When free and open ends

Friday. October 04, 2024 - 1 min

My development career started proper when I picked up WordPress. It was how I turned my previous HTML, CSS, and JS tinkering into something that people would pay for. Over the years I’ve built themes and plugins as a part of projects for clients, some with barely any visitors and some with hundreds of thousands. The openness of the software, and the community around it, was what attracted me initially, and the quality of both kept me.

Along that journey I bought books and courses, supporting those who wanted to share their knowledge and earn a living from it. I tuned into podcasts focused around the technology, and sought out interviews with key people connected to the product. Automattic (the company behind WordPress) was one I looked up to, perhaps even wanted to work for one day.

This built up trust over the years. When the company behind WordPress bought other orgs, I was happy to use these products. WordPress is trustworthy, so must their podcast / notes / messaging / commerce products from the same org. It was a mental shortcut. One that saved me looking elsewhere.

The recent shenanigans between Matt, Automattic, and WP Engine broke that trust. Not to the extent that I won’t be using the products any more, or even looking to move away from them, but being an Automattic product isn’t a mental shortcut anymore.

Reading the legal documents flying around is entertaining from the outside, but the situation doesn’t sit right with me. An free and open source product shouldn’t be putting the eco-system around it through this. In fact, it should be doing the opposite. This isnt about the battle between the two organisations, it’s much bigger than that.

Today, WordPress is a hammer.

It can work in so many use cases, and be shaped to work in pretty much any situation . . . but it’s still a hammer.

Thankfully, there are loads of screwdrivers to choose from today.