Matt Mullenweg & Automattic/WordPress vs WP Engine

I don't know how relevant this is, but I happened to notice something and want to point it out...
From that Reddit thread above about Bullenweg shutting down:
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The username and profile picture of "AlienneLeigh" seemed weirdly familiar to me. (It turns out he's a tech troon connected to several other tech troon lolcows.)
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Here's his alternative to Bullenweg: https://gist.github.com/adrienne/aea9dd7ca19c8985157d9c42f7fc225d [Archive]
His Github (under the name "adrienne", aka "Adrienne L. Travis"): https://gist.github.com/adrienne [Archive]
...which links to his Keybase (under the name "adrienneleigh"). [Archive]
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Hello there, Liz Fong-Jones and Katherine Lorelei! :story:
But wait, there's more! :)

Adrienne's Keybase linked to his Twitter ("iridienne"): https://x.com/iridienne [Archive]
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Which links to his Mastodon/Fediverse account: https://social.treehouse.systems/@adrienne [Archive]
And this is definitely where I've seen him before. Adrienne is an admin & prolific poster at Treehouse.Systems, which is a semi-notable tech troon Mastodon instance.
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For example, the owner of Treehouse.Systems is Ariadne Conilll (who deserves his own KF thread at some point).
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Hector Martin is also on Treehouse.Systems. As another admin, even!
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Anyway, I guess my point is that a relatively "high-ranking" tech troon with connections to a bunch of other censorious tech troon lolcows has been sniffing around this drama.
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Maybe it's just an innocent interest in tech drama. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
...Or maybe this clique smells blood in the water, and they're looking to swoop in to try and seize power / CoC concessions at Wordpress after Matt Mullenweg inevitably destroys himself. 🤔

Liz has been keeping an eye on the drama too, btw:
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something is happening. the github repo for bullenweg was updated today:
https://github.com/bullenweg/bullenweg.github.io, archive
In addition to the racist rants and harassment about wearing a head scarf that Plaintiff was subjected to, Defendant KATHLEEN MULLENWEG also created a hostile, and sexually charged environment by repeatedly discussing Defendant MATTHEW MULLENWEG’s sex life in graphic detail. KATHLEEN MULLENWEG would discuss Defendant MATTHEW MULLENWEG’s attraction to Asian women, and how Asian women were all “whores” and “sluts” and “prostitutes.” She also discussed that Defendant MATTHEW MULLENWEG would engage in threesomes with his girlfriends, that Defendant MULLENWEG was easily seduced by the Asian women, that the Asian women would poke holes in condoms in an attempt to set him up for marriage. Defendant KATHLEEN MULLENWEG would discuss how her son would sleep with multiple women at the same time, and other graphic details about Defendant Matthew MULLENWEG’s sex life, Defendant KATHLEEN MULLENWEG engaged in a pattern of continuous, pervasive, and severe daily harassment intentionally occurring in the immediate presence of Plaintiff, in a direct and intentional attempt to offend, embarrass, and provoke Plaintiff, who repeatedly requested that this behavior stop.

In addition to the racism, Kathleen Mullenweg engaged in a pattern of continuous, pervasive, and severe daily sexual banter which occurred directly in Plaintiff’s presence in her immediate work environment. In addition to the racism, the workplace was permeated with sexually-charged harassment which embarrassed, humiliated, and offended Plaintiff. For example, Kathleen Mullenweg would discuss in graphic detail the sex between defendant MULLENWEG and his Asian girlfriends even though Plaintiff begged her not to discuss such private matters. Kathleen Mullenweg at one point asked Plaintiff to spy on her son having sex with his girlfriends. She also asked Plaintiff to check the trash cans to search for condoms. Plaintiff made numerous complaints directly to Defendant MATTHEW MULLENWEG, AUDREY and to MULLENWEG’s mother regarding the severity of Kathleen Mullenweg’s racism and sexually charged non-stop rants, and the discomfort it was causing her, however Defendants did absolutely nothing to prevent it from occurring. In fact, to the contrary, Defendant MULLENWEG would share Plaintiffs complaints with his mother who would then retaliate against Plaintiff and threaten her with termination if she ever complained about her harassment to her son again.
 
a second plugin has a takeover threatened. this time, not even WP Engine owned. this is pretty important because until now, his hissy-fit was limited to only WP Engine plugins (etc) but paid-memberships-pro is completely unaffiliated (archive).

Two days after we closed the Paid Memberships Pro listing in the .org repository, Matt sent a direct message to me (Jason) on the WordPress.org Slack Workspace threatening to “take over your listing and make it a community plugin like we did to ACF”.

Don't expect screenshots of the above as, don't forget, it's now against the wordpress code of conduct to leak private messages. It's pretty obvious that if he does matt will follow through with his threats and fork & steal the slug like he's done with ACF. he might do it anyway, who knows.

the crazy train has no brakes, matt will get his 8%!
 
a second plugin has a takeover threatened.
Update: Sounds like it's been confirmed.
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/AicvZ
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Verifying that we've viewed the Slack conversation that took place between @jason_colemanand @photomatt, and can confirm that Matt did threaten to take over Paid Memberships Pro.
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https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-to-take-over-paid-memberships-pro [Archive]

The guy in charge of the "Paid Memberships Pro" plugin wrote a blogpost about leaving Wordpress.
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In other news, Matt is trying to exert control over the social media accounts for "WordCamp".
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https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/28/wordcamp_password_sharing_requirement/ [Archive]
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Someone named Chris Wiegman (apparently a long-time Wordpress contributor & community organizer) wrote a blogpost about leaving Wordpress:
https://ghostarchive.org/archive/0c5VO
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Even the jannies are hanging up their brooms! :lol:
 
I’m getting shitloads of display ads on YouTube and Twitter for WordPress alternatives and migration services. They all hinge on variations on a “Sick of the drama? We’ll save you” pitch.

It’s unfortunate that such a massive opportunity for learning and and growth will be squandered by mucky Matt. He is the personification of shameless self-glorification and immaturity.
 
Is there a reason the board of directors for Automaticc aren't firing Matt? The only thing I can think of is that he would still own Wordpress.org, and would probably go nuclear with it.
 
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Is there a reason the board of directors for Automaticc aren't firing Matt? The only thing I can think of is that he would still own Wordpress.org, and would probably go nuclear with it.
There's no board of directors. It's just him.
 
Is there a reason the board of directors for Automaticc aren't firing Matt? The only thing I can think of is that he would still own Wordpress.org, and would probably go nuclear with it.
There's no board of directors. It's just him.
Nah there's two other people. Mark Ghosh and Chele Farley. No idea who either of them are and i don't care to look into them. Safe to assume, they're both just glorified yes men.

(archive)
 
Nah there's two other people. Mark Ghosh and Chele Farley. No idea who either of them are and i don't care to look into them. Safe to assume, they're both just glorified yes men.

(archive)
"Mark" Ghosh is actually Madhujit Ghosh (pajeet playing the name game). He sold his blog (WPTavern) to Mullenweg some time ago. Chele Farley is a former Republican politician, Mullenweg donated money to her campaign. They are inactive, and don't make any decisions.
 
Nah there's two other people. Mark Ghosh and Chele Farley. No idea who either of them are and i don't care to look into them. Safe to assume, they're both just glorified yes men.

(archive)
"Mark" Ghosh is actually Madhujit Ghosh (pajeet playing the name game). He sold his blog (WPTavern) to Mullenweg some time ago. Chele Farley is a former Republican politician, Mullenweg donated money to her campaign. They are inactive, and don't make any decisions.
Thanks for the info. I see that Automattic also has it's own board of directors:
https://automattic.com/board/ (archive)

But I guess it doesn't really matter since it looks like Automaticc is basically controlled by the WP Foundation.
 
Wasn't Matt supposed to file some response to WPEngine's injuction motion today? The deadline was 30th October. According to all the court case trackers, he didn't.
 
Wasn't Matt supposed to file some response to WPEngine's injuction motion today? The deadline was 30th October. According to all the court case trackers, he didn't.
The dockets aren’t always immediately updated online.
 
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Matt is now cruising Twitter and attacking maintainers of Wordpress forks from the official Wordpress account in impotent rage. Including calling their governance as "masturbatory".


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They have filed a response yesterday, and a couple of other legal papers: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/wpengine-inc-v-automattic-inc/


Didn't have the time to read through any of these yet.
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