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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]

#371

Post by ipaddr »

patmcc wrote: post #336
photomatt wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 y…

A new car dealership pays 3-8% back to their parent company plus a 1-2% marketing fee, upto 500,000 as an initial fee. They get logo rights and inventory.

If this wasn't open source they could ask for those fees but they decided to give away their software with an open license. Without that license they would have never grown into what they became. But Matt sees another company doing well and he gets jealous and demands a piece of their success and goes postal when he doesn't get his way.

I think he needs to step away from wordpress.org because the conflict of interest is too great.

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

#372

Post by [deleted] »

None4U wrote: post #366
moneylotion wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million people trusted WPE’s resources. WPE, in turn, relied on someone else’s. The real issue here is that WPE completely overlooked the fact that they haven’t done the work to maintain the availability of their apps. It’s like buying a fridge, stocking it with $200 worth of food, and forgetting to plug it in.

More like buying a fridge and then the landlord stops paying for electricity suddenly

[deleted]

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

#373

Post by extraduder_ire »

spondylosaurus wrote: post #343
flutas wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, this all feels like (and I'm not trying to be rude with this, I'm speaking from experience) a mental break. Or he's got some sort of vendetta that he feels burning everything down is worth it over. Some of his comments from the other day on reddit have already been used in this very lawsuit, you'd think he would know to shut the hell up at this point if it's #2.

I don't even know if it's a vendetta about WP specifically or just the result of his general disposition. About a year ago he had an embarrassing public meltdown after some random Tumblr users talked shit about him because they didn't like his moderation policies. Banning people, then publicly shaming them, then replying to their posts on other social media sites...

> some random Tumblr users talked shit about him because they didn't like his moderation policies

Was that the hammers thing, or something else?

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

#374

Post by happyxpenguin »

isiahl wrote: post #245

For the record, since I’m seeing it a lot in this thread: Green names = new account

Oh this is good info to know! I never had a desire to create an HN account but i've been using it more frequently since this whole thing started and finally made an account.

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

#375

Post by gamblor956 »

photomatt wrote: post #176
JimDabell wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 8% is typical for a franchise fee I see many WordPress hosts use these trademarks in the same way WP Engine does. How many of them are paying this typical 8% of monthly revenue fee?

Other hosts have contributed significantly to WordPress.org and Automattic over the years, in a variety of arrangements. None have abused the WordPress and WooCommerce trademark as much as WP Engine has, hence our C&D against them.

Seriously, you need to stop talking.

You've admitted a number of times in this thread that you consider the nonprofit organization to be just an extension of the for profit company. There are serious consequences for that for the organizations and you personally.

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

#376

Post by vasco »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #234
shabgzer wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $1000+/hr apparently does not guarantee great proofreading. Already found two typos and am not even a quarter of the way through: - Page 12: "wordrpess.org" - Page 17: "fundamental principal"

Typos don't really matter in legal complaints, except for looking unprofessional. It would be a waste if my $1000/hour lawyer spent their time proofreading, honestly. The typos also guarantee that I'm getting a real, logical human writing my complaint rather than someone faking it with ChatGPT. Typos in long-lived documents like contracts, patents, etc. matter quite a bit, by contrast. See eg the second amendment, wh…

What proofreading? Just click the spellcheck button.

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

#377

Post by mike_d »

safety1st wrote: post #357
mike_d wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers and do not depend on Canonical to run their business. WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers.

Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about. Had they known they 100% would have ensured that customers didn't lose service. Matt chose to surprise them. It's a very nuanced thing. The world could be very different today. There would have been very little pushback against Matt's crusade if he'd just thought about making sure service to user…

> Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about

According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. Your anger should be with WPEngine for taking your money while knowing full well their service depended on servers ran by a company they were on (best case) shaky terms with.

Up until about 8 months ago, Bluehost (another big paid hoster of WordPress sites) ran its own plugin mirror with no issues: https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror

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

#378

Post by duskwuff »

extraduder_ire wrote: post #373
spondylosaurus wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't even know if it's a vendetta about WP specifically or just the result of his general disposition. About a year ago he had an embarrassing public meltdown after some random Tumblr users talked shit about him because they didn't like his moderation policies. Banning people, then publicly shaming them, then replying to their posts on other social media sites...

> some random Tumblr users talked shit about him because they didn't like his moderation policies Was that the hammers thing, or something else?

That would be the infamous "car covered in hammers", yes. And it was from February this year - time flies (like a hammer).

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

#379

Post by nicce »

mike_d wrote: post #377
safety1st wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about. Had they known they 100% would have ensured that customers didn't lose service. Matt chose to surprise them. It's a very nuanced thing. The world could be very different today. There would have been very little pushback against Matt's crusade if he'd just thought about making sure service to user…

> Sure, but to do that they'd need to know they are about to be cut off, something which they were given zero warning about According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months. Your anger should be with WPEngine for taking your money while knowing full well their service depended on servers ran by a company they were on (best case) shaky terms with. Up until about 8 months ago, Bluehost (another big pa…

> According to Automattic they had been in discussions for 20 months.

They could have give a warning 20 months ago that this may happen and then this would not be a thing.

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

#380

Post by dncornholio »

safety1st wrote: post #360
JimDabell wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers. This all kicked off when he publicly accused WP Engine of “butchering” WordPress for disabling revisions: > What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress, it’s something that they’ve chopped up, hacked, butchered to look like WordPress, but actually they’re giving you a cheap knock-off and charging you more for i…

> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Actually this is wrong. Yes the constant WP_POST_REVISIONS exists. But WP Engine has disabled this constant. They do in fact "butcher" WordPress in the sense that they remove a feature, you can't turn it back on by yourself, and you need to talk to their support to get a limited ver…

The revision system is terrible though. Even we limit it for our clients. It doubles or triples the amount of queries your site and admin needs to run. Have some multi language plugin on top and your site will be eating memory and cpu. If WordPress would have made an actual usuable revision system, this wouldnt have been an issue at all
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