It’s such a huge plugin, I frankly don’t think I’m up to it. It will take someone with serious skills.
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ACF Pro was “forked” or nulled by wordpress dot org and is now part of the repository as SCF.
Here is the video:
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that is old news… It was done several weeks ago.
And basically it’s the same plugin so it has the same issues as ACF with CP.
Since WP and CP are slowly diverging it will work less and less during time needing adjustments.
That is why it was proposed to fork it above. Forking it entirely would allow the developer to bring it up to speed with CP and maintain it with CP in mind.
However it is indeed very true that the plugin is a HUGE one and it’s not a one man show to maintain it. Also it will take a team of very competent developers to maintain it.
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The old news is the free ACF. The recent one is the ACF Pro rebundled and offered for free in the repository.
It is detrimental to the wp ecosystem but an opportunity for cp.
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Thanks for the video share - this is escalating fast. Looking into ‘Pods’ today as I might move my ACF Pro based page builder to another plugins given this development. Been a long time ACF user (with the unlimited, lifetime license) but could see trouble coming when WP Engine bought Delicious Brains…
I didn’t know that it was the pro one. Well me thinks that is really a bad move.
@jayguntor
Correct, but you are jumping to confusions regarding ACF and ACF Pro. Both continue to be supported by WP Engine, who is the rightful owner of ACF (from the original developer).
We have a few clients using both ACF and ACF Pro, and they can be fully updated via their website:
But yeah, it was a horrible move by WordPress to completely hijack someone else’s plugin. How can developers ever be safe submitting their plugins on WP?
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If you are a WP Engine, Flywheel or ACF PRO customer, you do not need to take any action and will continue to get the latest from the ACF team.
If you have a site managed elsewhere using ACF, in order to get ACF updates you must perform a one-time download of the latest genuine version to remain safe in the future.
You do not need to find a replacement for ACF nor ACF Pro. See my comments above.
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That is a somewhat low move to highjack a paid plugin, and though maybe more of a stance on the GPLv2 license, any developer should be raising an eyebrow at it. Personally I did the one time download thing and even though only using the free version, planned to stay the course with using the WPEngine versions.
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I don’t see anything in that video that indicates how ACF Pro is/was licensed. The commentary talks about the removal of WPE’s copyright notice in SCF, but I couldn’t see one in ACF Pro to begin with.
So I suspect ACF Pro is licensed under GPL v2 or v3, in which case everything reported in the video would be completely legal.
It looks like a terrible business move, though, and many people won’t consider it ethical. Will it bring the WP ecosystem crashing down? Not at first, but I think we’ll see some more significant changes unless Matt is ousted or has guardrails imposed on him. The way he’s going, he might soon have a court injunction against him that does just that.
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@IntentionWebDesign (Nick) sorry for hijacking your thread. I couldn’t help mention the recent events of ACF Pro when you mentioned about it. Welcome to CP btw. Although I am not from the UK, but my son is based in Plymouth.
@Web242 the opportunity I was talking about for CP is to establish a repository that is developer safe.
@timkaye since the ACF Pro is now available as SCF (Secure Custom Fields) in the wordpress dot org repository, you can now explore SCF’s compatibility with CP 
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I did not either Tim, or should I say I did not even watch the video.
My point was more in line with your statement that nothing ‘illegal’ is being done, but that does not mean it won’t stir shit big time.
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@EliteStarServices I didn’t see your comment before I posted mine; I agree completely with you!
Yes, that irony was not lost on me! 
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About the repo that is safe for devs, we already have the dir. No need for repos. No costs to maintain them. No legal issues.
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Some context, we were discussing the SCF plugin and the idea that it is a fork of the Pro version of ACF. It is not. It is a fork of ACF free without all paid features that WPE supplies in the Pro version.
see here
just as I suspected, they could not fork the paid version because:
1 - paid version is not hosted in the repo
2 - forking pro version while it could technically and legally be possible is a really bad move. I am not saying forking the free one is not a bad move, but forking the pro would have been a way worse move.
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Free version: Advanced Custom Fields (ACF®) – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org
Pro version: Secure Custom Fields – WordPress plugin | WordPress.org
You can download and open the files to see the PRO files. The repeater field is available in the second one. That is a paid feature for ACF.
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… that is madness. Ok initially they forked the free one, now they are porting the paid features in it for free? and if we get to make it work with CP we do have ACF pro free for CP?
Technically it is not forbidden to fork if license allows it, so legally they are safe in a way. Fact is this is a really bad business ethics (but we already established that)
@timkaye would we be legally in trouble for forking SCF eventually or can we do that and make eventual changes to it to make it work with CP? I mean, it’s born within a legal dispute as a way for Matt to get back at WPE out of spite…
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@timkaye is interested to make it run under CP rather than fork it. Let the “good guys” do the support
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makes sense… less risky, less problems with a huge codebase.
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