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Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

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Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#81

Post by singleshot_ »

finnthehuman wrote: post #72
nickff wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lawyering is not just about knowing the law and proving facts, for an example of this, I recommend the book about Theranos: “Bad Blood”.

Yeah, ofc, the lawyer skill gradient exists and causes slam-dunk cases to be decided in the "wrong" [0] direction. It's just odd to say you will win because the lawyer is that good, makes it sound like you might be wrong but are going to win simply because you have better council. [0] There's gotta be a fancy latin-sounding lawyer word for this, right?

No one is going to “win.” They’re going to settle. The quality of your lawyer will absolutely, positively influence your pleasure in the settlement. There are facts and law bad enough to overwhelm any lawyer, but usually there’s garbage on either side of the case and each lawyer will be able to use his or her skill to handle the garbage.

> There's gotta be a fancy latin-sounding lawyer word for this, right?

“America”

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#82

Post by draw_down »

sourraspberry wrote: post #54
swores wrote: post #35

> "Neal has been adverse to Quinn Emanuel a number of times, and won every case." I don't think I have ever before seen, in an official public statement, a "The lawyer we just hired always beats the lawyer they just hired!" boast, and it seems ridiculous - it's almost even hinting in the direction that they think the case should be decided on quality of lawyer rather than that their case should win on merit.

> Neal has taken on sloppy Quinn Emanuel many times, many many times, and each case he has won BIGLY. WP ENGINE IS THE ENEMENY OF THE PEOPLE!

[dead]

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#83

Post by AndyNemmity »

everfrustrated wrote: post #64
gamblor956 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If WordPress won on the trademark infringement issue, it would be a fundamental rewriting of trademark law as it exists in the U.S. today. Companies even competitors are allowed to use trademarks when they are making factual statements, like "we provide Wordpress hosting" as long as they make it clear that they are not the trademark holder (i.e., confusing customers). Even before they revamped their website, WP Engin…

Perhaps if they were called WPHosting, but WPEngine sounds very like core wordpress.

I have no opinion on this one way or the other, but when I saw WPEngine, I thought it was core wordpress.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#84

Post by legitster »

The legal victory is almost moot, even if Automattic is found to have acted in their rights. How does any Wordpress developer know they are not going to be next? Or all of the third party plugin providers? Or theme makers? All of them heavily use Wordpress branding in their services, few contribute to the open source.

The precedent being set here is wild, and every Wordpress organization becoming a Mullenweg personal mouthpiece account defending him personally is just so, so, bad.

This is one of the the most needless self-destructive acts I have ever seen in the world of business.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#85

Post by legitster »

next_xibalba wrote: post #15

When this story first emerged, I was somewhat sympathetic to Matt/Automattic. But geeze, he is just looking worse and worse. Between this tantrum and threatening a former employee over a very innocuous statement [1], his credibility is pretty low in my opinion. [1] https://medium.com/@kelliepeterson/nice-guy-matt-mullenweg-c...

In that thread, Matt instantly jumping to a "you are against me/you must be the enemy" is suuuuch a red flag that he has Main Character Syndrome.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#86

Post by davesmylie »

legitster wrote: post #84

The legal victory is almost moot, even if Automattic is found to have acted in their rights. How does any Wordpress developer know they are not going to be next? Or all of the third party plugin providers? Or theme makers? All of them heavily use Wordpress branding in their services, few contribute to the open source. The precedent being set here is wild , and every Wordpress organization becoming a Mullenweg persona…

Not "business" I guess, but Andrew Lee and the whole freenode saga has has got to come close

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#87

Post by legitster »

yawnxyz wrote: post #10

> "WP Engine can hardly say the same" So much of Automattic's corpospeak drips with spite. Makes me understand why other companies are so "bland" — to protect themselves

> From our earliest days, our highest priority has always been our customers. WP Engine can hardly say the same.

Does he actually believe this? WP Engine makes some very popular and well-liked products.

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#88

Post by annoyed_eng »

Medium term WordPress itself and the participants in its ecosystem are going to be the losers here.

As a normal WordPress user who is a current client of Automattic AND WP Engine (for different sites), I’m simply far less likely to use WordPress at all for anything new. Why would I at this point? Why would anyone?

Re: Response to WP Engine’s Lawsuit

#89

Post by skmurphy »

swores wrote: post #35

> "Neal has been adverse to Quinn Emanuel a number of times, and won every case." I don't think I have ever before seen, in an official public statement, a "The lawyer we just hired always beats the lawyer they just hired!" boast, and it seems ridiculous - it's almost even hinting in the direction that they think the case should be decided on quality of lawyer rather than that their case should win on merit.

The audience for this statement is WP Engine's significant customers. WordPress is in a position to do much more damage to WP Engine in the near term, which will reflect poorly on the IT manager for selecting them as a vendor. WordPress is not so subtly encouraging those customers to reconsider their decision and migrate off WP Engine.

If WP Engine decides to fork, it devalues the "just like WordPress but better" value proposition and increases operating expenses as they can no longer inherit improvements from WordPress. A fork may mean they don't hit the growth targets they promised Silver Lake. Selecting this attorney is putting down a marker that WordPress wants a verdict, not a settlement.

The other wild card potentially more damaging to WP Engine and Silver Lake is the discovery process inherent in any lawsuit.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't think most commenters are correctly decoding the relative bargaining power of the two sides.

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