2024-10-14-posts.md 6.1 KB


title: Open Source Maker-Taker slug: open-source-maker-taker description: Today I learned that WordPress and WPEngine Are At It <!--- authors:

Today I learned that Automattic and WPEngine are at it[^1]. I picked up on this spat catching up in my reader this morning. I read the lawsuit, some other opinions, and watched a couple interviews. It's not exactly your typical business spat and the part I find most interesting is the relationship to open source software.

I think the first shot in this spat was a threat to present a slide titled "How Private Equity Can Hollow out and Destroy Open Source Communities". Let me try to summarize it in a couple of sentences. WordPress is open source web publishing software which is free for anyone to use. The company behind it's commercial projects has licensing agreements with some of it's corporate users and accused WPEngine of not pitching in[^2]. They pulled the rug out from under them in dramatic fashion by forking their open source code as the lawsuits and public campaigns ensued. The rest of which is just the internet doing it's thing giving the voiceless, sometimes naive, and sometimes wrong a place to share their opinions... so here's mine.

Let me first say, I'm just glad to not have been dragged into this sorta mess simply because I don't like to use third party code. I'm always skeptical of a long laundry list of dependencies in any project. I've got quite a few WordPress websites published with an assortment of custom fields which have all been built by yours truly. I always thought that Advanced Custom Fields was a bit overkill because I can build a custom field in one single file with no more than a couple hundred lines of code. I always try to minimize third party libraries and code because aside from the fact I'm a highly opinionated developer, I've just found that maintaining my own code is more than enough work.

Aside from the trademark issues, the two code bases in question were licensed as open source[^3], so there is not case against either company copying. I remember some years ago when a fella who maintained a well used open source project decided to sabotage his own work because he didn't feel like he was getting fairly compensated which had consequences downstream for those using it[^4]. I also regularly cite the xkcd comic on dependencies[^5]. The main difference in this case is that instead of contributing back to the project as a whole, the company was just pursuing profit. I can't exactly blame em, but I can't say it's right either.

Open source licensing can be sticky but it's also ubiquitous. If I pull up the fine print in my car screen, there are open source licenses. I'd venture to say that you'll find em in the majority of cars, electronics, appliances... anything that has a computer which is pretty much everything these days. The entire automobile industry was kick started when Ford challenged an engine patent and shared it. I'd go so far as to argue that part of the industrial and the entire information age has been made possible by the concept of open source. The advent of networked computers has made sharing all the easier and entire industries are built around it.

The history of operating systems can be traced back to the Unix Wars[^6][^7] of the late 60s when AT&T were licensing their systems for free to universities while others started to port similar code to other systems. I'm an staunch advocate of open source software, because it's how I was introduced to the world of computing and has been the backbone of my work. It's provided me opportunities from Cambridge UK to Cambridge MA. I believe that it's a nuanced concept that is still shaping the ideas and ideals of the future. I use the word nuanced because I remember the first time that a photo of mine was 'lifted' from the internet and reused for commercial purposes. I called the cell phone of the company owner to complain and he seemed miffed by the idea that he had stolen anything much the same way users of Napster might have thought about themselves 'sharing' music files. I think it's akin to a clever form of cheating, albeit not necessarily against the law, hopefully frowned upon.

I think the primary issue at hand is what has been called the maker taker problem[^8]. It's akin to the tragedy of the commons where an person or company consumes a resource at the expense of society[^9]. The resource in this case is code, but it can be applied to converting public lands to golf courses, polluting rivers, or stockpiling toilet paper during Covid. I think the boil over here is partially related to the current social and business climate. I sat through a coaches training recently and one of the participants kept asking questions about skirting the rules to give his team an advantage. At the very end of the Q&A, I asked a question that I think cleverly pointed out the issue... "Let's say I want to find a way to give my team an advantage without breaking any written rules, is that wrong?". The room quietly chuckled because they knew exactly to whom I was referring. Although it went unanswered, I think the answer is yes.

[^1]: Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine - https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-engine/
[^2]: WPE & Trademarks - https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ [^3]: Open Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source [^4]: Monetizing Open Source is Problematic https://marak.com/blog/2021-04-25-monetizing-open-source-is-problematic [^5]:Dependency - https://xkcd.com/2347/ [^6]: Unix Wars - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix_wars [^7]: History of Open Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_free_and_open-source_software [^8]: Solving the Maker Taker Problem_ - https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem [^9]: The Tragedy of the commons - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons