The blocked resources in question? Automatic security and features updates and plugin/theme repository access. Matt Mullenweg reasserted his claim that this was a trademark issue. In tandem, WordPress.org updated its Trademark Policy page to forbid WP Engine specifically (way after the Cease & Desist): from “you are free to use [‘WP’] n any way you see fit” to a diatribe:
The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/26/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained attempts to provide a full chronology so far.
Edit:
The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also filed to trademark “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers and providers are worried that if these trademarks are granted, they could be used against them.
Would it be wrong to hope they manage to commit some gross act of mutual destruction, and that the outcome would be that I never have to deal with Wordpress ever again?
That would be great but the reality is that client’s mindsets need to change. I tried to explain to a client that Wordpress is not a good fit for their complex web application and yet they didn’t wanna switch to anything else. People are way too worried about new tech and wanna stick with whatever they know, even if it causes massive problems.
Wordpress is not a good fit for virtually any modern application. It’s designed as a blogging platform and basically no one makes blogs anymore. That functionality kind of got eaten up by Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn, so no one needs blogs.
Instead of letting WordPress die the death it most definitely deserves they shoehorned in functionality, which would be fine if it wasn’t such a bodge job.
Seriously. People want to shove everything into Wordpress then get cranky when you can’t make Wordpress into a ecommerce store, marketing platform, personal blog, file sharing service, and NFT marketplace.
And then it gets hacked because they needed 14 SEO plugins, 2 different form plugins, and were not going to pay for managed updates because that’s easy they can do it themselves.
If you’re trying to turn WordPress into an application, for christs sake go use Django, Laravel, or Rails. Don’t send a CMS to do an applications’ job.
Shit you don’t even need a CMS at this point. I moved off WordPress to Hugo and SFTP and i’m happier than a pig in shit. Shit loads fast and no external threats.
Wordpress is the Excel of CMSs. It can do just about anything, but at this point it barely manages content well.
That’s a great analogy actually. You can do almost anything with it but what the vast majority of people choose to do with it is wrong.
Just like how people insist on using Excel as a database or Excel as a form.
Genuine question: what is the real alternative to WP? Ghost sucks, Hugo, Jekyll has 0 client approval factor without some shitty third party thing. Wix, Squarespace is not open.
Wix and Squarespace managed to be even worse options anyway.
Anyway who cares what the client thinks, they don’t know anything that’s why they’re hiring a professional. The professional thing to do would be to convince them of the advantages of one of the listed options.
Anytime I’ve ever had to deal with WordPress I’ve always run up against the fact that it has limitations that the client doesn’t understand, and then at some point you end up redesigning it custom anyway. May as well save time and start out custom.
I’ve been pushing Squarespace for most people who come to me asking about setting up a small store or just simple business website.
Yeah, it’s closed source and blah blah blah, but the end of the day, it’s not about my opinions on software, it’s about the most cost-effective, simple, usable option for the client who is asking me for my expertise, which is almost always not something they’re going to have to keep paying me to maintain.
Like if you really really want Wordpress, I’ll get you set up, and then quote you a couple thousand a year for maintenance.
Unshockprisingly, very few people think that’s the right choice once they see what the keep-it-from-being-exploited cost is.
(And for anyone who thinks that’s an unreasonable amount, okay cool. But maintaining a staging environment and testing updates and then pushing everything into production assuming there’s no regressions you have to address takes a lot of time.)
Everytime checked someone else’s WP, the only thing that came to mind each time was a Jenga block tower. Bunch of themes and plugins that do god knows what and interact together in mysterious way. Touch anything and there’s a very good chance everything comes crashing down.
I personally send people to Wix, but I guess Squarespace is fine.
It’s that Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns is only alive because all the things that would kill him are cancelling each other out, but in PHP form.
I tend to use Squarespace because uh, they have a marketing budget and everyone tends to already know (or at least one of the people in the meeting anyways) who they are, which makes things an easier sell.
I don’t particularly think they’re the best or whatever, but they at least do what they say at a price that’s reasonable enough and I’ve yet to be burned by suggesting them, sooooo…
Any suggestions for a free easy to use alternative to wp?
There really isn’t one that’s a true alternative to WP.
There are plenty of nice static site generators, but those are significantly harder to use and not just drag and drop, they also don’t have the huge plugin marketplace that WP does.
Everyone loves to complain about WP (rightfully so in some cases, it has its own problems), but will suggest alternatives that are nothing like it.
I use WP to post weekly (sometimes more frequently) updates about my new releases and events happening in my shop (a game shop). It works for what I need, I just wish I could find I build a theme that displayed the way I want it to display.
Good luck! Not sure if you have time, but to their credit, they do have a handbook on making themes. Since WordPress 5.0 block editor, which a lot of people apparently abhor, themes are mostly HTML templates (with a lot of WP-specific invis comments) and CSS styles.
Thanks. I really know nothing about that kind of stuff. I have tried and only make things worse.
After December 2018, which is when WordPress 5.0 released?
No idea. I only started to use it in 22 I think. I have seen a lot of themes that look great, but every one of my posts has an image attached and the theme I use will not display a thumbnail when on the main page, only the title of the post and a snippet of the text.
https://kbin.melroy.org/m/technology@lemmy.world/t/480078/WordPress-org-bans-WP-Engine-blocks-it-from-accessing-its-resources/comment/4249030#entry-comment-4249030
Wix was not free when I looked last, I cannot stand using websites that use Shopify.
I will look into some of those others.