Matt Mullenweg and WordPress Hijack the Advanced Custom Fields Plugin
Matt Mullenweg and WordPress Hijack the Advanced Custom Fields Plugin
A bit of background, for those not steeped in the world of WordPress development: there exists a plugin called Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) which allows developers to create near-endless customization options for end clients in the standard page and post editor. It is hard to explain in a single par...
Statement by ACF: https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-plugin-no-longer-available-on-wordpress-org/
Statement by Matt: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/secure-custom-fields/
Additional comments by Theo: https://youtu.be/grZg-BEhKMI
The really hilarious part is that he's hijacking the link to ACF.
The link that contains the ACF trademark, since WPEngine owns the trademark.
So, the guy mad about trademark infringement is.... busy hijacking links and committing trademark infringement?
Good show, I'm sure his lawyers are VERY happy about this one.
People like this aren't usually rational, they've just snapped for whatever reason and are doing whatever makes sense in their own head at the time.
Wordpress is seizing plugins now? Jesus, they really are speedrunning the enshittification pipeline.
My personal site runs on Wordpress, and even though I'm not directly affected by this, I'm definitely moving off. I use other plugins, and for all I know, they might seize those ones tomorrow and start pushing changes.
Do you have a replacement in mind already?
No. My site is a semi-hosted instance (they have turnkey applications, but also give shell access and a lot of flexibility) so I'm going to see what they have for easy deployment first. A static page generator if nothing else looks useful.
Honestly, there's not much on the site, so I might just take it down entirely.
Yep - I’ve done both volunteer/free and professional work with WordPress, but after all of this drama that Matt has caused, I’ll be abandoning the platform for all future work. Too much uncertainty that happened at the drop of a hat, due to one person’s actions. Cant justify ever recommending that to anyone and feel like I’m presenting a sustainable and supportable option. Bummer too, since for certain use cases, it checks a lot of boxes.
Not a lawyer (maybe there's one reading this thread or monitoring this drama): are there grounds here for a class action lawsuit against either Wordpress.com/Automattic/Wordpress.org or Matt directly?
Plz make wix studio ads stop!