authentictech

@skylabb

Now that I have just seen the recent temporary court injunction in favour of WP Engine, I am reminded to reply.

I’m happy to give a justification for all my statements (although I don’t think I should need to because I am objecting based on facts, not subjective opinions).

1) My justification for using the word “hijack” is from the dictionary definition: “to seize by force or threat of force”

2) My use of the phrase “have no right”…

Automattic can do what it likes to block WP Engine from using the www.remarpro.com site.

Automattic can fork open source plugins according to the terms of use of those licenses. 

What they have no right to do is this: 

If I have installed a plugin on *my* website called “Advanced Custom Fields” by a developer called “WP Engine”, Automattic should not cause a different plugin, made by *other* developers besides the ones I decided to trust, to be installed on *my* website as a result of me clicking the “update” button. An update button, to any reasonable mind, would be expected only to update to a newer version of the *same* plugin provided by the *same* original developers. To change this behaviour without providing knowledge or obtaining explicit consent and making it unmistakably obvious what will happen is wrong. Even if they have terms of service that allow them to take over a plugin (I prefer a forking approach) that does not allow them to install it without consent. Matt / WordPress did not do this.

Any terms that allow this are dangerous and foolish, in my opinion, because it provides a situation where end users grant trust too broadly and are not in full control of what ends up on their websites. There is also an implied trust that this sort of thing would not happen based on common expectations. If these expectations can be subverted and changed at any time by simply changing the ToS, it opens up too many possibilities that users are not in control, or aware, of. No one can reasonably be expected to check the ToS every time they update their website’s plugins just to make sure that the terms have not changed to allow something else to happen.

Even if the terms do exist and are longstanding, during the process of downloading and installing WordPress or plugins I have not seen, nor have I ever been asked to agree to, any terms. If ToS allow a repository owner to dictate who can provide updates to software besides those who originally provided the software which the user downloaded, it is a big oversight not to make these terms front and centre at points of download, install and/or update.

There is also a long-established software development principle called “The Principle of Least Astonishment“. I think that applies well here. I saw no reason to believe that the plugin would be replaced when I clicked on update because, for years prior doing this action, doing so had resulted in the plugin being updated with a new version provided by the same developers. I saw no reason to think anything other than this would happen.

The only legitimate option in this scenario – or should I say ethical – given that my websites are my property and only I have the right to determine what does and does not get installed on them, is to attempt to notify?website owners beforehand by all available means informing us that the plugin ACF is no longer maintained, has been closed and is no longer updatable, and that an equivalent, forked version is now available via a *separate* download/install action.?In fact, a notification would not even have been necessary since an update error would have sufficed enough to cause a website owner to look into the matter, find out the cause, and then make a decision themselves as to whether to switch to the new plugin or not.

I understand that the word “hijack” is an emotive one; however, it is apt for such an action. I do not know of any other software repository where projects are forcibly taken over rather than closed/forked. The reason why they don’t do this is because of the software development principle I mentioned above and a desire not to subvert users’ reasonable expectations. It erodes trust. Software will often update automatically from a repository without user intervention.?Users will have developed a relationship of trust (for good or bad) with the original software vendor. People do not like to suddenly find that the software they installed has suddenly changed to another software or another vendor – even for supposed ethical or security reasons. This may feel subjectively to some as a positive action, but to me and others it appears subjectively as a negative action. In either case, objectively, it is a hijack (a seizure/takeover by force/without permission).

You obviously have a (subjective) disagreement with the involvement of for-profit companies in the WordPress eco-system. It is your right to hold that opinion but that has no bearing on this particular matter. You would need to broach with Matt and the WordPress Foundation. There are many for-profit companies in the WordPress eco-system and forbidding them from participating in WordPress community will have far-reaching and long-lasting effects on many people, especially if it is commonly handled in the same way Matt handled this issue with WP Engine. I don’t think that would be a good idea.

@skylabb Accusations and denials / refutations have been posted by both sides. Which posts? You are being unhelpfully vague. “What more proof do you need?” You have not provided any. Give the specific bad actions you alluded to.

“No business?” Indeed! The WP Policy is unrelated to the matter of whether or not it is appropriate for you to besmirch a company publicly without providing any details / proof / evidence.

My problem is with your vague claims. You could have said what WP Engine were “doing with the plugin” rather than leaving it at that vague accusation. As it stands, I am only aware from various posts concerning Matt’s claims about trademarks and lack of contributions and support for WordPress, not about any nefarious actions taken within the ACF plugin itself which is, to me, a more serious issue. Many people are still using the ACF plugin and if the plugin itself has issues via the developers, or may do so in future, you should let people know about it rather than simply allude to it vaguely.

@robertzollner Why did the company file suit? I think you will find that Matt initiated the aggression which they only filed suit to stop. You seem to be trying to portray it as the other way around.

@antimimin

1. No that is not illegal. It is arguable that it is even a trademark violation.
2. ACF was always free. ACF PRO was never hosted on WordPressdotorg and is a different commercial product hosted on WP Engine’s websites.

@skylabb A legitimate fork would use a different project slug. This is a hijack.

You have no business besmirching WP Engine’s activity with the free plugin unless you can state exactly what you mean and justify it with evidence.

@websiteadm The link you provided does not contain a CF7 form.

The contact form on the linked page you provided is the Mailchimp for WordPress plugin. To style this form you will need to apply different CSS selector but you should ask in the support forum for the MC4WP plugin.

I can see that your contact page at https://irinasopas.com/contacto/ does use CF7 plugin and the style is working as given below:

div#wpcf7-f16415-p21468-o1 {
  max-width: 50% !important;
  margin: 0 auto;
}

It is not clear, therefore, exactly what you are asking for.

Thank you but, in the meantime, I would still like to revert as the customer depends on a working version.

I noticed instructions on an older post about a setting that deletes data completely but this option does not seem to exist any more. Can you confirm this?

I will update to the latest full release when it becomes available through the usual update channels.

@xenoveni There was no solution as such besides trying it multiple times and working on one attempt.

I tried the plugin once again on another website with the same problem: It will fail multiple times and then work but there were, on each occasion, days between attempts to work.

I concluded that the plugin is not reliable enough for my use, so I have not used it since. Also, as you can see, I got no help from the developers in this forum.

I do not know if there is a paid version that would be more reliable or with which you can obtain proper support. I checked just now but the website is down for me with the following message: “The website you are trying to reach is unavailable due to security measures in place which restrict unauthorized access. The request was unfortunately blocked by our system because the requested domain is not authorized on Cloudways server i.e. The domain has been successfully pointed to a Cloudways server but it is not mapped to an application.”

Perhaps that tells you what you need to know about whether or not to use this plugin.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by authentictech. Reason: spelling

The migration worked this morning although it didn’t work several times over the last few days.

I’d still appreciate it if you could possibly tell me why it didn’t work previously as I would like to know if this it a reliable plugin that I could switch to using instead of alternatives.

Thank you.

Sorry for the late reply.

Deactivating the iframe media type solved the problem.

Does the section “How to make your block compatible with upgrade Version (3.0.0)” on the plugin front page not solve this?

@whoudini Thanks!

This has enabled me to fix the problem. I found the errant code in TwentyNineteen’s style-editor.css which I could then override in my own stylesheet and load it using the add_editor_style function.

Not only was the max-width rule too wide but the left rule was pushing the blocks off the left side of the screen by as much as -248.367px!

I’d love to understand why the theme editors added those rules but I’m very happy I could fix it.

Thanks again.

@meshalbalobaid Please create a new forum post for your own question. It is the best and quickest way to get an answer. Thanks.

Yes, I can see now what I need to do to link users to employees. Thank you for your help.

This is also true when creating users from the ShiftController > Administration > Users screen.