ACF taken over by WP after WPE locked out of wordpress.org

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baldidiot

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For those of you who use Advanced Custom Fields, this is a bit of a mess: https://www.advancedcustomfields.com/blog/acf-plugin-no-longer-available-on-wordpress-org/

Basically WP have locked WPE out of wordpress.org and taken over ACF with a name change to Secure Custom Fields (but using the same previous code and plug in page). If you update ACF via WP it will be to the new wordpress.org SCF version and no longer be Advanced Custom Fields.

It sounds like if you want to keep ACF then you need to manually update to the non-WP depository version.

Background info: https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/10/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained/
 
Noticed. My photography site, Tales from the Trees, uses ACF Pro a lot. It's actually pissed me off. The guy is lunatic and needs to be removed from the community. I got an email from ACF today to tell me to use their one time download (I guess to change the repo link it pulls updates from).
 
If you're using ACF Pro I think you should be OK because it updates via the ACF server anyway, it's only the free version.

The whole thing is just such a mess, especially the way they're effectively stealing the old plug in code to "fork" it.
 
baldidiot said:
If you're using ACF Pro I think you should be OK because it updates via the ACF server anyway, it's only the free version.
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This is confirmed (by me), and the fact that PRO has only ever been available from the ACF (now WP Engine) servers.
 
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Apparently there is a vulnerability in ACF also, not sure if it is public
 
Hook said:
Apparently there is a vulnerability in ACF also, not sure if it is public
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That apparently SCF (Secure Custom Fields) implemented a fix for. Something to do with $_REQUEST, I believe.

I quite like how the twitter community have adopted the name of Stolen Custom Fields for SCF, though. Predominantly because they just bastardised the existing ACF listing, inheriting the ACF slug and all count stats for reviews, installs, etc, whereas they should have forked it to a new plugin, starting from version 1.
 
seemly said:
That apparently SCF (Secure Custom Fields) implemented a fix for. Something to do with $_REQUEST, I believe.

I quite like how the twitter community have adopted the name of Stolen Custom Fields for SCF, though. Predominantly because they just bastardised the existing ACF listing, inheriting the ACF slug and all count stats for reviews, installs, etc, whereas they should have forked it to a new plugin, starting from version 1.
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Stolen Custom Fields lmao. He should have seen that one coming.
 
You'll also love that somebody then secured the domain securecustomfields.com, then redirected this to advancedcustomfields.com

Somebody made an oopsie there.
 
The thing is, people could fork the whole thing and start fresh - but it won't happen, and Matt knows it.

If he can get away with ACF fork, I think all WPE leverage is gone - I mean, ACF was the thing that effected most WP users who do more than just basic blogging - so any changes to this would have an impact.

Looks like he softened the blow with Stolen Custom Fields lol.
 
Hook said:
The thing is, people could fork the whole thing and start fresh - but it won't happen, and Matt knows it.
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From a developers perspective, WordPress is absolutely disgusting to work with.

Even more so since the introduction of Gutenberg and their bastardised version of early React JS, making use of Block Serialisation Markers to generate the HTML structure of blocks.

It's a huge monolithic mess of spaghetti code, mainly to ensure backward compatibility, but that brings with it a poor development experience.

If a fork of WordPress was ever to have happened, it should have been at the point they decided they wanted to move away from pure PHP, and head down the path of Gutenberg and the FSE (full-site editing) experience.
 
seemly said:
You'll also love that somebody then secured the domain securecustomfields.com, then redirected this to advancedcustomfields.com

Somebody made an oopsie there.
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Saw that on Reddit hahaha
 
seemly said:
If a fork of WordPress was ever to have happened, it should have been at the point they decided they wanted to move away from pure PHP, and head down the path of Gutenberg and the FSE (full-site editing) experience.
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That's ClassicPress in a nutshell, no?
 
seemly said:
From a developers perspective, WordPress is absolutely disgusting to work with.

Even more so since the introduction of Gutenberg and their bastardised version of early React JS, making use of Block Serialisation Markers to generate the HTML structure of blocks.

It's a huge monolithic mess of spaghetti code, mainly to ensure backward compatibility, but that brings with it a poor development experience.

If a fork of WordPress was ever to have happened, it should have been at the point they decided they wanted to move away from pure PHP, and head down the path of Gutenberg and the FSE (full-site editing) experience.
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As @blort said, that is already available, and few people switched because the money is in Wordpress, and ongoing development etc.


I'm not going to switch because of WPE/Matt fighting, doesn't effect my business or my life - and I think most WP users think the same (unless you are a WPE customer, then you should probably switch hosting)
 
blort said:
That's ClassicPress in a nutshell, no?
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Oh for sure! Yes, sorry, I know about ClassicPress.

I meant under a more official capacity.

The more modern Gutenberg version should have been a chance to rewrite the platform from scratch, as I'm sure they had plenty of learnings they could have implemented, and it would have meant they could be more forward thinking rather than always thinking about backward compatibility.

FSE is not the most intuitive user experience. Most non-tech users still struggle with the UI that has been around for near 20 years.
 
Hook said:
I'm not going to switch because of WPE/Matt fighting, doesn't effect my business or my life - and I think most WP users think the same (unless you are a WPE customer, then you should probably switch hosting)
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This isn't always a viable option when you need a hosting service that can provide the correct ISO accreditations for Enterprise based businesses.
 
seemly said:
This isn't always a viable option when you need a hosting service that can provide the correct ISO accreditations for Enterprise based businesses.
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There is many competitors of WPE who can offer the correct ISO accreditation for hosting WordPress sites... In 2024, we do not lack hosting providers, the hard part is filtering out the bad ones :)
 
Hook said:
There is many competitors of WPE who can offer the correct ISO accreditation for hosting WordPress sites... In 2024, we do not lack hosting providers, the hard part is filtering out the bad ones :)
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Maybe now, but maybe not when companies originally chose WP Engine to host their websites.

Also, you may be correct, but I don't really see why companies should feel forced to change web hosts, and incur those costs, purely because the founder of open source software has decided he wants 8% gross revenue of a company that he invested in 2011 because he doesn't feel they invest enough back into the core framework. That's not how open source works.

I'm not interested in arguing about something that I have no bearing on, I just wanted to highlight that your suggestion is overly simplified.
 
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Fuck Matt though, basically. What a degenerate fucking moron. We need to stop allowing these idiots to have a platform. Matt if only 1 of 3 votes on the foundation, the other two could probably remove him. It should happen. He's a moron. What is his actual problem? Does he not have enough money? Have you read this latest post? It's absolutely embarrassing, guy sounds like a total egomaniac swinging his micro penis about in public.

ma.tt

Response to DHH

I’ll just remind everyone at the start that this is a respectful debate, and DHH and I tried to get on a call but couldn’t because we were both traveling. However, “Automattic is…
ma.tt ma.tt
 
Hook said:
If he can get away with ACF fork, I think all WPE leverage is gone - I mean, ACF was the thing that effected most WP users who do more than just basic blogging - so any changes to this would have an impact.

Looks like he softened the blow with Stolen Custom Fields lol.
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but let's be clear, he didnt fork it, he /stole/ it, it isnt a fork, he literally just took it over and renamed it. Abhorrent and a clear warning for any other developer that has been contributing - good will has gone, Automattic can do the worst thing the terms allow and get away with it.
 
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