There is a longer rant here that covers a lot of the things I wanted to rant about, so rather than repeat it, I’ll just start with a simple:
This. (Point to the sky gif)
I do want to talk about the implications of this whole thing. Because it is the fact that the WordPress users on WP Engine got cut off from the Wordpress.org resources that is the crucial part here.
Automattic, or the Foundation, or .org, whoever Matt was representing at that time, cut off the theme and plugin library at Wordpress.org to all the WordPress users hosted on WP Engine. Because it is them, the WordPress users, that are getting hurt in this mess.
You see, the connection to Wordpress.org isn’t an extra, it isn’t something you turn on or add in, it is a base component of a WordPress install. And Matt just showed every Wordpress user that it can be cut off at a moment’s notice at his whim.
Cutting off updates to plugins and themes. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if it cut off updates to WordPress itself.
If Wordpress.org isn’t neutral (within reason1) in these matters, then it should not be advertised as infrastructure. And if any one of us who use WordPress should fear being cut off and having to manually install updates to our websites at anytime, well, then maybe we all need to be thinking and preparing for that.
Because if I was hosted on WP Engine I would sure as hell be looking to get my site, my livelihood in some cases, off of WordPress.
And sure, there is an argument that the .org site doesn’t owe its infrastructure to anyone. Because it is true, they don’t. But if that is their actual stance, if that is the line that they are going to draw in the sand then it needs to be removed from the core of WordPress. Decide how they will vet the users they plan to support, make it a plugin with a login or something, but stop pretending it is part of the base install of WordPress.
Because right now we cannot trust Wordpress.org to be there when we need them, which means we have to question if we can trust WordPress at all in the future.
Or maybe even in the present.
- Fuck Terfs ↩︎
