are the Boilerplate Busters:
the creators of Project Lombok
De Pont Museum of Contemporary Art in Tilburg is the proud owner of “Descent into Limbo” (Anish Kapoor, 1992). The installation consists of a 60 cm‑wide hole in the ground, containing a cavity painted in very dark blue colour. The shape and colour absorb nearly all visible light, resulting in a seemingly black, flat circle on the floor. Without light, no visible shape, flat nor infinitely deep.
More than a decade later, in 2014, Surrey NanoSystems released Vantablack, a coating that absorbs over 99.96% of all visible light. Initially it was created for stealth satellites. Immediately, Anish realized the potential in art for such a coating, and started experimenting. In 2016 he obtained the exclusive rights to use Vantablack for artistic purposes.
Artists were furious: Anyone should have access to this fabulous material!
As a reaction, artist Stuart Semple created “PINK”, a pigment of the pinkest pink. And he sold it without profit from his webshop, on one condition: Buyers would not be allowed to distribute PINK to Anish. Anish followed up with a fitting piece of art: A photograph of his extended middle finger covered in PINK.
All’s fair in love and war… and art? In “The Art of Software Development” (JFall ’23 keynote), Sander Mak concluded that software development is a combination of art and engineering. So, is this behaviour also fair in our industry?
WordPress, an Open Source project, allows us to explore this theory. The maintainers also own a for-profit company for WordPress hosting. According to them, one of their competitors, WPEngine, is not contributing enough. To remedy this perceived moral injustice, WordPress has assumed control of one of WPEngine’s popular plugins (as WordPress controls the plugin database). Logging in to wordpress.org even requires a legal declaration that you are not working for WPEngine.
In our opinion, getting rich off exploiting Open Source whilst contributing little in return is morally offensive. Stuart also perceived a moral wrong, and resorted to a dubious legal move of spiting one individual with a legal clause. WordPress is doing the same thing.
As both maintainers and users of Open Source software, we are offended by these shenanigans even more. The fight between WordPress and WPEngine now hurts every WordPress user and contributor.
WordPress is an example of a growing trend: A business model based on selling hosting or consultancy for the Open Source software they maintain. It comes with the risk that the company weaponises its control over the project to defend their profits, and you might get caught in the middle.
Apparently, Sander was right: Software Development is not just art. Choose your dependencies carefully. Make sure you have an exit strategy in case a maintainer gives you the finger.
Only in 2022 did Anish unveil his first Vantablack work. According to him, the whole controversy had been ridiculous. Vantablack was never a colour, but a complicated and sophisticated technology. Without him getting the rights, the art world would probably never have been able to use this scarce, advanced material. And Stuart developed Black 4.0, available to anyone. Except Anish Kapoor.
- The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained
- Descent into Limbo
- The Art of Software Development By Sander Mak
This column originally appeared in .nl.jug Java Magazine 01>2025