Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf] • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by ThinkBeat » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:06 PM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #346

safety1st wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi Matt, great that you're participating here and I'm broadly supportive regarding your concerns with the trademark and WP Engine's conduct. However I do not understand why you chose to make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning and consequently reducing the security of their websites. To be entirely blunt it's all damage contr…

> 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.

> AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers

I would think that is a cost-saving measure as well. A hell of a lot of that data would be downloaded by users every day. Being able to pull it locally saves all that. Also, it is faster and does provide some security.

> They do not depend on Canonical to run their business.

That depends on how you look at it. If for some odd reason Canonical vanished tomorrow, that would be a big problem for both DO and AWS.

They do rely on Canonical developing, fixing upgrading the distros.

But then Amazon does have their own in-house Linux distro, which is/used to be somewhat associated with RedHat/ Centos https://github.com/amazonlinux/amazon-linux-2023

I would expect AWs,Google etc have specific internal only distros that make up the foundation of their cloud business but that is just a guess.

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

#512

Post by darkwater » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

shabgzer wrote: post #408

jamespo wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why wp engine don't just maintain a fork

Have a look at the WordPress core. ;-) Here's a nice example: https://github.com/WordPress/WordPress/blob/92d9e70f849c337c...

So even better, WP engine could rewrite it from scratch in a better way. Maybe even use another language.

Or maybe it is just fine for their use case and they are making already enough money with it...

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

#513

Post by camgunz » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:09 PM UTC

tky wrote: post #320

camgunz wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A couple posts up is claiming Mullenweg's singling out WP Engine, and here you're claiming he runs a protection racket against anyone who wants to make money running WordPress sites. Which is it?

I said no such thing.

It's hard for me to believe your idea of a racket is pressuring a single business. You can't have it both ways.

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

#514

Post by rpgbr » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:11 PM UTC

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

Some people are so arrogant they believe to know better than anyone and start screwing everything by themselves.

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

#515

Post by ThinkBeat » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:12 PM UTC

safety1st wrote: post #198

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, great that you're participating here and I'm broadly supportive regarding your concerns with the trademark and WP Engine's conduct. However I do not understand why you chose to make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning and consequently reducing the security of their websites. To be entirely blunt it's all damage contr…

I have not heard of anyone being turned off from using WordPress from this. That does not mean it does/has not happened, I am sure some folks got mad.

It is a stupid hissyfit and some bad judgments. People make mistakes.

There are far better purely technical / code issues to turn people away from WordPress, but WordPress is spectacularly popular.

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

#516

Post by Loudergood » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:13 PM UTC

pclmulqdq wrote: post #485

biccboii wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Just look at Microsoft 365 and to lesser extent AWS.

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

#517

Post by kragen » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:22 PM UTC

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…

glad to see you here. i hope you're able to resolve this crisis quickly

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

#518

Post by kragen » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:24 PM UTC

DannyBee wrote: post #141

Kye wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Lawyer here - we do. For very good reason. A. Legally, it cannot possibly help you (whatever happened, happened). However, it can hurt you (inconsistent statements, etc). This is particularly true in colloquial environments like HN. B. While it may be useful reputation/press wise, because anything you do wil be evidence, you should be having someone else do that. C. If you are part of a publicly traded company, you c…

do you think there are cases where the public perception of the conflict is more important than the outcome of the lawsuit?

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

#519

Post by francisofascii » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:29 PM UTC

stephenr wrote: post #397

safety1st wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hot take incoming: she wasn't very effective in this job. WPorg cargo culted and went the way of a bunch of open source foundations which have appointed non technical people to their top roles. WP Core has particularly poor technical and architectural direction, this arises when an organization stops valuing the tech and the tech people. Someone with technical vision should hold the top post and fix that.

> WP Core has particularly poor technical and architectural direction, this arises when an organization stops valuing the tech and the tech people You make it sound like Wordpress had particularly good technical and architectural direction until this person was appointed, which is honestly just laughable. In my ~20 year career I've seen exactly one PHP codebase that was more shocking than Wordpress for the way that m…

For how popular and successful WordPress has been, maybe its architectural flaws don't really matter as much as you would expect.

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

#520

Post by itslennysfault » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 2:37 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #101

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…

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. The context you need to share isn't that there exists a document that you wanted to sign and that they knew existed before you made the threats, the context you need to share (Edit: in court, y…

That's a weird analogy. It'd be more like your natural gas provider trying to negotiate a deal and then when you don't reach an agreement they turn off the valve to your house.