Cancel

Jyolsna

BuddyPress Lead Developer Mathieu Viet Leaves WordPress Ecosystem

BuddyPress Lead Developer Mathieu Viet has announced his departure from the WordPress community, marking the end of a long-standing association that began with BuddyPress 2.0.

In a statement shared on his WordPress profile, he said, “I’ve decided to stop involving into the #WordPress community following the way WordPress leadership decided to prevent some users to benefit from WordPress.org API services just because they were customers of a specific hosting company.”

Viet has also chosen to stop using WordPress for his personal website. He wrote, “While Mr. Mullenweg’s first attacks pushed me to leave this community and stop contributing to WordPress® open source projects (including BuddyPress®), the latest one (making the premium code of a plugin marketed by the attacked competitor available for free ) convinced me that disapproving and condemning them as a former contributor was not enough. Indeed, I have also decided to stop using WordPress® to manage this website.”

In October this year, WordPress.org took over WP Engine’s ACF plugin, citing security issues, and renamed it Secure Custom Fields (https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/) and then released the ‘Secure Custom Fields’ Plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/secure-custom-fields/) with ACF Pro features last month.

The news of Viet leaving sparked discussions across the WordPress community. One user on Reddit commented, “I don’t blame Mr Mathieu, but honestly, I hope as a community, we can bring this madness to an end, A lot of damage has been done, but I am hopeful we can forget the past at one point, make amends and move forward and come back with a fucking vengeance. Not asking for Peace in the World, just asking for Peace in the WordPress ecosystem.”  Others expressed curiosity about which platform Viet would migrate to next.

Since the Automattic -WP Engine dispute started, several prominent contributors, including Bjørn Johansen, Carrie Dils, Andy Fragen, and Chris Wiegman, have ceased their involvement with WordPress. Some have removed their plugins from the WordPress Repository.

Category: ,
Tags:

SHARE THIS:

LIKE THIS

4 Comments

4 Comments

  • Author
    Posts
    • Al
      December 8, 2024 at 3:56 AMView in Forum

      With all the drama related to the WordPress.org platform and its management, we decided to refactor all but one e-com site from WP over to a simple (traditional?) stack of HTML, PHP, Bootstrap, W3.CSS, and a few pinches of Javascript…. radioqsl.com, newmediawebsitedesign.com, ancins.com, newmediawebfix.com, etc.

      I don’t know where WP org is headed… maybe to a poorly maintained fork, or perhaps to a paid/commercial status (ie. like the former SugarCRM), or maybe just closed down. But I’m fairly certain that PHP, HTML, Bootstrap and W3.CSS, etc. are going to be around for a long while.

      Honestly, it was a lot less work than I thought it would be… even with the parallax scrolling sites we had in WP which are now in Bootstrap.

      I don’t know what we will do with the e-com site… but there are lots of options beyond WP with WooCom.

      Now we sit back and watch this show with a full box of popcorn and no care in the world about how it ends! :-)

      Reply
    • Matthew
      December 8, 2024 at 3:58 AMView in Forum

      Wish I could move on to be honest but that’s a major hassle. And I think many businesses will conclude the same. So the next step is either the big shots resolving things or us turning in the things affecting our businesses.

      Reply
    • Hank Castello
      December 8, 2024 at 11:16 AMView in Forum

      So far, comments have been negative toward WP.org, but their stance seems reasonable to me. Nothing is free. WP org offers a tremendously valuable structure for “free”. They invest a huge amount of time, effort, thousands of man-hours and ask nothing in return except, if you’re going to profit from our efforts, then at least pitch-in or contribute something commensurate with your profits.

      Since this isn’t working as an “understanding”, perhaps the licensing needs to be altered so that if you’re making millions off of WP, you must contribute x% toward its maintenance and continued development.

      Reply
    • Sharique
      December 8, 2024 at 11:17 AMView in Forum

      WP Engine should not have modified core wp files and default options to commercialize their hosting product. I’m with Automattic. Such hosting companies should be banned. They contributed less and earned more by modifying default code base and options.

      Reply
  • Author
    Posts

View in Forum

  • The topic ‘BuddyPress Lead Developer Mathieu Viet Leaves WordPress Ecosystem’ is closed to new replies.

You may also like

Newsletter

Subscribe Via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.