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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]

#551

Post by mort96 »

kemayo wrote: post #537
mort96 wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's not what the legal document says? "Cease and desist from using the trademark" is a different sentence from "cease and decist from forking and modifying code"

I'm not defending his position, or talking about whatever's in the legal documents, I'm just trying to explain the distinction Matt seems to be drawing between the trademark license (and attached terms) and the software license in this thread. ( Personally , I think it's a fairly bullshit distinction that's completely against the spirit of the GPL. It's probably legally allowed, though.)

I don't understand how that's supposed to work. You can't use a trademark to prevent anyone from forking a piece of software whose license allows forking. You can say that other people can't use your trademark in forks, but that doesn't seem to be what's going on here? "Cease and decist from forking or modifying the software" is, again, a different sentence from "cease and decist from using our trademark in your modified versions of the software"

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

#552

Post by [deleted] »

photomatt wrote: post #92
wging wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what page 35 says at all. Check out page 36: > 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined. (edit: I have no idea who is right, but it's just not correct to read page 35 as saying that)

She was interviewing November 2023 to January 2024. She declined the WordPress.org role on January 26, 2024. I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share.

[deleted]

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

#553

Post by handzhiev »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #19
talldayo wrote: post #6

It's hard to even imagine what a best-case scenario looks like for Matt at this point. Putting aside the matter of righteousness, his business is pretty much chalked for professional applications at this point. B2B partnerships are done - anyone with lawyers on-staff are going to get shoulder-tapped and asked to find another hosting solution. Smaller customers have all the more reason to bleed out to competitors, and…

If it's any three things, it's about money, money, and money. Zooming out a bit, Automattic acquired Tumblr and like all those before it seems to be choking on it. Competitors like Wix, Squarespace, WebFlow and Shopify are all nipping at WordPress' marketshare. I don't know what WordPress.com's stats look like, but blogging is out of sytle. New cool kids want the new black. That is to be social media influencers. Alo…

I can hardly imagine anyone being in cult with WP. People use it because of the huge ecosystem around it and the accessible talent pool. One can hardly be impressed by the tech itself - in fact almost everyone thinks it sucks.

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

#554

Post by chuckadams »

alberth wrote: post #548

Can someone ELI5 this whole topic? Is the crux of the issue that WPE website use to say things like: "Start creating on WordPress today" or "Power your creativity on the #1 platform for WordPress" Which might have implied that WPE was official Wordpress? https://web.archive.org/web/20220105010059/https://wpengine.... --- In comparison to other companies like Pressable that simply use marketing copy like: "WordPress H…

It's about disabling revisions. Or private equity. Or not contributing back to core. Or trademarks. Or freeloading on w.org infrastructure. Or hacking Stripe plugins. Or whatever else might stick to the wall in this 18-hour period...

Start with this: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/991906/d7340f3b866d855b/

Then read the complaint: https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP... (also the post's link). It's highly readable, not dense legalese at all.

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

#555

Post by legitster »

alberth wrote: post #548

Can someone ELI5 this whole topic? Is the crux of the issue that WPE website use to say things like: "Start creating on WordPress today" or "Power your creativity on the #1 platform for WordPress" Which might have implied that WPE was official Wordpress? https://web.archive.org/web/20220105010059/https://wpengine.... --- In comparison to other companies like Pressable that simply use marketing copy like: "WordPress H…

The ELI5 of why this is so complicated is what everyone thought was "Wordpress" was actually a cluster of shady self-serving business dealings by Matt Mullenweg.

The Wordpress Foundation does not actually own the name "Wordpress". The name is essentially owned by Matt Mullenweg and he licenses it out to the Foundation and other organizations which he approves of.

Matt Mullenweg was personally displeased with certain aspects of WPEngine's business, asked for money from them, and then cut off all of WPEngine's customers from accessing shared Wordpress resources. And the justification he is using was WP Engine's infringement of the copyright.

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

#556

Post by rideontime »

cdolan wrote: post #206
rideontime wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lawsuit asserts pretty vehemently that it's "irrevocable."

It quite literally states in the document that the trademark is irrevocable

Which document are you referring to?

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

#557

Post by chrismmccomas »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #438
zambiboy wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Automattic's bread & butter - was the big 2nd gen blogging platform Its not. Its used for everything from marketing websites to ecommerce. CNN, Reuters etc have their blogs run on it too.

That is the .org version. It should not be confused with .com version.

I'm pretty sure CNN and Reuters are actually on WPVIP, which is basically the enterprise version of .com and belongs to the same parent company as .com.

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

#558

Post by [deleted] »

Hasu wrote: post #496
northhanover wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The idea that no one is allowed to criticize anything unless they can and have done better is one of the most perniciously stupid ideas out there that just won't go away. If the parent poster is secretly Linus Torvalds, do you walk away in shame because he HAS done a project with better engineering? Or are the criticisms, perhaps, objectively valid or invalid, and worth engaging with regardless of the merits of the p…

[deleted]

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

#559

Post by ecshafer »

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.

DHH was talking about this in his recent rails world keynote. Hosting companies are getting huge margins because developers are afraid of using a computer.

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

#560

Post by berniedurfee »

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

I think common decency should have been considered here regardless of what a lawyer would say to do or not to do. Yuck.
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