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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]

#631

Post by [deleted] »

caeril wrote: post #610
Spastche wrote: post #606

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. yup. I'm about to make a new site and I dont care about the platform, I just want to write. but I'm not gonna use wordpress ever again now, probably. Matt seems friendly but this is…

> but this is evil CEO garbage Correction: this is Evil CEO vs Evil CEO garbage. Casting WPEngine as some sort of saint is highly inaccurate.

[deleted]

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

#632

Post by lolnotreally »

photomatt wrote: post #68
mikeyinternews wrote: post #58

I hope Matt can supply his legal team with conversations that would somehow justify his behaviour. From my (incomplete) reading of the complaint, he (Matt) does indeed look very "petulant". It's almost like he's intentionally self-destructing, which is why I hope for his sake that he has more tangible evidence to share, especially after reading section 201.

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.

It seems less like they're cherry-picking and more like you've attached one of those giant tree-shaker machines to your cherry tree and all they are doing is just standing underneath it catching everything.

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

#633

Post by angoragoats »

joshmanders wrote: post #594
Hasu wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Well when their whole argument boils down to "php sucks" and they back up their claims with a document that was invalid 12 years ago when it was written, they better have something to back up these criticism.

Perhaps you should engage with the claims rather than the person. As someone who doesn't frequently use PHP, the criticisms in the linked post from 2012 seem valid if the facts presented are true -- there's some pretty weird, and in a few cases, downright dangerous behavior presented there.

What is invalid, specifically, about that blog post?

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

#634

Post by phonon »

ValentineC wrote: post #627
phonon wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The man himself goes into copious detail otherwise! "We could not get wordpress.org being part of the foundation approved by the IRS." https://youtu.be/OUJgahHjAKU?t=342

I think if we're being pedantic about this, we can agree that WordPress.org itself is not a 501(c)(3) entity or similar, or run under such an entity. Automattic's legal team somehow considers it a non-profit though.

They tried to set it up that way and were denied. Apparently the flip side of that is they no longer feel constrained to not "Us[e] the resources of the non-profit you control to kneecap a competitor to the for-profit you control."

So like I said, at this point it's no different than RHEL's very stringent trademark protections, and restrictions on using their update servers (cdn.redhat.com) if you're not paying them. The only difference here is that if WP Engine was itself a non-profit, Matt wouldn't be going after them. RHEL is not as generous.

Apparently these are the new rules. If you're a for-profit entity advertising "Wordpress Hosting" instead of "Hosting with Wordpress installed" and want access to the infrastructure of wordpress.org (which costs millions of dollars a year) you now have to pay, either in cash or equivalent contributions.

Personally that seems fair. It should have come with a minimum 90 day public notice period, and the stuff about being a cancer etc. is pretty crazy. Changing marketing language and setting up your own plugin mirror like Bluehost did (https://github.com/bluehost/pluginmirror) is not the end of the world.

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

#635

Post by bwb »

evanelias wrote: post #629
bwb wrote: post #466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left WordPress ~8 years ago for a similar reason. I watched Matt destroy friends' WordPress businesses by saying they violated the WP ethos while he and Automattic did the same thing in their businesses. I've seen them break legal agreements with theme creators and refuse to pay them despite contracts. They also use legal threats against small creators to force them to accept an agreement that pays far less. I woul…

> He should never have been allowed to be involved in WordPress.org once he was working at Automattic. I'm not sure that last part makes sense. For starters, there's a chronological issue -- Matt co-created the open source WordPress project in mid 2003, founded Automattic in mid 2005, and founded the WordPress Foundation in 2010. But even setting that aside, who exactly would/should have prevented him from serving in…

It was a conflict of interest when his policies at Automattic were in direct conflict with his role in the Org. The reality was he used them both to achieve his aims and as a dictator. The Org should have been run by the community for the good of WordPress, not the good of Matt or Automattic.

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

#636

Post by jeanlucas »

bookaway wrote: post #577
jeanlucas wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long post, writing this for myself as well: The players - WordPress is open source, under GPLv2; a least since 2011; - WordPress is managed by the WordPress Foundation since 2010 with Matthew Charles Mullenweg as director; - Automattic is a private company that owns and runs WordPress.com, whose CEO and founder is Matthew Charles Mullenweg; - WP Engine is a separated company that uses Wordpress that makes money by ho…

>Sept 26: WP Engine is banned from Wordpress.org [6] breaking plugin updates from WP Engine Also someone who is late to the party, but the "breaking plugin updates from WP Engine" wording confuses me. From the wording in [6] it seems like WP Engine was using plugins hosted by wordpress.org, which all broke when wordpress.org blocked WP Engine's access to those plugins. Did I get that right?

Yeah... I did this in a hurry (about 15min) before work, and HN doesn't allow me to edit so let me rectify:

WP Engine is banned from accessing Wordpress.org assets, this way all WP Engine clients were unable to get updates for their plugins, posing a considerable security risk. WP Engine is working on a solution for their users, I don't know right now if this is solved.

This one irks me, it should be something done in phases, not just blocking the access overnight. Lots of websites are getting attacked in this crossfire, really irresponsible move.

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

#637

Post by jeanlucas »

isabelc wrote: post #543
jeanlucas wrote: post #447

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long post, writing this for myself as well: The players - WordPress is open source, under GPLv2; a least since 2011; - WordPress is managed by the WordPress Foundation since 2010 with Matthew Charles Mullenweg as director; - Automattic is a private company that owns and runs WordPress.com, whose CEO and founder is Matthew Charles Mullenweg; - WP Engine is a separated company that uses Wordpress that makes money by ho…

Regarding: "WordPress is managed by the WordPress Foundation" The Foundation doesn't actually manage anything though, does it? WordPress.org is managed and owned by Mullenweg personally.

Yeah... I did this in a hurry (about 15min) before work, and HN doesn't allow edits after some time so let me complement the information.

AFAIU:

1/ The WordPress Foundation is a proper non-profit and has as mission guarantee the "open sourceness" and ensures all WordPress projects are under the GPL license.

2/ The Foundation holds the trademarks to WordPress, WordCamp, BuddyPress, WP-Cli and they define the rules of its usage.

This is relevant because part of this fight is related to WordPress licenses. Also because Matt is using both hats as CEO of Automattic and President of the Foundation to press WP Engine and this is why, as I understand, WP Engine is accusing Automattic of unfair competition.

Also the other action against WP Engine is related to the trademarks.

--

On your points:

> The Foundation doesn't actually manage anything though, does it?

It does have responsibilities about the open source licenses and holds the trademarks to WordPress, plus has a team that is paid by the Foundation to seek these interests as a non-profit.

> WordPress.org is managed and owned by Mullenweg personally

Not necessarily, he did start it and is the main director, but the Foundation serves WordPress and, in theory, as a non-profit could have a different director.

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

#638

Post by camgunz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #624
camgunz wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wrote a whole blog post about it: they disable history.

So can WordPress Core. It's an explicit option: define( 'WP_POST_REVISIONS', false ); Seems like a pretty thin excuse for taking 8% of gross revenue. What other unspoken rules are there lurking behind "don't turn off revision tracking"?

> So can WordPress Core. It's an explicit option:

I don't understand why this matters. You were asking for a reason, that's the reason. You can call it a "thin excuse", but Mullenweg's been upfront about his position.

> Seems like a pretty thin excuse for taking 8% of gross revenue.

The 8% comes from the trademark licensing agreement [0]. They also offer to put them in the Five for the Future program if they do the contribution (they can also spend that 8% on people working on WordPress, which again enriches Mullenweg not at all, or some combo). This sounds pretty clearly like it's addressing the "you contribute very little back to the community" criticism Mullenweg has.

There's even more evidence in the "Forking" section, where they're basically like, "quit switching the attribution codes on our stuff".

Again, it sounds like WP Engine was being pretty uncool, and Mullenweg's trying to get them to be cooler.

[0]: https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet...

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

#639

Post by camgunz »

ceejayoz wrote: post #625
camgunz wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is pretty tedious. If I have a chicken, I don't have a dozen chickens, even though maybe that chicken could (or even will) lay eggs and make more chickens. But all that aside, it sounds like Mullenweg's basic argument is: WP Engine dilutes the WordPress trademark, offers a limited (I think he would be stronger about this characterization) implementation of WordPress, doesn't give back to the community,…

> If I have a chicken, I don't have a dozen chickens, even though maybe that chicken could (or even will) lay eggs and make more chickens. It, at the very least, provides evidence you're into chickens. Demanding 8% of a single competitor's revenue does a similar thing.

I don't dispute that, only the equivalence you and others are trying to make.

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

#640

Post by MikeDVB »

rideontime wrote: post #140
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…

I was there for that stream; I'd suggest others watch the chat replay before deciding whether the results of any poll taken during that stream are credible.

I have to wonder how many people that voted even know what WordPress is or even use it. It’s easy to click a button on the screen to vote one way or another during a stream while being completely uninformed.

Sure it’s in use by a large portion of websites (43% I think I saw last) but that doesn’t mean that 43% of people know what WordPress is.

That stream wasn’t on a WordPress-centric channel.

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