my one mid thought for the WordPress and WP Engine situation is this with the disclaimer for Quinn Emanuel staff and others that I have no insider knowledge and DYOR Here's my thought: @photomatt called WP Engine a "cancer" within the WordPress ecosystem Matt does not pick his words lightly, so why would he use this word? I think cancer in this context means something harmful that spreads and grows within an organization Why might Matt have publicly called WP Engine a cancer now and chosen this nuclear option? Why is that cancer growing, and why might it be important to nip WP Engine in the bud? If your gut reaction is to say pressure from Automattic investors or to extort licensing fees or fear of competition... I think I defer to Matt who has been deeply involved in the OSS movement for 20 years and is making overweight investments in the space, versus a PE firm pushing for IPO Instead, here's what I think: - WP Engine has done good in the past. For the WP community, for the Austin tech ecosystem, for their clients, employees, etc - WP Engine is under new ownership of Silverlake who allegedly DGAF about open source. Their relative contributions speak for themselves - WP Engine, under this new ownership, is allegedly actively prohibiting... well I won't make assumptions but I believe there's a lot we aren't hearing about what WP Engine is doing behind the scenes We aren't hearing the full story because Matt and Automattic are not idiots and know this whole thing will go to trial and that the full story will come out in discovery And so here's the larger scene that I see: WP Engine is almost too big to fail but they are a net-negative actor in the WordPress environment On the push to their IPO and before they go public I think Matt wanted to bring them back in check to be a more positive contributor to the ecosystem they have taken so much from Remember the word cancer here-- A cancer is detrimental to the overall health or well-being of the system and tends to grow or spread if not addressed WP Engine has had many chances to negotiate, discuss, contribute etc over the last 5+ years that have all happened behind the scenes out of the public eye But they have allegedly just strung a8c along with empty chats and false hopes So this is the nuclear option This is the chemo to find a cure disclosures: I've never contributed anything to the WP community myself besides using WordPress on my blogs. I'm a personal friend or acquaintance of Matt so I have extreme bias towards him, I've had dinner once with Jason Cohen - Founder of WP Engine, and I'm a current customer of WP Engine - tho I'm moving my sites off for a combination of reasons. I don't know what I'm talking about so I defer to others who contribute and have more input on the WP community