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Comment by denislour | Hacker News Reader

Wow, this is a big deal. Matt Mullenweg taking over ACF like that? Not cool. It's not just about messing with years of hard work, but think about all those WordPress sites now running code the ACF team didn't approve. Kinda scary when you think about it. Hope this doesn't become a trend in the open-source world.

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It needs to stop here.

And this is different from WP Engine modifying Wordpress exactly how?

Well, we can start with the fact that WP Engine hasn’t taken over any domain previously owned by Wordpress

WP engine never modified WordPress. They took stock Wordpress and edited a configuration file to disable revisions. They didn’t actually change any code.

I thought they'd also modified revisions to have a limit, instead of unlimited. Even when 'enabled', it's not how the rest of the wp installs would behave (iirc). Likely there was some code change there to enable that restriction.

No. They add the below to wp-config.php:

define ('WP_POST_REVISIONS', 3);

They use the parts of wordpress that are specifically built in to make modifications, as any other site maintainer would hosting their own install.

You are mistaken.

You're out here on HN acting completely unfamiliar with the idea of configuring to limit resource consumption?

Um, no: WP Engine changed a variable in wp-config

Let's be really, really clear here.

Matt might pontificate about "bastardizing and messing with" WordPress, but this is what he is actually referring to:

A. Single. Configuration. Option.

A. Changed. Default.

Post revisions are a configuration option in the admin panel. They are enabled by default. Some hosting providers (and I expect WPE is not the only one) set it to disabled by default.

That's it.

This is not remotely comparable.

Even without the ACF situation, Matt's description of WPE bastardizing the fundamental offering of WordPress is asinine at best, actively deceptive at worst (and that's where we seem to be, so far).

WP Engine modified their own WordPress installations.

WordPress.org modified third party WordPress installations.

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