The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse  ## Metadata - Author: [[ThePrimeTime]] - Full Title: The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: [#WordPress, #OpenSource, #TranscriptAnalysis] Author: Tech Analysis Bot Source: YouTube Transcript – [The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4) Reference: [Full Transcript](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4) date created: {{date:2025-02-02}} {{time:12:00}} --- # Title: The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse – A Comprehensive Analysis ## 📚 Table of Contents: - [📝 Summary](#-summary) - [📖 Main Content](#-main-content) - [🗒️ Notes](#️-notes) - [📖 References](#-references) - [🗣️ 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-assessment) - [✅ Logical Validity](#️-logical-validity) - [🔍 DARVO Analysis](#️-darvo-analysis) - [🔍 SEO Evaluation](#️-seo-evaluation) - [🎯 Conclusion](#️-conclusion) ## 📝 Summary: This analysis explores the heated discussion around recent WordPress governance issues, as presented in the transcript of "The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse." The content covers controversial actions by Matt Mullenweg, including account deactivations, debates over project forks, legal disputes, and the implications of open-source licensing. The transcript is interlaced with timestamps, humorous commentary, and layered arguments that reflect both technical and emotional responses within the WordPress community. Key Insights for [The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4) by [Merlin AI](https://merlin.foyer.work/) **Background on the Controversy** - Matt Mullenweg, co-founder of WordPress and CEO of Automattic, has initiated a controversial crackdown by deactivating the accounts of several members who planned to fork the WordPress project. - This incident stems from growing tensions within the WordPress community regarding governance and the commercial interests of companies like WP Engine, which Mullenweg has openly criticized. - Legal disputes have escalated, with WP Engine filing a lawsuit against WordPress after being banned from accessing essential resources, resulting in a court ruling that restored their access. **Community Responses and Proposed Alternatives** - Key figures in the WordPress community, including J.D. Valk and Kareim Maruchi, have expressed concerns about the concentration of power under Mullenweg's leadership and proposed creating independent and federated repositories for themes and plugins. - They argue that decentralizing control could mitigate the issues stemming from Mullenweg's governance style while promoting healthier community engagement. - Valk and Maruchi have stated that they are not planning a fork but are advocating for changes that ensure diverse contributions and governance within the WordPress ecosystem. **Implications of Account Deactivation** - Deactivating accounts prevents users from contributing to WordPress through official channels, raising fears about silencing dissent and limiting collaborative efforts. - This move has been seen as retaliatory, particularly targeting individuals who have historically critiqued WordPress's governance. - Despite being locked out of official contributions, affected users can still access WordPress code via GitHub, enabling potential forks or alternative projects to emerge. **Legal and Economic Dimensions** - Mullenweg's actions have triggered debates about the economic contributions of companies like WP Engine, with Mullenweg arguing they do not give back adequately to the WordPress community. - He has suggested that any profits derived from the use of the WordPress trademark should involve contributions back to the project, further complicating the relationship between commercial entities and the open-source community. - The ongoing legal battles and the implications for community dynamics could lead to significant shifts in how WordPress is governed and developed in the future. **Future of WordPress and Forking Discussions** - Mullenweg has indicated a willingness to accept forks of WordPress, framing them as a natural aspect of open-source development. - The potential for a fork could lead to a split in the community, with different visions for the future of WordPress emerging as key contributors explore independent paths. - The ongoing situation raises questions about the sustainability of WordPress as a collaborative project if governance remains contentious and divisive.## 📖 Main Content: The transcript dissects a turbulent narrative involving: - **Account Deactivations & Fork Proposals**: - [0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=0): Introduction to the drama where Matt Mullenweg is criticized for deactivating accounts of community members. - [0:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=10): Commentary on the implications of preventing forks of the WordPress project. - **Community Governance and Legal Disputes**: - [0:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=46): Reference to WP Engine's legal tussle and previous community criticisms. - [1:03](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=63): Mention of independent contributors like devalk and Kareim Maruchi proposing alternative governance models. - **Open-Source Licensing and Forking Dynamics**: - [2:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=120): Discussion on the nature of GPL licensing and the right to fork. - [10:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=600): Debates on whether a fork would strengthen or dilute the WordPress ecosystem. - **Humor and Sarcasm as Rhetorical Tools**: - [3:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=180): Use of witty sarcasm (“I don't even play with a queen”) to underscore the absurdity of some decisions. - **DARVO and Leadership Critique**: - [14:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=840): Accusations that Matt Mullenweg’s actions may be designed to shift blame and control the narrative. ### 🗒️ Notes: - **Introduction & Account Deactivation** - **Timestamp [0:00-0:12]**: Matt Mullenweg's drastic measures in disabling accounts. - *Subpoint*: Critical tone questioning the rationale behind these actions. - *Subpoint*: Direct implications on community contribution. - **Forking Debate & Community Response** - **Timestamp [0:40-1:00]**: Community response and legal entanglements with WP Engine. - *Subpoint*: References to past legal events and the role of WP Engine. - *Subpoint*: Calls for more inclusive governance models. - **Technical and Legal Discussion on GPL Licensing** - **Timestamp [11:00-12:00]**: Detailed discussion on forking rights and licensing restrictions. - *Subpoint*: Differentiation between GPL and MIT licensing. - *Subpoint*: Commentary on the enforceability of open source principles. - **Humorous Rhetoric and Critique of Leadership** - **Timestamp [14:00-15:00]**: Sarcasm targeting leadership decisions. - *Subpoint*: Use of humor to challenge the legitimacy of deactivating accounts. - *Subpoint*: Emotional language questioning long-term impact. - **DARVO and Allegations** - **Timestamp [16:00-17:00]**: Identification of potential DARVO tactics. - *Subpoint*: Shifts blame by portraying deactivated members as troublemakers. - *Subpoint*: Critique of Matt’s ambiguous statements that may invert victim/offender roles. Summary for [The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4) by [Merlin AI](https://merlin.foyer.work/) Matt Mullenweg's Controversial Move: Deactivating Accounts Amidst WordPress Community Tensions and Possible Forking Plans [00:04]([00:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4&t=4)) Matt Mullenweg's drastic actions escalate WordPress governance tensions. - Mullenweg has deactivated accounts of those planning to fork WordPress, marking a controversial g - Document Tags: [[matt mullenweg]] [[wordpress]] [[wpdrama]] [[wp engine]] - Summary: Twitch https://twitch.tv/ThePrimeagen Discord https://discord.gg/ThePrimeagen Become Backend Dev: https://boot.dev/prime (plus i make courses for them) This is also the best way to support me is to support yourself becoming a better backend engineer. ### LINKS https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/11/matt-mullenweg-deactivates-wordpress-accounts-of-contributors-planning-a-fork/ By: Paul Sawers | https://x.com/psawers Great News? Want me to research and create video????: https://www.reddit.com/r/ThePrimeagen Kinesis Advantage 360: https://bit.ly/Prime-Kinesis Get production ready SQLite with Turso: https://turso.tech/deeznuts - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5fTdZ7sQf4 Our friend Matt Mullenweg has proceededto do what appears to be the pinnacle ofinsanity. Apparently, he hasdecided now that he's going to not allowpeople to fork. He's going to startdeactivating accounts of people who fork.This might be the chief of all the insanity.Automatic CEO and WordPress co-creator,Matt Mullenweg, has deactivated the accountsof several wordpress.org communitymembers, two of whom, he says, plannedto spearhead a new fork of the opensource WordPress project. While communitycriticism of WordPress governance isn'tnew, the latest brouhaha kicked off backin September when Mullenweg publiclychastised WP Engine, a commercial hostingcompany built on top of WordPress, forprofiteering without giving much back. What he did in September pointed tosomething else that was much, much different.Things escalated. Read all about it here, withthe WP Engine filing a lawsuit after it wasbanned from accessing key WordPress resources.A court ordered WordPress torestore access. Among all this, keyCommunity members have stepped forward. Jude Valk,a creator of the WordPress focused SEO tool,Yoast, a former Marketing andCommunications lead for the WordPressFoundation, last month published hisvision for a new WordPress era, where hediscussed the potential for federatedand independent repositories. KareimMaruchi, CEO of Enterprise Web Consulting,a firm called Crowd Favorite, echoed similarthoughts in a separate blog post. Okay, so they’re both saying that maybethis idea of allowing Matt to controlthe whole thing is probably a bad idea. Ithink that seems reasonable, right? Afterseeing all this, I think that’s prettyreasonable to be like maybe we shouldn’tdo this. I don’t know, I don’t thinkthis is a good idea. WP Engine, meanwhile,indicated it was on standby to lend acorporate hand. Awesome, they’re onstandby. Thank you, WP Engine,for that. Matt Mullenweg, for his part,has publicly sorted the notion of a newWordPress fork,a term that describes when somebodytakes the code from an open sourceproject and creates a copy that cantake on a life of its own with aseparate community of contributors. I’m surprised this actually hasn’t happened.I’m surprised that all the top peopledoing stuff with this aren’t just beinglike, “Let’s just not, let’s just not, let’sjust do something different.” Uh, what doeshe say? Okay, nice linking another tech. Uh,another TechCrunch article. Uh, WordPress co-founder,let’s see, he’s speakingon Tech Disrupt 2024, said he’s notworried that the recent legal dramabetween his company, Automattic, andWordPress host WP Engine may lead to afork of the open-source WordPresssoftware. In fact, he said he’d welcome it.I somehow doubt that; I just somehow amnot 100% convinced that this is true. Ifeel like this is the thing you say whenyou are trying to play a game of chess,and you’re trying to pretend likeyou’re not worried. You’re like, “Ah yeah,dude, yeah, go ahead, take my queen. I don’teven care. I wanted you to do that.”Honestly, I don’t even play with a queen. I honestly think it makes the game tooeasy.So I’m not going to use it. In a sarcasm-laden post published this morning,Mullen WG refers to Devalk and, uh,Maruchi. By the way, I don’t know if I’msaying your name right; I’m just going toCall you Maruchi a plan, let's seeas a fork, though the duo hasn'tannounced any such plans. They didhowever discuss the notion of creating afederated mirrors, a repository copy forthemes and plugins, among other changes. Iassume, I mean that actually isa pretty nice way to go about it, because oneof the big contentious pointsof where WordPress.org is thatthey're costing WordPress.org a lot ofmoney to be able to host WP Engine. Sohaving a more federated approach allowsWP or WordPress.org not to have all theinfrastructure cost on them. I don't seewhy that would be a bad thing, right? Thatactually seems like it's kind of a nicething. Yeah, you sure, sure, you lose alittle bit of the control of thecommunity, and maybe there's probably alot of security issues you’d have tothink through, because one could imaginethat you could have bad actorsuploading bad versions of whatever. You could imagine there aresome things that could be pretty nastyabout it, but I’m sure there’s away to make this make sense, right?Just having mirrors of WordPress.orgalso doesn’t really solve the problem ofA single party controlling our singleupdates update server, Devalk, wrote inhis blog post last month that weneed to make sure that those mirrorsfederate with each other, share eachother's data, and allow for independentthemes and plugins to be hosted there. That sounds like an absolute nightmare.Imagine if you have to start a project,and you have to add not only Xamount of different repositories, but youalso have to add Y amount of differentfederated WordPress mirrors. This justsounds like a really bad engineering fun. Note on crack; I mean, this is honestly what JSR is going tostruggle with, and that's one of the bigthings: JSR is going to have abunch of packages that are on JSR, you'regoing to have a bunch of packages thatare on, you know, NPM, and then you'realso going to have these weird kindsof GitHub references as well. You'regoing to have internal Artifactory ones.Like at NetX, we had twointernal Node repositories and we alsohad one external from NPM, and that alone I cannottell you how much of my time I spentjust trying to make things run for others. People, because other people's npmrc hadsomething different. Some people, like, orCI would only allow for this onerepository, which was supposed to be amirror of the other one, but there wereactually some differences here, likethe amount. I spent not zero minutesthinking about it; that's the amount oftime I should think about having to npminstall. Instead, I thought about manyminutes about it, right? Not fun. It's this— I’m just telling you right now thatthis is not the approach you want to go.No one will end happy at all; it’s justnot fun. In a statement sent to 10 Crunch,Devalk reiterated that, uh, at nopoint, uh, they were planning to fork WordPress, uh, with a, uh,Maruchi. Uh, let’s see. Conveying the sameon X, okay; let’s just look atthis, let’s look at this nice littlething. Let’s be clear: JD Valk and I, uh,asked for and proposed changes insidethe WordPress project. We did not talkabout a fork, okay? So the guys are beingas clear as possible. Okay, awesome. Oh, wow.Okay, interesting approach there. There’s MattMullen coming in saying, "Oh, well, peopleare asking why not do it? You should justdo it."Then fire and then blocking them, okay. This, see, this is seeming really strange.Okay, this definitely— hey dude, I don’teven play with a queen. Honestly, I don’thonestly think queens are stupid anyways. Theremight be a fork. I mean, we’ve hadWordPress forks before, probably aboutthree or four times in the history ofWordPress. Mullen W said in a response toa question about whether he was worriedabout the potential of a fork. There’s, uh,that’s one of the beautiful things aboutopen source— is that there can be a fork. I agree; I actually agree with thestatement. Let’s see; the automatic CEOsuggested that the rival WP Engineessentially had already forked thesoftware because the version of it runis very, very different fromwhat WordPress core is today. IfWordPress was then officially forked asa result of this growing discontent withits direction of the communityand the legal battle over the WordPresstrademark, Mullen W suggested thatthere would be a better path. I thinkthat’d be fantastic, actually, so peoplecan have an alternative governance or analternative approach. He noted, yeah, fair.Okay, so where’s the banning? I mean that this whole thing would makeno sense if that was, in fact, the case.The exec also pointed out that the sizeof the WordPress Community could supportsuch a move. WordPress 6.7, which iscoming out in a few weeks, had over 600contributors. For example, only about10% of those are from Automattic. Mullen Wsaid that's actually, really, by the way,that's a super healthy company, at leastas far as contributions go. Uh, it justdepends on what that means; about 10% ofthose—that's the whole thing:is it 10% of the changes, or is itjust 10% of the commits? Because not allcommits are created equal, right? Uh, heplus he also noted that theWordPress core software has seen 40-somemillion downloads since September 17th. The actual activity of WordPress isgoing quite strong. He added,okay, the interview came amid the heatedlegal dispute with the WordPress hostingprovider WP Engine, which hasupset the open source community and ledto the departure of over 150 Automatticemployees who disagree with MullenW's new direction. By the way, the more Ithought about this move by Mullen W, Iactually think this was a good move. Do I really think that if youwant to take a company in a specificdirection and there’s a bunch of peoplewho definitely disagree with youand there’s just not a path forward, likeit’s not like “Hey, I want colored blue,”but you want light blue, right? Like thisis like we fundamentally disagree on thetwo different directions. Giving themseverance to leave, I think, is a goodmove. The more I’ve thought about it, themore I think this is a good move becauseat the end of the day, the company needsto make a decision and move in aspecific direction. You really can’thave a company that has two differentinternal compasses. And so sure, helost a lot of employees; he had to payout a lot of money. I forget what itwas—I forget how many millions ofdollars of severance, but hey, he paid that money, and now he can take the—now he canmake the bet. Is he right? Now heactually can prove—is he right or is hewrong? Um, I think he’s wrong, butnonetheless, he can now prove it. Right? Hecan now officially prove it. Mullen Walleged that WP Engine’s use of the WPbrand is meant to confuse people intothinking that WP Engine is officiallyAssociated with the word "press" when it'snot, and suggested that WP Engine doesn'tdo enough to contribute to WordPress, aclaim that WP Engine disputes. I thinkthat this—uh, this—see, it really is thesecond part that makes no sense. Like, outof all of this, like, wouldn't it be evenmore confusing? Let's pretend for asecond that WP Engine did actuallycontribute just as much as WordPress. Wouldn't it actually create a strongercase that WP Engine is, in fact, WordPress?I, like, I just don't understand this lastpart. Like, if you just think that theymake a—you know, you think that they'rebreaking, you know, trademark, then say, "Hey,they're breaking trademark," right? Thissecond part just makes no sense. As aresult, he's asking WP Engine to share 8%of its revenue, or the equivalent ofrevenue in terms of engineering hoursworked on the core. It's not just aboutthe money; it's really, it's really aboutlike if you're going to profit offWordPress trademark, you need to be partof the WordPress ecosystem. Okay, let'sget to the part where he fires people.This is not the first time Mullenweg hassuggested a fork could be a solution tothe ongoing debate around the future ofWordPress earlier in October, uh, heposted on X that it would be welcome for moreforks. All right, there are so many problems with how Photomat is handlingthe situation, but burning down the paperwall between wordpress.com andwordpress.org is the one that's going todo the most lasting damage. Uh,oopsies! I highlighted a word and gotsent here. Oh my gosh! I just realizedI've been reading the wrong article thiswhole time. No wonder it never got tothe point; it never got to the pointbecause I was on the wrong one! Thiswhole time, I'm like, why is it nottalking about? Where is the part thatit's going to be talking about thisthing—the whole contributors? Okay, Iknow, uh, dude, what the hell's going onhere? Dude, this single message on X, itgot me! I gotbamboozled. Okay, anyways, we'll keep ongoing! You're doing H; you're doing sowell today. Shut up, off-by-x problem, dude. I got an off-by-x problem. All right,anyways, we at least understand theuniverse now. Earlier this week, Automaticannounced—okay, we got, hey, we got a goodset of context, though. Hey, good context! A superior reactor and article readerthat I'm actually able to get us all theproper context in a single video earlierthis week. Automatic announced that itwould reduce its contribution to thecore of WordPress open source to alignwith WP Engine's own contribution. Okay,so honestly, like this right herejust makes no sense. This isactually what my kids do; my actual kidsgo, well, they did. It can't be the basis of yourlawsuit, and then you do it too. Youactually now have just validated thatthey're working in a appropriateamount. What isthis? Now, hey, guess what? WP Engine isnow contributing just as much asAutomatic, the owner of said WordPress. So,obviously, they're not only giving enough engineering hours; they'reprobably overgiving the amountof engineering hours that they'resupposed to be giving to the WordPressproject. By actually doing this,they're now overcommitting. Maybethey need to kind of pull back someof their efforts because that makessense, right? Thisbird, uh, to take on X on Friday. Indicate that he is willing to lead thenext release of WordPress with, uh,Maruchi, adding that his teamsstand ready. Oh, okay, so this is where thefork comes in. Okay, so we got all thejuicy details about the fork, and Matt'ssuper stoked about it. Um, all right, I’mready. Uh, Del, lead the next releases. I’msure plenty of people and companies arewilling to help me, and we got plenty ofideas. Okay, so this sounds like if you’reready to lead the next releases, youmight be ready to do the fork. I think ishow some people are taking this, right? Uh,and Maruchi coming in with the, "Dude, thisactually, this is starting to sound likehell divers or something going onhere. You can have my[Laughter]. Axe Brothers, Gibl, Brotherhood's Gibl, and hedoesn’t even know it. You can have my axe.All right, I’m turning into Sean Conner.That was terrible! That was a terribleimpersonation. I turned into Sean Conner.Just deal with that. You can have my ha.There you go, that’s a little bit better.All right, collectively, the Devalk andMaruchi contribute around ten hours per week to variousaspects of the WordPress open source. Project, however, Mullenweg said that, oh,that means—wait, hold on—that means ifI’m not mistaken, if I remember correctly,if I remember correctly, WordPress Engineonly did about 40 hours a month to theWordPress project, which now makesofficially Devalk and Maruchi largercontributors with 40 to 43 hours per monthto WordPress. Are they now the largestcontributors? However, Mullenweg saidthat to give their independent effortthe push it needs to get off the ground,he was deactivating their wordpress.orgaccounts. Bro, you can’t be that way; you actuallycan’t.Dude, oh, imagine having that active of[Laughter].I’m convinced that MattMullenweg is somehow a secret owner of WPEngine. This is the only thing that makessense; he’s trying to explode one of hiscompanies, and he’s chosen wordpress.orgto explode. That’s the only—it’sliterally the only reason; it’s the onlyreasonable explanation—that hesomehow is trying to explode a company’cause he owns another company. It’s theultimate twist; it’s the only twist that makes sense. Honestly, it’s like the only kindOf the twist that makes sense for this typeofbehavior, we took a survey to seeif you're stressed, uh, because we want toreduce stressed people at work. Sotherefore, we fired everybody that wasstressed. Like this is the same kind ofbehavior. I'm very, I’m genuinely superconfused by this. Um, I strongly encourageanyone who wants to try differentleadership models or align with WPEngine to join up with their new effort. Uh, maybe there's something I'm missingwith Devalk. I thought Devalk wasn'taligned with—yeah, it doesn't look likeDevalk is aligned in any sort of waywith WP Engine. I could be missing that,and same with this one; at least there'snothing inside of there that says, "Hey,I'm WP Engine." Right? It is the Mullen Way.Gambit; it's a bit of a Gambit for sure.It's for sure. Okay, interestingchoice. I probably would have gone with adifferent route here. Uh, let's see—atthe same time, Molen WG revealed that hewas also deactivating the accounts ofthree other people with littleexplanation given: SED, uh, Heather Burnsand Morton Rand—uh, Hendrickson Reed. It'sPresident and CEO of a newlyincorporated nonprofit called the WPCommunity Collective, which is settingout to serve as a neutral home forcollaboration, contribution, and resourcesaround WordPress and the broader opensource ecosystem. This is how I read this now. At this point, if you attempt todevelop any sort of livelihood onWordPress, you might find yourself in thecrosshairs of Matt. Or if you are tooinvested in WordPress and you happen torub him the wrong way in any sort of way,you might just get destroyed. I don’t seehow anyone can, like honestly, like I’mnot trying to be hyperbolic oroverstating things; it justfeels like if you were to bet yourlivelihood on this, that would bescary to me. It’s kind of the same reasonwhy I also feel like it’s very scary toalways bet everything on Twitch becauseTwitch always makes crazy decisionsevery now andthen, right? And it’s just like that kindof worries me that one day Twitch andAmazon, maybe, is just going to belike, "Hey, guess what? Twitch, you’re justnot making enough money; we’re turningyou off." Right? It’s kind of crazy for me. If I only backed one thing, knowing thatit's kind of unusual, I could imagine thesame thing here. It's like if you—the only difference is that you have acrazier person at the head. Or at least, Idon't like to use the term "crazy" because Ido not know if he'scrazy. Perhaps this all makes sense andthere's information we're missing, but inmy mind, his direction and his attemptsdo not seem to align with logic orwell-reasoned things. Perhaps it'sjust emotional. Emotional people makedecisions that look like they're crazy,right? Like that's just all it is to it. Idon't know what it is; it just seems veryerratic and un— I cannot reason about it. Right? And I honestly, I think the—Ithink the biggest losers in this wholesituation are all the people who try tomake WordPresswork. Right? Like to me, those are the peopleI feel most sad about; they're the onesthat are getting absolutely dominated,and that simply feelsbad because they're going to have asystem that's going to be slowing down,innovation's going to not be taking, uh,place as much. There's going to be weird—who knows what's happening? MaybeTheir favorite plugins, theircontributors are now quitting, right? Likeit's not like it's just not goodfor the community, and it really, it's thenon-post economic people thatare going to really feel the brunt ofthis. Burns, a former contributor to theWordPress project, took to his exthis morning to express, uh, surprise ather deactivation, noting that she hadn'tbeen involved in the project since 2020. Over on Blue Sky, Rand Hendricksonsuggested that Mullenweg was targeting himand Burns because of their priorobjections to governance at WordPress. Oh,she hasn't been involved? She hasn't beeninvolved since 2020. Yeah, why hither? That just, dude, just why would you dothat? I mean, just have, even I haven'tlogged in since 2020. What is that even? What is that even? What is that? What isthat even about? That actually feels like superpetty, right? Just catch and stray for noreason. So why is Mullenweg targetingHeather and me? Because we startedtalking about the need for propergovernance accountability, conflict ofinterest policies, and other things backin 2017. We both left the project in 2019. And apparently, he still holds a grudge.Okay, so they are like the originalpeople calling out how this could be abit dangerous.It's worth noting that deactivating a WordPress.orgaccount prevents the user fromcontributing through that channel,be it to the core project or others.Let's see, any other plugins or themes they maybe involved with. However, as it's hostedon GitHub, anyone is still able toaccess the code should they wishto fork. I wonder what happens if youhave a paid theme or a paidplugin. How does that work if youraccount has been deactivated?Does WordPress alsojust fork yours like they didthe other one and then just have a newpaid fork? How does that exactlywork? One could imagine that you get into somepretty complicated situations, paid or not, hosted there. I assumed it's linked there, meaning likeyou download that plugin and then itsays, "Hey, if you want theprofessional version, gohere." So I assume there's at least someminimal amount of confusion, right?Uh, in what was seemingly a tongue-in-cheekSuggestion, Mullen WG said that any newfork should be called JK Press, andthat they should hold a joint WordPressplus JK Summit next year. Juice andKareim have a number of bold andinteresting ideas, and I'm genuinelycurious to see how they work out. MullenWake added, "The beauty of open source isthat they can take all the GPL codein WordPress and ship their version. Youdon't need permission; you can just dothings. Oh nice, you can just do things. That's like a Twitter mantra right now.If they create something that's awesome,we may merge it back intoWordPress. Yeah, that's true; so thatis one of those things that Mullen WGis playing like the ultimatevillain at this point. He's even sayingthat if you fork us, we can in fact justretake your code because it's GPL. Crazythat ability for code and ideas tofreely flow between projects is part ofwhat makes open source such an enginefor innovation. By the way, in all honesty,let's pretend that JK Press was created.Would they ever want to create a summitwith WordPress and JK Press?Like, imagine, yeah, I can check theprivate DMs. Imagine checking or imagineReading and hanging out with that hold. One second, okay, hold on. Hold on, I'mreading a private DM. Cam typically doesnot interrupt a stream. Okay, so Lex, Iwasn't sure if I was supposed to sayanything or not, so I just wasn't goingto say anything. Yeah, um, those are allgreat languages. I like them all. Idon't know a lot about Odin, though I dolove its simplicity. I've read throughpart of its manual. By thetime I— by the time I'm over there, I'llprobably have read through Gi, Odin, andZig's programming stuff, right? So I'mactually pretty— I'm actually prettyexcited about that. I mean, obviously, I think we should have at least somediscussions aboutAI. Okay, at least I mean, minimally, don'tyou think we should have somediscussions aboutAI? Um, streaming, encouraging kids, if youdon't know, I had a bit of a checkeredpast. Used to— used to use a little bit ofmethamphetamines and all those other things.You know, I have no problem. You can ask me—you can ask me anything. All right,let's finish off this, because I reallydo want to understand what's happeninghere. Oh, we already kind of finished this. Off my only open question I have withthis whole situation with WordPress isthe GPL code. Uh, quick question, andforgive me if I'm incorrect; can you forka GPL repository and then change itslicense? Like, do you have to have part ofthe code still licensed or have aprevious license and have all thecommits up until that point under GPL?And then can you change it? No, you cannot.Okay, 'cause I know some licenses allowchanges; I couldn't remember how thechanging and licensing and all that kindof stuff is if it's GPL compliant. Okay, uh,if it is derivative? No. Okay, I couldn'tremember all the requirements of GPL,because I know, so yeah, MIT allows that. Yeah, MIT allows that, where you can likethe good luck with that licensealso allows that. Are you calling out theVSC? Yeah, yeah, no, precisely; I'm callingout. It's not just them; it's also Redisright? Uh, Valky, or I forget who wasthey also changed the, um, the license.There are a lot of theselike license change things, and I'm notvery great; I'm not really great when itcomes to licensing and all that. I don'tpretend to know the law. Somepeople speak so confidently about laws. I find it very scary. Yeah, GPL is aviral copyleft.I generally don’t like GPL; I think it iskind of a bad license. I don’t likethe virality aspect of it. I thoughtGPL was the one that makes it very viral,and I just don’t think that’sa very good way to go about it.Why not? It just enforces open source.It doesn’t only enforce open source; it alsoenforces what you are working on tobecome open source. I don’t thinkthat’s a good way to do open source. Thepoint of it is, yeah, I don’t likethat. I don’t like enforcedopen source via coercion. Right? Like, I don’t think that’s agood way to go about licensing ingeneral. I don’t think thatthat is a win. GPL isgreat; Linux wouldn’t be a thing withoutit. Maybe I don’t—I don’t really like it.But I think that’s the beauty of theinternet: we can havedifferent opinions. I am under thepersonal opinion that, uh, coercing opensource onto projects that use it is nota good idea. Call me old-fashioned; that’s mypersonal opinion. That’s why I alwaystend to make things MIT. I think that it should be up to you to getthe choice to make your own decisions; it’s not up to me tomake choices for you. I'm a veryfirm believer in this approach. I generally think that’s thebest way to interact with humankind:you don’t try to force otherpeople onto your platform. Thename is the prime engine., The Drama Just Keeps Getting Worse, ThePrimeTime, 01jk3wjcbqw72j464mqs7aj4x0.