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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]

#331

Post by neltnerb »

shabgzer wrote: post #190
cdolan wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to care about this stuff and thought it meant my opponent was weak Then you learn its not important and in fact its likely a red herring to make the defense think the plaintiff is careless

> I used to care about this stuff and thought it meant my opponent was weak Me too, I'm no longer the grammar nazi I used to be. It still comes across as sloppy though. > likely a red herring to make the defense think the plaintiff is careless That's interesting!

As I write many more things collaborating with people who do not speak English as a first language, it is more obvious than ever that grammar and spelling errors have absolutely no correlation with the quality of the argument when it comes to professional communication.

At some level sure, but if a lawyer is typing a 30 page document in a few hours, they might have someone proofread it once but I guarantee you the thought that went into writing it was far more serious than the thought that went into proofreading it.

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

#332

Post by pxeboot »

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…

Hi Matt! I appreciate the transparency. Reading about this has been interesting to say the least.

I am curious about your desired outcome. If you win, WP Engine pays 8% going forward? If you lose, will it be business as usual? Fewer open source offerings?

Obviously this could take years to resolve, but developers do have very real concerns over what the landscape may look like in a few years.

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

#333

Post by [deleted] »

JimDabell wrote: post #83
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.

> 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?

[deleted]

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

#334

Post by patmcc »

photomatt wrote: post #170
notamy wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am stunned that you're still posting publicly and aggressively about all of this. How have your lawyers okayed any of this?

Yes.

If this is true, you need a better lawyer.

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

#335

Post by busterarm »

dmix wrote: post #256
csa wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers. I think both sides more or less see this as a case of standing up against a bully — they may lose out in the short run (in terms of money), but they think that they will discourage future bullying by fighting back. I’m not sure if either side is right, but that’s why they both drew a line in the sand, imho.

Ignoring the executive drama (on both sides) it is in bad taste to build WPEngine off an Open Source project and barely contribute back to it. It's probably a case where their version is so heavily customized they don't spend much time on the fundamentals. But still. I wonder if that had a petty rationale as well. Relationships are important in business.

[flagged]

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

#336

Post by patmcc »

photomatt wrote: post #74
photomatt wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you like me to answer? I haven't doxxed any private texts from other parties like they have. I've only been releasing things I've said or sent.

Sure, it was a few text messages at the end of a months-long negotiation about a licensing deal. We posted the timeline and the final term sheet here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ WP Engine's business is built on violating the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks, 8% is typical for a franchise fee. They confuse customers in the marketplace who think they're official WordPress. If you watch this stream…

>>>WP Engine's business is built on violating the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks, 8% is typical for a franchise fee. They confuse customers in the marketplace who think they're official WordPress.

You make three claims here, I'm honestly not sure about the 1st and 3rd, but can you go into more detail about 8% being typical? For what kind of franchise?

If a local mechanic claims to be a "Volkswagen expert", do you think they're paying 8% back to Volkswagen?

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

#337

Post by busterarm »

bigiain wrote: post #216
cdolan wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For you: See paragraphs 32 and 33

Yeah. I foresee a possible hilarious outcome here. Matt wins this case, having the court determine the trademarks are "worth" so much that WPEngine - one out of thousands of WP hosting companies - owes licence fees of 10mil per year. Lets ballpark that at a billion dollar a year in licence fees worth of revenue, maybe 5 or 10 billion value. The IRS then steps in and "Al Capones" Matt and Automattic for tax evasion by…

WPEngine isn't just one out of thousands of WP hosting companies. They're an absolute juggernaut dwarfing everyone else.

It's like saying AWS is one of dozens of cloud providers. The sad thing is that there are FAR BETTER WP hosting services out there, like Pantheon.io, and the majority of the WordPress community does not even know that they exist.

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

#338

Post by naniwaduni »

busterarm wrote: post #328
Mystery-Machine wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 yo…

https://ma.tt/2024/09/charitable-contributions/

Coincidentally, WPF is a 501(c)3.

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

#339

Post by crop_rotation »

HN has reached a point where if you do good deeds, you better be flawless or else you will be treated worse than if you were simply doing bad stuff by default. WPEngine is not some mom and pop shop. The courts will decide whether WPEngine or Automattic is in the wrong here. But Automattic's contribution to Wordpress and the ecosystem simply dwarf WPEngine. Now for their crime of being champions of Open Source they will be judged in the eyes of HN.

This is like HN praising MSFT for all small things and bashing Google for doing strictly less evil stuff than whatever Microsoft does (Bing in China censored vs dragonfly, windows full of ads, Edge with tons of shady features, Azure with the worst security).

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

#340

Post by lolinder »

metamichael wrote: post #311
lolinder wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Going to fight this with everything I have. Your chance to do that was before you threw a grenade into the WordPress ecosystem and injured hundreds of thousands of innocent WordPress developers over a {trademark|giving back|general bad vibes} dispute. No one here is buying your attempts to pawn responsibility for your actions off onto WP Engine. They may have legitimately been the bad guys until a month ago, but yo…

[flagged]

I'm not going to engage with brand new accounts on this thread. It's nothing personal, but there are way too many of them posting here and it's too hard to distinguish sincere questions from sock puppets.

If you're legitimately new to HN, welcome! I hope to see you around engaging with other topics.

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