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Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

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Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#401

Post by blitzar »

ValentineC wrote: post #377
Manuel_D wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logo was transferred to the WordPress foundation nonprofit, which in turn let people build products and services using the trademark free of charge. This is where the "free to use" comes from. Except secretly, the WordrPress trademark was transferred back to Automattic on the very same day. Imagine I very publicly say "I'm making my tech project open source, you can build on it and use the logo in your projects!"…

> The logo was transferred to the WordPress foundation nonprofit, which in turn let people build products and services using the trademark free of charge. This is where the "free to use" comes from. Except secretly, the WordrPress trademark was transferred back to Automattic on the very same day. > Imagine I very publicly say "I'm making my tech project open source, you can build on it and use the logo in your projec…

> "WP Engine" is confusing enough people

Up until the 2024-09-24 that section of the trademark policy read:

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240924024555/https://wordpress...

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#402

Post by lsaferite »

jart wrote: post #396
lsaferite wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forked their business ... is that even a thing? How is WPE the bad guy even if it is when there are NUMEROUS other wordpress hosting companies? > GPL The GPL specifically allows you to even SELL the GPL'd code to people, so I don't see how they are even violating the _spirit_ of the license. More to the point, it's not like WPE is a black hole. They _are_ engaging and spending money on the community from what their…

Every dollar WPE makes is a dollar Automattic doesn't. If you're David, and Goliath wants to use your platform and trademark to make you poorer, would you let him? All the stuff you're talking about is a distraction, because this is an unnatural relationship, and they're going to come up with whatever excuses they can to rectify that.

If you are saying this is just Automattic being mad that WPE is making money and they want some of it, that's a major concern for any professional services company in the WP space. Once they are done with WPE, who's next on the list? This is not hyperbole. Any company that is a similar line of business would be foolish not to asses this as a high risk.

Being mad that someone is using the open source software EXACTLY as the license allows them to is indicative of very poor planning. If you didn't want anyone else to make money off the software, then why open source it in the first place?

They can claim all day long that WPE was misusing the WordPress marks and the courts will resolve that complaint. Their use of WP was expressly allowed as WordPress expressly disclaimed WP as a trademark.

They can cry about WPE's usage of the wordpress.org services and say they are abusing them. Until they change the code and make the update URL configurable, they are being highly disingenuous. Considering that Cloudflare has offered to provide free CDN services to WPF for this, it seems like the best solution for the community would be for Matt to give wordpress.org to the foundation and let them use the freely offered services.

As I don't know you personally Justine and just go on what I've seen you contribute to the world, I must say I'm actually surprised at your apparent hard line on this. As I have said a few times, I have zero involvement in this debacle and I think both parties are likely bad actors. But what I've seen Matt post during this would make me 100% never get involved with him in any kind of business. He's displayed a shocking lack of self-restraint and level of malice towards those he feels have wronged him or are in his way.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#403

Post by jart »

lsaferite wrote: post #402
jart wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every dollar WPE makes is a dollar Automattic doesn't. If you're David, and Goliath wants to use your platform and trademark to make you poorer, would you let him? All the stuff you're talking about is a distraction, because this is an unnatural relationship, and they're going to come up with whatever excuses they can to rectify that.

If you are saying this is just Automattic being mad that WPE is making money and they want some of it, that's a major concern for any professional services company in the WP space. Once they are done with WPE, who's next on the list? This is not hyperbole. Any company that is a similar line of business would be foolish not to asses this as a high risk. Being mad that someone is using the open source software EXACTLY…

The world needs Matt and Automattic. It doesn't need WPE. The WordPress community should be more worried about what'll happen to them when no one is developing WordPress anymore, than what'll happen if Matt goes to war with everyone else too. He's so self-sacrificing that he didn't fight back against WPE until WPE alone was threating his survival. Apple would have never let someone in their App Store in the first place who directly competes with them, and Matt looked the other way for ten years. Matt is obviously guileless considering how he behaves. That would make me not very afraid of him if I were a business in this space. The fact is though that Matt is one of the people who gives to the community more than he's taking, and WPE is the opposite. You won't have a community anymore if the takers demoralize and alienate all the helpers. What's happening now is completely WPE's fault. As the most profitable entity in the WordPress space, they have a duty to help lead the community and fund its development. Asking for 8% isn't unreasonable.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#404

Post by [deleted] »

netsharc wrote: post #5
sofixa wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially if they were already looking for a way out / unsure if they want to stay. And the person who accepted 6 months salary/$30k to leave the job he started two days prior... Bravo, that's efficiency.

Seems like another CEO/lawyer misstep. Why offer the same package for someone who started 2 days ago? Someone could've made "Length worked at company" as a factor in the maths. A 30K budget would make a very nice 6 months vacation indeed...

[deleted]

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#405

Post by stevenicr »

righthand wrote: post #387
stevenicr wrote: post #372

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I run dozens of WP sites and help others create and maintain with it, I won't be leaving it any time soon - although at times it is appropriate to change hosts or even to change to a static site. Wordpress makes those things easy. I always have discussions with people about possible hosting issues, and issues with licenses changing when suggesting to use or continue to use WP (or anything else you do not control) Thi…

Well you can’t change hosts because Matt doesn’t like some of them when they don’t pad his bank account. Never said it wasnt easy. It’s also bloated and poorly developed. It’s a bit like asking why people don’t use bricks instead of tires.

Well you can change hosts to ones Matt like and doesn't like, and I'm glad you understand how easy it is.

Most hosting companies have some sorts of limits and some have wordpress related limited specifically.

If a web host is not able to provide the connectivity to the things you want or need, just switch.

From what I understand of my limited reading about the issue, wp engine may have to change how they advertise the use of wordpress related terms and they may have the mirror the plugin and other repositories as they may not be able to pass through access to the WP servers, this is a hindrance for sure, but it's not a full stop your site can't function.

Of course it's bloated for many use cases, because it is possible to do so many things with it (many things many may never need, sure) - poorly developed is not how I would characterize the development with WP - I've certainly loudly complained about some choices over the years, but the development is pretty robust compared to similar projects I have seen over the years.

If wordpress wants to change how they allow access to their servers based upon whether a host is making millions promoting WP, it's fine with me - they would not be the first company to decide to limit access at different thresholds and ask for more money based on usage.

It may be shocking and a big change, but the individual website owners can get the wp files and plugins and deploy in thousands of places around the world, and it takes just minutes in most cases.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#406

Post by n3storm »

silexia wrote: post #391
n3storm wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess you don't host it or program for it...

I run a digital agency with hundreds of employees and thousands of clients and tens of thousands of WordPress sites we host.

While I don't deny CMSs has been a big part of my money income for decades, and CMS are a great entry both for designers, developers and business, Wordpress is probably the most horrible one. His popularity IMHO is just a matter of timing and good usability (which I won't deny), but not is not backed by a good code design and implementation behind.

Drupal or even PHP Nuke was much better designed. I.e: Wp calls every published object post as it was designed as blog for posting.

Almost all CMS provide class oriented architecture, object caching, multilanguage, clean separation between base code, customer code and customer data, safe defaults (like all forms for commenting enabled),...

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#407

Post by chx »

jart wrote: post #396
lsaferite wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> forked their business ... is that even a thing? How is WPE the bad guy even if it is when there are NUMEROUS other wordpress hosting companies? > GPL The GPL specifically allows you to even SELL the GPL'd code to people, so I don't see how they are even violating the _spirit_ of the license. More to the point, it's not like WPE is a black hole. They _are_ engaging and spending money on the community from what their…

Every dollar WPE makes is a dollar Automattic doesn't. If you're David, and Goliath wants to use your platform and trademark to make you poorer, would you let him? All the stuff you're talking about is a distraction, because this is an unnatural relationship, and they're going to come up with whatever excuses they can to rectify that.

> Every dollar WPE makes is a dollar Automattic doesn't.

This is the same fallacy as "immigrants are taking our jobs".

No, this is not true. The market can expand, competition spurs innovation, they put in marketing and so forth. The income of Automattic in a world where WPE doesn't exist is less , likely much less than the income of real Automattic plus WPE.

You have been posting nonsense ever since you started, just stop.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#408

Post by chx »

jart wrote: post #403
lsaferite wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are saying this is just Automattic being mad that WPE is making money and they want some of it, that's a major concern for any professional services company in the WP space. Once they are done with WPE, who's next on the list? This is not hyperbole. Any company that is a similar line of business would be foolish not to asses this as a high risk. Being mad that someone is using the open source software EXACTLY…

The world needs Matt and Automattic. It doesn't need WPE. The WordPress community should be more worried about what'll happen to them when no one is developing WordPress anymore, than what'll happen if Matt goes to war with everyone else too. He's so self-sacrificing that he didn't fight back against WPE until WPE alone was threating his survival. Apple would have never let someone in their App Store in the first pla…

> The world needs Matt

Is the Wordpress community so weak that after all these years they couldn't weather Matt retiring?

And if Automattic is such a business which can only exist as a monopoly then it shouldn't exist. Because that's what you are implying.

Once again: if WP Engine misuses trademarks which Matt holds then by all means send a C&D to them and if they resist then sue them. That's a completely normal business behavior. What's happening here is lunacy.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#409

Post by ItCouldBeWorse »

pabs3 wrote: post #385
ItCouldBeWorse wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its everyones freedom to build a parallel open-source eco-system, that cooperations can not legally leech on.

That wouldn't be Open Source. There is an alternative movement called "Fair Source" though: https://fair.io/

Why the source is open- you can get all the ideas and copy it one way just like open source. Its differs from other "One-way-street-source" only by ownership of the public rights.

Re: Some Automattic employees accept severance package offer

#410

Post by pabs3 »

ItCouldBeWorse wrote: post #409
pabs3 wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That wouldn't be Open Source. There is an alternative movement called "Fair Source" though: https://fair.io/

Why the source is open- you can get all the ideas and copy it one way just like open source. Its differs from other "One-way-street-source" only by ownership of the public rights.

See the Open Source Definition, it mentions "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups".

https://opensource.org/osd/

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