Darnell (Seize The Day)

Image Credit: Night of the Living Dead

With WP Engine & Automattic officially waging a legal war against each other, I do not expect a civil end to this corporate pissing match. Assuming Matt Mullenweg can force WP Engine to pay a federal fine for violating WordPress's trademark (a real possibility), WP Engine could end up dragging this whole fiasco through federal appeals court (a process that could last years).

Doing so would not only enrich affluent lawyers but damage the brand of WordPress worldwide, resulting in regular folks and small businesses looking for the exits. This zero-sum end game would not benefit either Automattic or WP Engine in the long term.

This is why we will probably witness a rebrand by WP Engine and a zombie 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ fork of the WordPress code.

What The 🤬 Is A Zombie Fork‽ Why Not A Hard Fork‽

Before explaining why WP Engine will count the costs & consider a zombie fork over a hard fork, Chris Pearson of Thesis fame eloquently sums up why hard forking WordPress is unwise.

Chris Pearson's initial thoughts regarding the possibility of someone doing a soft fork or (what I would call) a zombie 🧟‍♂️ 🧟‍♀️ fork of WordPress are worth highlighting.

So what a lot of people are talking about right now is forking WordPress. Like, is WP Engine going to Fork WordPress, should other people Fork Wordpress. People have reached out to me asking if I want to be on the board of some new entity that they gonna have for running a new Fork of WordPress, this kind of thing.

So I'm gonna give my thoughts on the forking of WordPress. So if you are unfamiliar with open source software, forking is simply uh this idea that, so the software exists & is being run by group A & you decided that group A either isn't going to do the stuff you want to do, doesn't represent your interests, is it moving fast enough, there could be any reason you want & you decided to Fork the software.

So you take off, you...you take that piece of software, move it to a new jurisdiction where you have total control & from that point on, you...all the modifications to that software you're making & then you're responsible for that branch of software.

So, if I were to Fork WordPress (let's say I'd call it ChrisPress or something as an example), I would be responsible for the development of ChrisPress from there on out, and I could treat that however I wanted.

I could watch what WordPress is doing & just copy all the stuff that they've added & add that to each release (which is really lame), or I could go my own way & do that, which is kind of the deal with forking. [...]

What you know what people are talking about right now, they're basically going to mimic what WordPress is doing but under different leadership that they think will be less capricious than Matt Mullenweg. (Transcript excerpt between 0:11-1:35 from Chris Pearson on YouTube, emphasis mine)

Launching a zombie fork of WordPress would have the highest upside for WP Engine, as it would:

• Remove all legal obligations to the WordPress foundation & future licenses to Automattic
• Require zero intelligence or innovation, significantly reducing research & development costs
• Enrage Matt Mullenweg
• Allow seamless integration between WordPress themes & plugins
• Make it easier for current & future WP Engine customers who depend upon WordPress

A WordPress fork is also something Automattic fears, as it was oddly mentioned in a term sheet allegedly sent to WP Engine in an attempt to settle their disagreements behind the scenes.

Prohibition on “Forking.” WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying any of Automattic’s, WooCommerce’s, or its affiliates' software (including, but not limited to plugins and extensions) in a manner that disrupts any partnership between Automattic and its commercial partners. For example, WP Engine will refrain from changing attribution codes included in any software by Automattic. (Term Sheet by Automattic).

While creating a zombie fork would enrage the open-source community, ultimately, the end users who are not fluent in geek will not care as long as their website or small business runs without disruption.

In the end, a zombie fork would benefit both sides. WP Engine would be able to rebrand and openly mooch off of Matt Mullenweg's hard work for free, and @photomatt@mastodon.social would have an evil empire to rally the WordPress community against.

It would be similar to the feud between Apple and Alphabet (formerly known as Google), except much more emotional and brutal.

👨🏾‍💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day 📧 darnell@darnell.day

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