Episode 459 The WordPress Shit Show With Marc Benzakein

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Show Summary

Rob Cairns and Marc Benzakein talk about the last WordPress mess.

Show Highlights:

• What happened this time?
• What is the community feeling?
• Trademarks and more trademarks.
• What do we do moving forward?

Show Notes

Everybody Rob Cairns here on a very, very long week in the WordPress space. And here’s my good friend and guest, Mr. Marc Benzakein. Hey, Marc, how are you today?

I’m doing as well as anyone else in the WordPress space is doing today.

Yeah, I I was saying.

This this smile is 100% real.

Yeah. I I I will tell you my head hurts. My body hurts. I’m freaking.

Yeah, yeah.

1. Yeah, I’m. I’m concerned about the future of our community and our product and I’m concerned about a lot of things. Those who know I had Andrew Palmer with me and Andrew had a lot of frank things to say, Andrew, like you very much. He says it the way he sees it, which I have.

Hmm.

Like that, so if any. Please bears go back and listen to that great interview.

Except Andrew is smarter than I am, so.

You’re telling your South Shore, my friend. So let’s dive in. And for those in the workspace, in other words, who don’t know what we’re talking about, we’re talking about the big grandma that came out of WC US six days ago. No. In Matt Mullenweg’s Q&A, he basically took aim at the WP engine. There’s no question.

MHM.

That he did. And he claims it’s a trademark and I have to dive into that because one thing he’s done is they’ve changed all the trademark wording and screenshots before and after.

MHM.

MHM.

And the other thing is using WP which WP engine does doesn’t violate the trademark in the foundation site says that any comment?

Before I say anything, I I probably should do the the same disclaimer roughly that I did at my work camp presentation in Canada, which is these are purely my opinions. They do not in any way represent any company that I represent or work with like main BP or site district or or any other.

Further.

Company related to WordPress so. I just want to get that out of the way these, you know, any any opinions they have are are or or any opinions that reflect their opinions are purely coincidental. These are these are just me and and my thoughts.

And.

And whatever and what everybody has to realize is and I’ll I’ll add to that is these are marks of my thoughts and people have to realize that and under fire, you’re entitled to your thoughts on. These are meant to be slanderous. They’re based on what’s been put out there. So you want to follow more of this, there’s a couple.

MHM. MHM.

Places you can go to the. We’ll start to slip.

Mm-hmm.

It’s a bit of a. Chick show and I can say that. On my own podcast cause video.

Yes you can.

And or go or go to X or go to LinkedIn and follow people like me or Andrew Palmer or Brian Gardner or someone and so forth and go. Anyway, now that we got that out of the way. How do you how?

Yeah.

Do you feel about this whole trade brightness?

Uh, well, the trademark mess is, uh, well, I think, uh, you know, mess is a four letter word and you’ve you’ve nailed it. It’s a mess, I think, uh, this, you know, it goes back to what we talked about I think earlier this year where it’s it’s a matter of when you have a single person who holds keys to the Kingdom of everything. And can go back and and. But. Well, fortunately can’t necessarily rewrite history, but can kind of rewrite the present it. It gets very dangerous and. And that’s the situation that we’re in, the trademark Ness is, you know, I I look at like all of my friends who, you know, consider themselves WordPress, WordPress professionals, but now they have to suddenly consider, you know. Well, am I? A WordPress person who is a professor. Or am I a professional who works in WordPress or you know? And then and I mean the semantics. Of all of this. Are kind of mind boggling and I look at all the the lost time and everything that’s gone on this week. I mean, talking to people within the industry, just trying to figure out what the trademark actually means. And then you know it it. I actually have seen several people. A post that they were not aware that a certain person actually controlled 100% of the trademark and and and of course I think you knew that and I knew that. And I I think we thought at least I did. I thought it was assumed that we knew kind of what we were getting. Too, when you know with all of that, but but there are all these. There are a lot of people who who haven’t been made aware of this fact, and they’re just now discovering it and. And you know, I just see this situation where the community with with, with people who are like fairly new to WordPress and and don’t know some of these things and and have kind of throw their thrown their hat in that ring suddenly going Oh my goodness. What did I get myself into. And and you know and and I feel for them, you know? So this trademark thing. It I don’t know. I mean it, it’s just to me it’s one of those things. That. Like people who are out of touch with. Humanity and and the human cost involved with the community. They’re just, they’re just playing games with with people’s lives and to satisfy who knows what. I’m not going to speculate as to what satisfaction is coming out of this, but what I can tell you is. It you know it it if we’re able to all put ego aside, we can look at it and say it’s like severely detrimental to the community. So that’s. That may be a really long winded answer to your question about what my feeling is on the trademark thing, but we have had an understanding of what the trademark was. We’ve all been diligent about using WP instead of WordPress and and now all of a sudden you know you know, we find ourselves in a situation where we, you know. They’re they’re. I’m not gonna speak for myself, but I’m gonna keep my opinion kind of to myself. But there are people out there who have said, you know, before this all happened, I wasn’t even a big fan of WP engine. And now I have to support them. And I have to defend them because of this. And it’s. I don’t know. I I would rather people just make their own decisions about what they like and dislike based upon the the merits of the company itself and and not have to defend based on. On nonsense like this and this, you know, in my opinion, it’s nonsense. This is just pure nonsense.

And and and one of the groupings that was going on. And I I’m gonna throw this going right here. I have friends at WP engine.

Same.

Sam nunos. Damian, I consider all three good friends. First of all.

M.

And I feel for them right now, they they’ve been smart, they’re not really talking to anybody publicly. So I give them because we know that it’s and assists running around. So that’s what you do. You let the lawyers handle it, our beloved and.

Me too.

Dictator who files legal paperwork and is still shooting his mouth off and post that his slack every 5 minutes or next because Mr. Mowen can’t shut up it seems and that’s a fair comment he hasn’t shut.

Mm-hmm.

Right, right.

I’m glad I’m. I’m glad I’m not his attorney because I would have told him to shut. Up and zip. It like two hours ago or hours. Days ago. What the problem too with the straight man press is. What did they do? Not only did this all start.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But. Then they went and tried to change the trademark page on the foundation page and change the marks. You know what? That doesn’t sit in court as far as I’m concerned, and neither mark or I or lawyers. So let’s go there.

Yeah. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

This is not legal advice, but its opinion. That’s not just that well in court, I don’t think. In front of a.

Judge Person, I mean, I I have, I’ve. Had my share of. Of you know, interactions with the law and interactions with judges. I think that anytime that you’re self-employed and for various reasons you end up you know, just having hiring lawyers for just about all all kinds of things. So I’ve had my share of looking at legal documents. And and I’ve seen judges. I have seen judges just say you’re wasting my time and and get ****** *** because judges do not like that they’re. Time wasting now. We have to keep in mind that you know, so far the only thing that’s happened are cease and desist letters, which are not. They’re not court documents, right? They can be. They can be entered into, as I understand it, they can be entered into evidence, but they are not actual court court documents. I could personally write a cease and desist letter that says dear. So. So please stop doing this. And that would count as a cease and desist letter, I think.

That’s.

So you know, and I can, I can misspell every word, but I could still enter it into evidence. You know, if it if it goes to court. So so far. You know, a lot of this may just be posturing. And and that’s well and good if you know if if tightens wanna you know wanna posture against each other and and and go back and forth that’s that’s fine. My big issue is really is the impact this is having on the people of the Community. There are people that are saying I have to change my whole profession. I’ve been doing this for 17 years or 20 years or whatever and and there there are people that are like I I honestly don’t know what I’m gonna do because this has been my whole life. I’ve been all about open source and all this. And if you can do this with open source then you know, then everything I’ve known about open source is. You know is down the tubes and you know and. And so there’s like this this you want to talk about, you know, last year there was this whole talk talk about existential threat. This is an existential crisis among the community that that. I don’t think. I don’t think. I I I think that when you. Sit. Disconnected from a group of people for long enough.

No.

You get so out of touch you don’t realize the impact you’re having on them, and one of the things that was brought up in the Twitter space the other day was. Was uh. The trademark holder of WordPress said yeah.

Which is the word which is the word foundation. For clarity, they’re defined automatic. Is it under a license and they’re allowed to sub license it. So what’s? What’s that right away?

Right, right. Yes, that’s that’s correct. But who’s in charge of the foundation so?

It’s the vote. OK, so let’s go there. It’s supposedly a board at 3, not Matt Mullenweg is one of the three, and the other two are automatic complete. So let’s let’s establish that. So here’s the problem.

Yeah. Supposedly.

Any. And we went through this with ChatGPT too by the. In that mess earlier this year, anytime you have a paint company, find a control, a nonprofit, you have to separate the Board of Directors and the CEO’s 100% at arms length and the mowing leg has chosen not to separate himself. So.

Correct.

Thank you.

Our decent conflict of interest and you know. Between the field. The doctor.

Right. And and once again, that’s something for the lawyers to decide. But from our layperson’s standpoint, it certain certainly looks like a conflict of interest and and one of the comments that he made on the Twitter space is the other day was that he’s a huge defender of open source. But I think that it’s very possible. That he’s looking so much at being the defender of open source that he forgets that human cost, that that makes open source what it is. And so so he can defend open source, he can defend whether or not he thinks you know a company has donated enough time or resources or whatever. To the project and to the open source project, he can decide all those things, but getting up and and you know, and once again looking at the these these cease and desist letters. While these may be allegations, looking at the the the the comments like scorched earth and you know and and you know I’m going to go all scorched earth on you or or whatever and and you know assuming that these are all you know true allegations. Not only is that not professional, but it it it has had such an impact on so many people that and and it’s just plain flat out extortion. That’s all it is. It’s it’s extortion.

Speak.

So let’s use that word because as far as I’m concerned. And I won’t say where I heard it. But Matt certainly did go over to the table at WC US, the doctor W the engine, but what good was that gonna do? And because the bean counters for Silverlight and the company weren’t there, they were most people. That’s not fair. That’s not fair either, as far as I’m concerned.

MHM. Right, right. Right.

And this is my opinion, by the way, folks. Matt threatened them and said if you don’t do it, I want I’m gonna expose.

MHM.

And in my personal opinion, it sounds like it was an extortion to try and get money out of another company, but here, here’s the problem. Nowhere does it say you have to do fight for future or pay money, mute press or to use WordPress in your business. Please show me where it says that.

Yes. Mm-hmm.

Well, not only does it not say that, but I mean then we can dive into really. What is 5 for the future, right? Well, apparently 5 for the future as a lot of people are are just now discovering. Is is this? Program in which the only time that counts this time that’s put into core correct.

Absolutely ridiculous so.

Which is, you know, so. So it doesn’t matter that WP engine spent $75,000 to have this conference. You know, you know or or has spent, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars. Over the past. You know, say, 10 years that doesn’t count because they didn’t put effort into core.

It does.

I I can speak for myself when I say if you were to look at 5 for the future, I’ve got 0 hours. But what I can tell you or 00 anything. Thing. But what I can tell you is I’ve spent hundreds of hours in meetups, hundreds of thousands of dollars of my own money to go to work camps and speak to sponsor work camps to. I’ve organized four word camps and been part of other word. Camps and at least consulted on other work camps. I have had conversations with people at the foundation and before it was a foundation. That was, I can’t remember what they called it before the word Camp Foundation, but anyway.

Like they’re being.

They’re being fair, mark. I mean, I’m. I’m in the same boat I I spent.

But.

And probably 10 to 12 hours a week running one of the big Co running, one of the biggest LinkedIn groups.

That’s right, yeah.

Yeah, I get. Well, that’s not fine for the future. How is it?

Well, what it is?

Back to the community. It’s not in a way that Mister Mullen. They wants me to contribute when I’m helping this.

But hold hold. On just a second, because if you think. About it a little bit. Further, and I guess this is the thing that frustrates. Me. Everything that falls under 5 to the future. Is is. Yes, it benefits the open source project, but also what else does it benefit?

The benefits automatic in.com.

Eggs.

Exactly. And so if if if it were me looking at it from the outside looking in and saying well, 5:00 to the future, the only thing that counts as a as a donation of time is something that benefits the for profit company and at you know, but it’s it’s under this guise of benefiting the project.

So the reason why? No.

There’s a problem there and and once again we get into that conflict of interest thing, right. And so and and so it it’s it’s frustrating to me that that people are just discovering. That that five to the future is really. Only this thing that’s a vehicle to get kind of in a way free labor for automatic and and I know and and don’t get me wrong automatic donates time to the project and they donate the fight to the. Future and all.

That hang on a SEC. But that’s self-serving too, because automatic owns.com and don’t give all this crap. Oh, we donate.

Right.

4008 thousand dollar hours to make sure your.com and PRESSABLE will automatic come.

Right. Right.

Right.

They they’re vulnerable. Make money. So you’re really donating time into your own business operation, not for fight for the future and not for anything else, frankly.

Right. Right, right. But I’m I I I guess my point is my point is.

I know.

That is a defense that they can that that they that they can present and.

Yeah, yeah.

And you know, and it’s arguable. OK, but but once again, there’s a lot of documentation and and proof that says, well, they’re actually taking the marketing and all this time that they’re putting into side to the future and they’re actually using it to their advantage. And and, you know, so the hours don’t count really, but.

Hmm.

So let’s just, let’s just give them the hours and say, yeah, you’ve got to, but let’s also understand that the program really is only set up in a way that benefits automatic. Ultimately in every way shape.

Form. Yeah. So what? I’ll what I’ll go do is let’s talk about WP engine and there’s quote only 40 hours contribution, which I think is cocky. You know what, I’m sorry. But so having said on every Friday, I do a build mode chat, it runs every Friday for an hour.

Yeah.

And every Friday, Brian Gardner sits on the talk and he says, I don’t care if they’re a WP engine client or not. And I’ve jumped on many calls where Brian and said. Book some time with me. Do you think giving an hour to another dev or designers it’s contributing to the community? Damien Cook does the same thing. Sam Broccoli does the same thing. Their entire team does.

Yeah, yeah.

MHM, MHM.

So they get, so stop being realistic and start pounding hours. Let’s start counting damn hours. Not just which suits our beloved and dictator.

Well but but. That’s, I mean, that’s the thing. And so, you know, I I’m I I’m really trying to not be in a position or not necessarily. I’m really working hard to not. Make. Obviously I have to put a lot of thought into the words that. Are about to come out of my mouth, but but I I don’t want to like.

OK.

Make this out to be like let’s just attack Matt all day long, OK and and and and you know. But I I do think that.

No. No, I don’t. I don’t need, there’s other.

It is dangerous or it is it is unfair. Let’s just call it unfair. Let’s let’s just say it’s unfair when the person who.

Previous.

Is the E master gets to decide what counts and what doesn’t. I agree because. Because obviously we end up in a situation like this and and I look at why I know, I know the people with WP engine, they’re great people, they’re fantastic people and and and you know, and I’ve known I’ve seen people come and go from WP engines. I’ve I’ve, I’ve actually toured their their building in Austin, I’ve you know and and. And I I don’t understand like this attack from the inside like this and and let’s also consider let’s look at the aftermath of all this, right. I mean, and I don’t think that we’ve actually reached the aftermath. We’ve reached some of the aftermath.

I don’t. We’re not. We’re not there. We’re not there.

That that but. When somebody gets up and talks about how these private equity firms are hollowing out the open source community, what do you think has happened in the last week as a result of this presentation? Do you think this?

So I.

I’ll give you an A. Into that. Every time a big company invests any money in any firm, it’s a problem. So why are things that just happen in Canada that has nothing to do with WordPress and nothing to do with open sources Rogers Communications?

3. MHM. Mm-hmm. MHM.

Just spot beat out BC Enterprises to own Maple Leaf sports and entertainment for $4.7 billion.

MHM.

So they now own. 80% or 85% depending on the.

1. OK. Definitely a majority stakeholder. British thing by by far, yeah.

They will end up with 95% because the other minority owner, that’s a player Larry Tannenbaum has to sell his shares by next year by shareholder agreement. So they want the budget debt of 5% is owned by an equity. Firm. The reason I bring this up and I’ll show you where the the parallel is. Everybody’s screaming and saying ohh, that’s a telecom company got money. They shouldn’t be doing this and my response is. Who has $4.7 billion to invest in the sports franchise?

MHM. MHM.

You have to be a multi billionaire to get into that.

Right. So.

Let’s drive apparel. WP Engine is a hosting company who has major dollars who invest in infrastructure and I worked in that world. I was a major project.

MHM.

Leader and Team leader for a major hospital in Toronto and find services and IT for 21 years. Infrastructure is not for the. The cheap at heart, it’s expensive. What’s the? Money to invest.

Right. So.

Yeah.

The point I’m making is that parallel is the private equity firms have that kind of money, right? And you know, and I hate to point out the fact that WP engine was on the recommended.

Right.

WordPress hosting page which you pay for, right, right. They would not be in this mess.

Yeah, yeah.

For sure. I mean there’s, there’s also and this is, you know, pure, pure, pure speculation. But I’m sure you’ve heard the buzz, which is there has to be more to this than any. Of us know, I think it’s personal. I you know, I I don’t really know what my opinion is on it. It it sure feels like it. But. But I don’t have any evidence or anything to prove one way or the other, but I will say that. It sure feels like. It and and I’m I mean I’m. Not close with. With Matt, I’ve spoken to him once in my life and and so you know, I.

Which?

I don’t know and and it could be it could be a personal thing. All I know is once again. Is is that if you are the big protector of open source that you say you are, then you’re protective of the humans too. And that is not getting up on stage and saying if you know if the company you work for, you know, threatens to fire you or whatever. Come talk to me and I’ll take care of it. I’m talking about. You don’t do anything detrimental to the community that that puts their their livelihoods in jeopardy and that is part of open source too. And it’s not just the code.

In my opinion. Matt is not a strong leader. Strong leaders do not have to bully users. These, and this is to me, a bully tactic.

MHM, yeah. Oh oh, sure, yeah.

And the biggest problem here is. So you and I were talking about this before, and we’ve talked a. Couple of times before. We what I call the WordPress course people so we know WordPress takes let’s call 46% is that the phone number, the Internet. Ohh did that. I did have 46%. I’ll bet you 1% are the core people. The people like you the people.

Sure.

Me people like her friend Todd Jones are Devinder Singh. Can or?

MHM.

Like. Whatever the people like, the Brian gardeners, the people are hosting, companies who are all boots on the ground, all the 45% of the users, they’re less about all this garbage this. And here’s the problem.

MHM. Yeah.

Yeah.

What Matt did. By turning off updates impacted those other 45%, even though they had nothing to. Do with any of this.

Right. Well, of course, that’s assuming they’re all WP engine customers, but they’re not. But I. But but your point is, is certainly, you know valid, you know, there were a lot of people yesterday that are that are like, why is my site not updating? I need I have the security update that needs to be done and and you know.

What’s up on?

Once again, not being a lawyer, but it sure feels actionable to me, you know? And and. And I think once you get to be at a certain age, you just kind of get a feeling for what’s actionable and what’s not. And this kind of feels, you know, actionable to me and. And so what’s going to happen, you know, I I’m just waiting. I I tweeted yesterday. How long is it going to be before the ambulance chasers are like, hey, yeah, you know how you know, how long is it gonna be before they’re like?

I saw that it’s already there.

Did your site go down because you couldn’t reach a certain repository? Well, let us help and it’s gonna happen. It’s just a matter of time. And and you know I I.

I had. There was one WordPress user. Ohh, what’s her first name? Oh oh, bought. And I know him. Well, so here’s the problem we. Supports Community WordPress sites in Florida, and there’s a hurricane coming. So where did he spend his night last night? Made his center babysitting to make sure they could handle stuff.

Yeah.

I mean Oh my God. Like seriously, I missed this. I mean, we’re not playing with people’s lives here.

Yeah, yeah.

And that’s my problem. So we know we gotta fix the governance you and I have talked about that. Right. I’m not. My problem is I’m not so sure we’ve hit the community so hard. I don’t know what this is repaired. I have to ask.

Yeah. Alright.

Well, I you know, I. I think that it is repairable and and I’ve you know I’ve thought about it. And of course I’ve talked to. A lot of. People and and I think that that the way it’s repairable is. I’m going to use an analogy, OK? And and almost every analogy or metaphor that I use has to do with parenting, right? A a good parent?

Yes.

Has a child. OK, in this particular case, we’re going to call the community a child, right? As a child. OK, after a certain age, you. You’ve built up this child. You’ve taught them everything you know. You’ve taught them whatever. And then if you’re a good. You say I’ve done everything I can with this child and now my role with this child is to be there for support. But my child has all the lessons they have all their own personality. They have all their own drive and ambitions and and all these things and I want so badly for my child to do better than I ever did.

Yep.

And as a result of that, I need to step aside. Now. And stay in my lane, which might be as a grandparent one day, or it may be as a confidant or or, you know, or a giver of wisdom. If you’re lucky, they’ll come to you for some, you know, some wisdom now and then. But I am no longer taking an active role. In my child’s life on a day-to-day basis, if I’m a good parent, this is what I. I do and I look at my own kids. I have a son now who’s 19 years old. He’s in his second year of college, and I know, I know, he’s going to go on to do greater things. I talked to him maybe two or three times a week. I used to talk to him every single day. He’s got his own life. He’s got his own. Friends, you know, I don’t take as active of a of a role in his life as I used to, but I know he’s gonna go on, and he’s gonna do great things. He’ll do greater things than I ever. Did. And and. And. Man, that’s awesome and for me to be able to sit back and say I had something to do with that. I mean, that’s my legacy, right? So my my only thing here is what, what’s repair, what makes this repairable is honestly if. If Matt would let go of the past, maybe and say, look, I’ve built this awesome community and look at what this project has turned into and and all of this and now I need to step away from the foundation side of things. And I can continue to run automatic. I can continue to run wordpress.com and focus my attention on that, but somebody else needs to run this because. I put I I. Get to sit back and my legacy is going to be. I put everything I had into that. I did everything I could with it, and then someone took it and ran with it. And it grew, and it thrived. And people will remember this is a little blip in history, but they but they’ll remember more importantly. You know what WordPress became and here.

And a guy who did that, actually. Was Bill Gates, which Microsoft?

Right, right. Look at that. Look, everyone thought that when he left and it did, it took a little, you know, nose dive for a little bit and then now look at what it is.

We have. Both him and his co-founder are long gone long.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So one more course.

And well, Apple too. And you get right down to it. I mean, all the The thing is. And these are people with huge egos. It’s not that they didn’t have the ego, it’s just that they they had something. Something made them say, OK, I’ve done everything that I can. And I remember the first time that I saw something really awesome like this happen was actually I I grew up in the LA area. And when Tommy was sort of stepped down and and and everyone.

Oh yeah.

Who’s into baseball knows that Tommy Lasorda, you know, one of the greatest baseball coaches that that, you know, ever coached the. And he went through a period with the Dodgers, and he said, you know what? I reached, I retired or I. I left the team because I realized that I had done everything I could with this team. And and I think that that’s where we’re at, but that takes a tremendous amount of putting your own ego aside. You look at, you know, even if you look at like, I don’t want to get into like American politics, but you you look at like whether you like the guy or not or for whatever reason. How often does a political candidate who is the current sitting president say you know what? This is bigger than me. I need to step aside and and and I think that. I think that a lot of confidence could be restored in the open source community if the board of the foundation got restructured. And actually was run more like the board of a nonprofit foundation. And I I think it would be really easy to get the community to buy in because we actually do buy into the code we do buy into like all our, all the community itself. We just are not currently buying into the person who holds all the keys to.

The Kingdom on both sides restructuring the. Board. Where else do?

Hmm.

You think need to do to bring this community back together because. We’ve been going through this for a couple of years now. It started with an attack GoDaddy two years ago.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s right. We remember that and now this and all the little chicken fighting that’s been going on. And as you guys will tell, that is Slack looks like a bomb went. Off and on.

Ohh my goodness. Ohh my goodness, it’s crazy yeah.

It’s crazy. So what do we do to fix this? There’s a lot of hard. Feelings going on too right now.

1. Boy, I wish I had a really I’m not a, not only am I not a lawyer, but I’m not. A psychologist.

Yeah, I know. Yeah.

But you know it it it. It feels like a lot of this stuff that’s going on right now with kind of the the. Infighting or or the disagreements or what? But they’re all kind of, you know, I would say that those are symptoms of the bigger problem and and and it’s not that it’s not that I say sweep them under the rug and and they’ll go away. I I just really feel like if we take care of the the the real underlying problem.

Every.

The rest of the stuff I think you know everybody is is reasonable. You know we’re we’re all reasonable people and we all want the same thing and we all believe in the same thing and you know we do actually have more in common than we don’t. It’s just right now we’re in a situation where. Where lines are being drawn and and I think if you if you remove the fundamental. Issue those lines will go away and you know we can go, we can go back to having healthy discussions and healthy, even healthy heated discussions. Heated discussions are fine as long as they’re healthy and and you know I I I’m not saying. That that’s the end all be all resolution. But nothing’s perfect and nothing ever will be so. But. But right now, we’re certainly. We’re certainly not looking at progress at this week. I mean, I was, it was so funny when I drove in this morning, you know, I’ve got my playlist and it’s just a bunch of random songs. And so I have, like a very wide range of musical tastes and, you know, so it’s 80s music, some of it’s whatever. And so I’m. I’m. Driving in and the first song is, you know, cool, and the gang celebrate good times, right? So I’m like, I’m listening to that. And then the very next song is talking heads burning down the house. And I’m like, that’s how my word camp US. Experience was I went in celebrating all happy and everything, and I left with the house burning down. I mean, it was like that was that’s that was my playlist for apparently for for where camp US and and that’s relevant to nothing we’ve been talking about other than I feel like it’s had a huge. This this going from an extreme high to an extreme. Low causes causes people to react and and we’re in this reactionary state right now that that we need to get. You know, Mike, I had mentioned to you before the show, I tend to get really snarky.

Mm-hmm.

You know that’s that’s. You know, it’s not a stage of grief necessarily, but for me, sarcasm and snark feels like a stage of grief. You know, I, I, I get really snarky and then I get really sad and and I’m already starting to feel this, like, sadness overcome me of, like, the impact that it’s going to have on. On so many people because.

Is.

You know, because of something that really didn’t, it really didn’t need to happen.

No, it’s true. I posted a tweet this morning and I I really think it’s important. And that will paraphrase it was basically, I know we’re all going through a tough time, but being. That the people right now.

Always, yeah.

Amanda. Don’t say stuff. You’re on them open, like, walk away. Walk away from the cube. Walk away from slack. Walk away from your phone.

Yeah.

No, I went to bed last. My and my head hurts so hard. I spent 45 minutes watching Monday nights. The voice episode just to ignore everything because I was. I was done, Mark.

There.

Moving forward, what else should we do?

I I think we need to continue to figure out ways to have community events, you know, and and do things to bring people together. I I’ve never been a huge fan of online meetups, but and and this is no different than what I said, you know, in my in my talk, you know, we need to continue to. Have that, that human. That because sitting behind a keyboard puts us in our own ivory towers. And and and puts us out of touch with with people and. And you know, even though there was a dark cloud at the end of where camp. Yes. I’m so glad I went. I saw some people. I had a great time. I, you know, I it’s it’s it’s always just so neat to see. Friends see you know how they’ve grown and where they’re doing, where they are and what they’re doing. And and all that. And I think we just need to keep doing more than that. We need to kind of go back to square one with with wisdom, right. So we have, we, we we know the formula that works, but now we’ve got wisdom. So let’s take that wisdom. And and take what works and build upon that.

And let’s keep working on the community and the people involved. I actually think in the next couple of months this will resolve itself. I don’t think it’s going to have an overnight resolution. So motions are running too high right now.

M.

I don’t even think you’ll see a courtroom. I think it will.

No, I I think that right now this is I think that the posturing is going to continue to go on. That’s my prediction. But I also you know. I don’t know. I didn’t even think it would get this this bad, but but that was. But I will say that was before I saw the the cease and desist letter that was put out by the the law firm that belongs to WP engine. Once I saw that, then I knew, you know. It’s your podcast, so I can say this. I I I knew this ship’s getting real so.

It’s OK, it’s OK because the. The title episode for this podcast is going to be the WP **** show, so the. So whatever you want.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it definitely. It definitely feels like one. But yeah, I mean, don’t just, you know, remember to hug your loved ones and everything and and remember that they’re bigger things than us out there. But yeah, be kind to another each other. Absolutely. That’s something we always have to. Number and and that is something that I admit when I get snarky I I tend to forget. And so thank you for the reminder.

And and as we end, I kind of want to say I appreciate the WordPress community. I have a lot of friends and a lot of places including that automatic.

Yeah, yeah.

The the tough spot. I appreciate you for coming on once again in your friendship and I hope everybody to take a step back and think about would you like that said to you and that that real hard to hey Mark, you have a wonderful day. And thanks for the chat. As always my friend.

Yeah.

Of course, of course. All right. Thank you. Thank you very much.