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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]

#651

Post by fhfhfhjfnfnfmf »

nightowl_games wrote: post #642
fhfhfhjfnfnfmf wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They forked an open source plugin and changed the affiliate code in it along with their other changes. How could that be illegal?

Sounds like something that WooCommerce should have in their license or something. idk sounds like a pitfall to me. Why would anyone pay WooCommerce anything then? Just fork it and change the attribution code.

They can’t. All Wordpress plugins are required to be GPL, like Wordpress itself, and like the software Wordpress itself was forked from. The viral license they agreed to is working as intended.

I don’t know what people are actually paying for.

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

#652

Post by throw16180339 »

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

His past actions make it clear that he's ignoring legal advice.

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

#653

Post by tjalfi »

luckylion wrote: post #402
pc86 wrote: post #257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At first the idea that a $1000/hr associate planted a typo or two intentionally made me laugh but the more I think about it the more I think that's exactly what someone playing 4D chess with a lawsuit like this might do.

I doubt it. I've been involved with a similarly priced law firm once for an investment in a company I had a small stake in. They misspelled the names of multiple people, fixed it in the next draft version after it was pointed out to them, and then had it pop back up in some of the names a few versions later.

I know more than I'd like to about this topic; I spent most of a decade supporting legal document management systems.

Large law firms use document management systems[0] to store their documents. It's a really primitive VCS that integrates with Microsoft Office. The user who checks out a document usually has exclusive access to it until it's checked back in. Other people can check out a copy of the same document, but it won't usually contain any changes the other person made. There's additional work required and many users don't know how to do this. It's common for changes to be lost or a partner to have the help desk unlock documents. I'm guessing that's what happened in this case.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_management_system

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

#654

Post by wattwullenberg »

None4U wrote: post #366
moneylotion wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A million people trusted WPE’s resources. WPE, in turn, relied on someone else’s. The real issue here is that WPE completely overlooked the fact that they haven’t done the work to maintain the availability of their apps. It’s like buying a fridge, stocking it with $200 worth of food, and forgetting to plug it in.

More like buying a fridge and then the landlord stops paying for electricity suddenly

[dead]

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

#655

Post by throw16180339 »

crop_rotation wrote: post #339

HN has reached a point where if you do good deeds, you better be flawless or else you will be treated worse than if you were simply doing bad stuff by default. WPEngine is not some mom and pop shop. The courts will decide whether WPEngine or Automattic is in the wrong here. But Automattic's contribution to Wordpress and the ecosystem simply dwarf WPEngine. Now for their crime of being champions of Open Source they wi…

I'm judging Matt because he cut off 1.5 million users from security updates. That's reason enough to consider him a bad actor.

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

#656

Post by [deleted] »

bzmrgonz wrote: post #647
JimDabell wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers. This all kicked off when he publicly accused WP Engine of “butchering” WordPress for disabling revisions: > What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress, it’s something that they’ve chopped up, hacked, butchered to look like WordPress, but actually they’re giving you a cheap knock-off and charging you more for i…

I'm sorry but WP-ENGINE lost my vote when they started quoting evangelizing and ambassadorship events as "contributions". Everyone knows that's a 50/50 self-marketing and brand outreach. I don't understand why people are taking WP ENGINE's side, in the past 5 years, the evils and exploits of VC investments have been widely documented. This is a clear and present danger/example of what is wrong with VC in America. Loo…

[deleted]

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

#657

Post by jdiff »

hoofhearted wrote: post #545
safety1st wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disabling revisions is a configuration change. This is the simplest possible change you could make, and it’s unacceptable in his eyes. Actually this is wrong. Yes the constant WP_POST_REVISIONS exists. But WP Engine has disabled this constant. They do in fact "butcher" WordPress in the sense that they remove a feature, you can't turn it back on by yourself, and you need to talk to their support to get a limited ver…

Are you able to name of the publishers that you say run massive WP installs? I do know they exist of course, Sony being one. I’m coding up a little something that I feel is more modern and superior compared to WP, and I’d like to learn what their business requirements and use cases are that keep them on WP. Thanks in advance!

WP's strength is its size and history. WP is entrenched, it's good enough and it's got an enormous talent pool.

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

#658

Post by jeanlucas »

ValentineC wrote: post #644
jeanlucas wrote: post #637

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I understand some points differently: > 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. The Foundation hires no employees directly. Automattic sponsors some people to work on Foundation stuff. > > WordPress.org is managed and owned by Mullenweg personally > Not necessarily, he di…

I can't work on the allegations (nor I think it matters, it's just details on how it operates, not who is legally responsible).

But on "Automattic sponsors" that sentence is true, but not only Automattic, WordPress has more sponsors as well as voluntaries. So it is not all under Matt, even if he is the director of the Foundation.

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

#659

Post by Brian_K_White »

tock wrote: post #255

It appears that Josepha, the Executive Director of the WordPress project, has resigned. https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1841679115419553825

jeffr0 appears to be someone completely else.

https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/ does not seem to indicate any resignation.

nor https://josepha.blog/

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

#660

Post by greyface- »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #659
tock wrote: post #255

It appears that Josepha, the Executive Director of the WordPress project, has resigned. https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1841679115419553825

jeffr0 appears to be someone completely else. https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/ does not seem to indicate any resignation. nor https://josepha.blog/

https://twitter.com/JosephaHaden/status/1841793834931397070
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