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Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

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Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#81

Post by DannyBee »

EMIRELADERO wrote: post #70
DannyBee wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few things: First, something general - one thing to keep in mind is that open source folks think of these things as license violations/etc, but that's not actually a thing, legally. Breach of contract and copyright infringement are. That is how a claim would be analyzed. Not as a "GPL violation". Why is this relevant? Well, you really have to think of this stuff as contracts to use a given copy of software, and not…

> Why is this relevant? Well, you really have to think of this stuff as contracts to use a given copy of software, and not as some abstract thing licensed or not. If you think about it in that way, copyright infringement is out of the picture completely because of the statutory exception. 17 U.S.C § 117 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs (a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—…

Err, no.

That statutory exemption was created to resolve one court case and one worry:

1. A holding that you can commit infringement simply by loading a program into memory even for maintenance purposes. This was MAI v. Peak, one of the earliest real court cases on software copyright infringement. It was unfortunately followed by lots of courts.

2. A worry that creating tape backups/etc of computers, and copies of software cd's (since they don't last forever) was copyright infringement independent of anything else.

See the report for more details: https://www.copyright.gov/reports/studies/dmca/sec-104-repor...

Neither would eliminate infringement in this case.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#82

Post by [deleted] »

DannyBee wrote: post #72
photomatt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agreement wasn't about their license to the code, it was about their license to the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. They could agree to not do things allowed under the GPL, like replacing our Stripe attribution, it's their right to. Or not.

"The agreement wasn't about their license to the code," Maybe you misread it (or miswrote it i guess)? it says: "WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying any of Automattic’s, WooCommerce’s, or its affiliates' software (including, but not limited to plugins and extensions) ..." It could not more plainly say that they cannot fork or modify software .

[deleted]

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#83

Post by JimDabell »

photomatt wrote: post #52
DataDive wrote: post #20

That's what going "nuclear" looks like ... I guess Mullenweg found out. Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers.

Silver Lake and WPE's legal attacks may impact my ability to provide free services on WordPress.org in the future, especially things like Slack or forums that are grounds for discovery. I hope not, though. Going to fight this with everything I have.

> especially things like Slack or forums that are grounds for discovery

You know comments here and on Twitter can end up as evidence in court as well, right?

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#84

Post by photomatt »

aimazon wrote: post #62
photomatt wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silver Lake and WPE's legal attacks may impact my ability to provide free services on WordPress.org in the future, especially things like Slack or forums that are grounds for discovery. I hope not, though. Going to fight this with everything I have.

[flagged]

Thanks, I carry a co2 and carbon monoxide monitor. Co2 where I'm at is 572.

I do own a place in Montana, and I meditate several times a day. I have not threatened to take down WordPress.org. WPE's preservation requests do complicate things, legally, though, for the Slack and forums that W.org offers.

Both Cloudflare and Fastly have reached out offering CDN services to W.org, which we're considering. Cloudflare also serves a lot of WP Engine. We do like controlling our infrastructure, though, for a variety of reasons, and have run it without problems or downtime for 21 years. Currently the only outside vendor we use is Slack/Salesforce, which donates free Slack Pro accounts for 49k users. (I think that would cost ~5M/yr.) We also use some Github, which is free for open source.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#85

Post by sroussey »

FireBeyond wrote: post #36
anonylizard wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automattic requested well over $10 million annually from WP Engine, so WP engine would find a lawyer battle cheaper.

To go to Matt’s for profit entity, for his for profit entity to direct as they wish. “I demand you give resources to your for profit competitor for them to use as they wish. And I’ll pretend to be wearing my non-profit, independent hat while demanding it.” Is it any surprise this has gone the way it has?

OR to the non-profit entity.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#86

Post by jasonlotito »

DannyBee wrote: post #72
photomatt wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The agreement wasn't about their license to the code, it was about their license to the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. They could agree to not do things allowed under the GPL, like replacing our Stripe attribution, it's their right to. Or not.

"The agreement wasn't about their license to the code," Maybe you misread it (or miswrote it i guess)? it says: "WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying any of Automattic’s, WooCommerce’s, or its affiliates' software (including, but not limited to plugins and extensions) ..." It could not more plainly say that they cannot fork or modify software .

"The agreement wasn't about their license to the [GPL] code,"

And

"WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying [non GPL code]"

You are misreading it.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#87

Post by Mystery-Machine »

photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Since you're trying to get WP Engine to pay for "WordPress" trademark, by contributing back to open-source, because you feel they should, since it made them rich, I was wondering how many open-source projects did Automattic contribute to financially? Aside from WordPress, I'm sure you stand on the shoulders of giants such as Linux, nginx, MySQL, JavaScript libraries (or maybe you should call it ECMAScript, because you're not paying any trademark fees), etc.?

Just curious.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#88

Post by pclmulqdq »

photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Your response to this complaint is going to look very interesting.

Also, a note for the audience: Quinn Emanuel is one of the premier (and most expensive) litigation firms in the US. Partners in their litigation department run $2000/hour or more. Associates cost almost $1000/hour. WPEngine apparently has deep pockets.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#89

Post by [deleted] »

photomatt wrote: post #54
threeseed wrote: post #18

> Mullenweg failed to disclose this exclusive licensing arrangement between his nonprofit (the WordPress Foundation) and his for-profit (Automattic) in the WordPress Foundation’s tax filings with the California government, claiming that there were no “contracts ... between [WordPress Foundation] and any officer, director or trustee ... or with an entity in which any such officer, director or trustee had any financial…

That's not true, will address in court. They made up a lot of things in this.

[deleted]

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#90

Post by rideontime »

photomatt wrote: post #54
threeseed wrote: post #18

> Mullenweg failed to disclose this exclusive licensing arrangement between his nonprofit (the WordPress Foundation) and his for-profit (Automattic) in the WordPress Foundation’s tax filings with the California government, claiming that there were no “contracts ... between [WordPress Foundation] and any officer, director or trustee ... or with an entity in which any such officer, director or trustee had any financial…

That's not true, will address in court. They made up a lot of things in this.

Is there any practical difference between transferring ownership of the trademark to Automattic vs. granting them an exclusive license that they're able to sublicense?
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