Live data from Hacker News

Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

automattic.com

21–30 of 135 posts

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#21
Regardless of which side you're on, so far the one thing that seems clear here is that the lawyers are going to be the real winners here.

When that is happening between two companies I generally don't care about it that much, but I hope open source doesn't turn out to be collateral damage here.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#22
post #11

This is getting embarrassing. I was a big fan of Matt's before this whole charade started but he's basically flushing 20 years of goodwill down the drain for not a whole lot in return. As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)?

As I understand it the claimed trademark infringement is WPE saying they ‘provide WordPress hosting’. If they are successful can anyone built an opens source hosting business?

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#23
post #21

Regardless of which side you're on, so far the one thing that seems clear here is that the lawyers are going to be the real winners here. When that is happening between two companies I generally don't care about it that much, but I hope open source doesn't turn out to be collateral damage here.

Exactly my thinking as well. All this bickering managed to do is convince me to setup my blog on Ghost instead of anything WP-related.

Both parties seemingly suck, and I wish them both the worst. In the meantime, this is a great excuse to promote WP-alternatives and improve upon them just in case this whole thing goes completely pear-shaped.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#24

What percentage of WPEngine does Automattic own? Why do not they donate to Wordpress Foundation out of that?

Where is it documented Automattic (or Mr Mullenweg) owns any of WP Engine? (ETA: Not saying it's impossible he or they have an interest -- I've just never seen this suggested. WP Engine is in many ways a competitor to wordpress.com, so it would be unusual, I think. And he/they have long not been a fan of WP Engine.)

Automattic were an early investor in WPEngine, but they exited the investment around 2018.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#25

What percentage of WPEngine does Automattic own? Why do not they donate to Wordpress Foundation out of that?

Where is it documented Automattic (or Mr Mullenweg) owns any of WP Engine? (ETA: Not saying it's impossible he or they have an interest -- I've just never seen this suggested. WP Engine is in many ways a competitor to wordpress.com, so it would be unusual, I think. And he/they have long not been a fan of WP Engine.)

Automattic made an investment in WP Engine in 2011:

https://wptavern.com/automattic-makes-second-investment-wpen...

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where is it documented Automattic (or Mr Mullenweg) owns any of WP Engine? (ETA: Not saying it's impossible he or they have an interest -- I've just never seen this suggested. WP Engine is in many ways a competitor to wordpress.com, so it would be unusual, I think. And he/they have long not been a fan of WP Engine.)

Automattic were an early investor in WPEngine, but they exited the investment around 2018.

Thanks.

2018 would tie in with about when I first got the impression he was not a fan of WP Engine. I'm sure there was fuss once before (about them not being on the "recommended hosting" page?)

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#28

What percentage of WPEngine does Automattic own? Why do not they donate to Wordpress Foundation out of that?

Where is it documented Automattic (or Mr Mullenweg) owns any of WP Engine? (ETA: Not saying it's impossible he or they have an interest -- I've just never seen this suggested. WP Engine is in many ways a competitor to wordpress.com, so it would be unusual, I think. And he/they have long not been a fan of WP Engine.)

Automattic invested in WP Engine ~13 years ago. I don't know if they still own the shares though.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/11/15/silverton-automattic-put-1...

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#29
post #11

This is getting embarrassing. I was a big fan of Matt's before this whole charade started but he's basically flushing 20 years of goodwill down the drain for not a whole lot in return. As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)?

>As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine

I'm only slightly following the dispute between Automattic and WPEngine but it might have more to do with WPEngine rewriting the payment identifier on Automattic's open source Woo Commerce ecommerce plugin.

WPEngine's payment identifier rewrite results in WPEngine getting a cut of ecommerce payments processed through their hosted sites and not Automattic.

I don't know the details though and probably didn't even explain it right. Matt talked about it recently in a Youtube interview.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#30
post #11

This is getting embarrassing. I was a big fan of Matt's before this whole charade started but he's basically flushing 20 years of goodwill down the drain for not a whole lot in return. As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)?

As I understand it the claimed trademark infringement is WPE saying they ‘provide WordPress hosting’. If they are successful can anyone built an opens source hosting business?

I am not sure which way this will go, but WPE's website was using the word "WordPress" in every possible way before they 'cleaned it up' a few days ago. I am not sure whether it was trademark infringement, but they did seem to be leaning heavily on the trademarked term. I compared WPE's website to Dreamhost's (as I am familiar with the latter as a provider of hosting for WordPress-based websites), and the latter used the term far more sparingly.
Post reply on HN