aligning with your advocacy efforts. - **Career Connection**: Understanding these power dynamics supports your goal of becoming an OSPO director, ensuring you foster inclusive ecosystems. ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - Centralized control over plugins could discourage community contributions. - Alternative governance frameworks could prevent similar conflicts in the future. ### 📊 Methodology: - **Case Study**: Compare governance disputes across different open-source ecosystems. - **Surveys**: Assess developer sentiment on WordPress’s governance. ### ❓ Questions: - How can open-source projects balance leadership with community input? - What safeguards can protect plugin repositories from misuse? ### 🔮 Future Research: - Investigate the impact of governance changes on plugin ecosystems. - Explore decentralized models for plugin management. ### 💡 Implications: Future governance reforms could lead to more sustainable open-source ecosystems by balancing power between maintainers and contributors. ### 🧠 Learning Styles Assessment: - **Visual Learners**: Provide a governance timeline. - **Logical Learners**: Include a detailed breakdown of decision-making models. ### 📊 Accessibility Assessment: - **Screen Reader Compatibility**: Ensure governance documentation is accessible. - **Keyboard Navigation**: Optimize admin interfaces for accessibility. ### 🌍 DEIB Assessment: - **Inclusiveness**: Encourage diverse perspectives in governance discussions. - **Psychological Safety**: Foster respectful debate within the community. ### ✅ Logical Validity: - **Strengths**: Hansson offers well-reasoned arguments about governance risks. - **Fallacies**: There’s some appeal to fear, warning of extreme outcomes if unchecked power continues. ### 🔍 SEO Evaluation: - **Keywords**: ACF plugin, WordPress governance, open-source disputes. - **Optimization**: Include internal links to governance discussions for better engagement. ## 🎯 Conclusion: Hansson’s analysis highlights critical issues surrounding power dynamics and governance in open-source projects, emphasizing the need for transparency to maintain trust within the community. - Document Tags: [[bdfl]] [[dhh]] [[Matt Mullenweg]] [[open source corporate contribution]] [[wpdrama]] [[wp engine]] - Summary: I'm solidly in favor of the Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) model of open source stewardship. This is how projects from Linux to Python, from Laravel to Ruby, and yes, Rails, have kept their cohesion, decisiveness, and forward motion. It's a model with decades worth of achievements to its name. But it's not a mandate from heaven. I... - URL: https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-royalty-and-mad-kings-a8f79d16 I'm solidly in favor of the [Benevolent Dictator For Life (BDFL) model](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictator_for_life) of open source stewardship. This is how projects from Linux to Python, from Laravel to Ruby, and yes, Rails, have kept their cohesion, decisiveness, and forward motion. It's a model with decades worth of achievements to its name. But it's not a mandate from heaven. It's not infallible. Now I am loathe to even open this discussion. Because I've weathered more than [my fair share](https://world.hey.com/dhh/no-railsconf-faa7935e) of bad-faith attempts on my own stewardship, and witnessed the show trials of several others. It doesn't take much for contentious issues within a project, or societal moral panics outside it, to seed dethroning mobs. Which will hijack then eulogize *The Will of The Community*, as though *that* somehow deserved the mandate from heaven. Half the advantage of the BDFL model is exactly in allowing for unpopular decisions to be made without the lethargic mores of committees and bureaucracy! [Open source is not a democracy](https://world.hey.com/dhh/open-source-is-neither-a-community-nor-a-democracy-606abdab), and we all benefit from that fact, whether we accept it or not. So what follows is not a categorical argument. I believe in the social utility of an open source royalty. One crowned on the virtues of initiative, perseverance, contributions, and technical excellence. Matt Mullenweg has earned his crown in the land of WordPress. He created the system, and for twenty years has been its prime champion and cheerleader. His achievements are obvious. Half the damn internet runs on WordPress! There's an industry worth billions feeding theme designers, plugin makers, hosting companies, and Matt's own Automattic enterprise. It's a first-rate open source success story. But it's also one that has taken a dark turn since [Automattic went to war with WP Engine (WPE)](https://world.hey.com/dhh/automattic-is-doing-open-source-dirty-b95cf128) over a claim that the latter pay 8% of its revenues as a tithe approximate under the guise of "giving back more". The leverage of extraction started as a spurious trademark claim, but has since escalated into [what WPE has alleged as extortion](https://yro.slashdot.org/story/24/10/03/1354214/wp-engine-sues-wordpress-for-libel-extortion), and what I see as a seemingly never-ending series of dramatic overreaches and breaches of open source norms. Especially the introduction of [the login loyalty oath](https://wptavern.com/wordpress-org-login-gets-mandatory-affiliation-checkbox-following-wp-engine-dispute), and now with [the expropriation of WPE's Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin](https://x.com/wp_acf/status/1845169499064107049). That's a lot, so let's start from the end. The most recent escalation, and, in my opinion, the most unhinged, is the expropriation of the ACF plugin. Automattic first answered WPE's lawsuit by blocking engineers from the latter from accessing the WordPress.org plugin registry, which is used to distribute updates and security patches. It then used the fact that WPE no longer had access to the registry to expropriate the plugin, including reviews and download stats!! [The ACF entry now points to Automattic's own Secure Custom Fields](https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/). For a dispute that started with a claim of "trademark confusion", there's an incredible irony in the fact that Automattic is now hijacking users looking for ACF onto their own plugin. And providing as rational for this unprecedented breach of open source norms that ACF needs maintenance, and since WPE is no longer able to provide that (given that they were blocked!), Automattic has to step in to do so. I mean, what?! Imagine this happening on npm? Imagine Meta getting into a legal dispute with Microsoft (the owners of GitHub, who in turn own npm), and Microsoft responding by directing GitHub to ban all Meta employees from accessing their repositories. And then Microsoft just takes over the official React repository, pointing it to their own Super React fork. This is the kind of crazy we're talking about. Weaponizing open source code registries is something we simply cannot allow to form precedence. They must remain neutral territory. Little Switzerlands in a world of constant commercial skirmishes. And that's really the main reason I care to comment on this whole sordid ordeal. If this fight was just one between two billion-dollar companies, as Automattic and WPE both are, I would not have cared to wade in. But the principles at stake extend far beyond the two of them. Using an open source project like WordPress as leverage in this contract dispute, and weaponizing its plugin registry, is an endangerment of an open source peace that has reigned decades, with peace-time dividends for all. Not since [the SCO-Linux nonsense](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes) of the early 2000s have we faced such a potential explosion in fear, doubt, and uncertainty in the open source realm on basic matters everyone thought they could take for granted. So while I always try to keep things from getting personal, I'll break practice to make this plea: Matt, don't turn into a mad king. I hold your work on WordPress and beyond in the highest esteem. And I recognize the temptation of gratitude grievances, arising from beneficiaries getting more from our work than they return in contributions. But that must remain a moral critique, not a commercial crusade. You can't just extract by force that which you believe to be owed beyond the license agreement on a whim. Please don't make me cheer for a private-equity operator like Silver Lake, Matt. Don't make me wish for them to file an emergency injunction to stop the expropriation of ACF. It's not too late. Yes, some bridges have been burned, but look at those as sunk cost. Even in isolation, the additional expense from here on out to continue this conquest is not going to be worth it either. There's still time to turn around. To strike a modest deal where all parties save some face. I implore you to pursue it., Open Source Royalty and Mad Kings, hey.com, 01ja2srhk42mz1cpetyw3xm1kp.