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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]

#481

Post by [deleted] »

Kye wrote: post #114
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…

Don't lawyers usually advise their clients to stop talking about it when they're sued? Or is that one of those cliches that isn't true

[deleted]

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

#482

Post by gillesjacobs »

photomatt wrote: post #115
Mystery-Machine wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why you don't share it? You said there's much more emails and messages, but you never shared any. Why not?

Why doesn't she share messages that prove she declined a WordPress.com job in 2022? You're holding me to a different standard. I'm here, I'm talking to journalists. They're not.

You're taking this very personally and in the public domain even though it will hurt your company.

Maybe there gets a point you become so wealthy, that ego is all that matters. But you're supposedly a smart guy who cares about his products, community and company, why not take the practical and economically safe route of duking it out in court?

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

#483

Post by northhanover »

Communitivity wrote: post #459
delfinom wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire thing makes money and serves the purposes of people using it even for free. It's a well-engineered product whether you want to accept it or not. Unlike more than half of the tech world that's unprofitable and is just a fart in the wind of tech memory.

No, it's not well-engineered (speaking with over 25 years as a professional software engineer), at least the portions of the code I have looked at. Things I vaguely remember (it's been ten years since I looked at it) are lack of data normalization (and not in a performance optimizing way), template includes that depend directly on order of inclusion and variables in other templates, very little code isolation, and PH…

[flagged]

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

#484

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#485

Post by pclmulqdq »

biccboii wrote: post #465
pclmulqdq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> WPEngine apparently has deep pockets. Yeah because they don't have to spend any money on R&D nor do they spend money contributing to the open source project :)

It is eternally surprising to me how much "hosted X" businesses can make. There are a lot of non-technical people ready to overspend by 10x just to have someone else be "responsible" for downtime.

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

#486

Post by [deleted] »

bigiain wrote: post #97
photomatt wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes this is part of their smear campaign, just like their last C&D. They're cherry-picking stuff to try and make me look bad, while not addressing the core issue of their trademark violations. They want me to stop telling their customers about their bad behavior.

So they're "cherry picking" things that you said which make you look bad, which are true and accurate - and that's a "smear campaign". While you are telling lies about trademark violations and extorting money specifically from WPEngine and have publicly admitted you're not doing that to anyone else that provides Wordpress hosting? And you've used terms like "war" and "nuclear option" when threatening the lies you sub…

[deleted]

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

#487

Post by srmarm »

shabgzer wrote: post #129
pclmulqdq wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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"

I'm always amazed at how many typos make it into legal docs that should be picked up by automatic spell checks. It seems to be a normal and accepted practice for legal types - interesting to see that's the case in the US as well as here in the UK.

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

#488

Post by posterman »

lolinder wrote: post #460
nickff wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ” If you offer someone a contract, they stall for a few months, and you show up at their house with gasoline and a match and threaten to burn their house down if they don't agree to sign the contract, you're guilty of extortion.” This analogy seems tangential, and I don’t think it supports the rest of your post.

Did you read the allegations in the complaint? Here are some of the texts it says Matt sent: > I have 14 slides so far, working title for the talk: "How Private Equity can Hollow out and Destroy Open Source Communities, a Story in 4 Parts." > I've got quotes from current and former employees, some may even stand up and speak as well. There's the gasoline and matches. And then, while he's on stage: > I'm literally wai…

Since when did relaying employee experience constitute an existential threat to a businesses ability to operate? This forum is littered with people who engage in "threats" as a mode of business every single day.

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

#489

Post by Kye »

echelon wrote: post #426
busterarm wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Matt shouldn't have made his thing "open source" [1], just like Elastic and other vendors shouldn't have allowed Amazon to set up shop and steal their work. Unrelated organizations coming in, soaking up all the profit, and not contributing back is horrible. "Open source" needs to be amended to prevent this. Something like MAU, MRR, or market% seems like a healthy way to limit big time corporations from taking over. […

He had no choice. It was a fork of b2.

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

#490

Post by pclmulqdq »

lolinder wrote: post #290
kubectl_h wrote: post #278

> One such company that relied on Defendants’ promises was WPE, founded in 2010. WPE is a true champion of WordPress, devoting its entire business to WordPress over other similar open source platforms. In reliance on Defendants’ many promises, WPE invested hundreds of millions of dollars and 14 years of hard work building a successful business to serve that community—only to see the petulant whims of Mullenweg inflic…

Complaints usually are, yes. I'm not a lawyer, but each one I've read has been a bit over the top and it feels like they're written as much for public consumption as they are for the judge. Maybe it's with the jury in mind?

The jury doesn't usually read the complaint. However, a lot of the words you see as dramatic have specific legal meanings. In this case "relied on promises" is in the language of the tort he is suing over. I don't think the "true champion" sentence has a specific meaning, but it is definitely written to imply that WPE enhanced the value of the WordPress brand.
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