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My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

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Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#21

Post by belorn »

> I can’t see how Matt’s recent ideas on the rights to use the WordPress logo, the name or the wordmark requiring companies that he doesn’t like to pay up are in compliance with the GPL license.

Trademarks and logos are not attached to the software license. The Linux kernel has a trademark page (https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/the-linux-mark) which is separated from the gplv2 license. Python has their own trademark page (https://www.python.org/psf/trademarks/) which is separated from the bsd-like python license that the python software use. Take any major free software project and they will likely have a trademark legal page detailing what is or isn't allowed, which will be separated from the software license. Neither the free software foundation nor Open Source Initiative provide trademark under same terms as the software license. FSF specifically has the following statement:

"While our software is available under a free and open source software license, the copyright license does not include an implied right or license to use our trademark" (https://static.fsf.org/nosvn/licensing/2020/ModelTrademarkGu...)

OSI also has a guide for their trademarks (https://opensource.org/trademark-guidelines), which limits how people and company uses wordmarks and icons. OSI says in their introduction:

"In fact, the law obligates trademark owners to police their marks and prevent the use of confusingly similar names by third parties"

Last, there are historical examples where non-profits that produce free software, that being Mozilla, was in a trademark conflict with Debian, a project based on free software. The Debian–Mozilla trademark dispute resulted in Firefox, licensed under gpl, being renamed Iceweasel with a new icon that replaced the original icon that is owned by Mozilla. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian%E2%80%93Mozilla_tradema...) That 10 years dispute ended in 2016.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#22

Post by sgdfhijfgsdfgds »

pell wrote: post #13
sgdfhijfgsdfgds wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I imagine WordPress is far from being displaced, even after everything that has been going on. Right. But this is because of a very simple, undeniable fact that is unpopular around these here parts: There is nothing close to as good as WordPress at everything WordPress can be made to do. No GUI-based CMS not built on PHP can be as flexibly hosted as one that is. PHP is easy and can be secured. There are no real…

>No GUI-based CMS not built on PHP can be as flexibly hosted as one that is. PHP is easy and can be secured. And there are no PHP-based competitors for WordPress that are as easy to use. There have been many attempts in the past. Some offered better performance, security, were easier to use, more lightweight, etc. However they all lacked the ecosystem that WordPress provides. They just didn't have the plugins and the…

Right. WordPress is Windows for the Web, basically.

More enjoyable to develop for, IMO, but otherwise the comparison holds.

I would add that other PHP-based projects have had severe maintainability crises, poorer clarity of design, even worse code quality crises (Joomla, for example), major fallings-out and multiple forks (Joomla again).

WordPress got this far in part because it managed inevitable community fallings-out and egos much better. It's totally depressing to see what is happening.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#23

Post by cosiiine »

rjmunro wrote: post #14
thimabi wrote: post #3

This whole affair has been a disaster for everyone involved. Just a ton of dirty laundry being aired in public… Time is ripe for a new publishing ecosystem — more secure, with less cruft, and preferably better governance. But I imagine WordPress is far from being displaced, even after everything that has been going on.

There's already Drupal, Joomla, Ghost and many more. What I'd like to see is a CMS that uses git as a data store and renders to a static site. Something that can render to S3, Google pages, Cloudflare pages or a random FTP server. Ideally I could run it locally in Electron or similar, but also be able to have it hosted somewhere online that isn't the same place as the website being managed. I haven't seen a good offe…

That’s the jamstack in a nutshell. I use DecapCMS to manage some client sites using that exact strategy. It’s always nice to rollback their content issues using git, it’s saved me many hours of headaches.

The only challenge is markdown is not a great store of complex component data IMO.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#24

Post by aeuropean12 »

Thank you for sharing this insightful post. I have used WP for more than a decade and must say these are very serious points, especially considering EU legislation and the questionable behavior by Mr. Mullenweg.

This will be interesting reading to EU legislators and lawyers working in the IP and privacy space.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#25

Post by soco »

MobileVet wrote: post #5

> What not everyone knows is that those sites are mirrored over to the WordPress.com infrastructure, including WooCommerce customer data and purchase histories — and that infrastructure is as far as I understand the GDPR — not compatible with European privacy regulations Yikes. Not surprising in this age of data hoovering, but definitely sketchy and likely illegal in the EU. I guess it follows the other point about A…

I might be wrong but the impression is that every US company tries the same, with different rates of success, And I don't only mean SaaS companies, or even IT. And I also don't mean unknowingly, but actively trying to impose their usual ways.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#26

Post by rob »

sgdfhijfgsdfgds wrote: post #9
thimabi wrote: post #3

This whole affair has been a disaster for everyone involved. Just a ton of dirty laundry being aired in public… Time is ripe for a new publishing ecosystem — more secure, with less cruft, and preferably better governance. But I imagine WordPress is far from being displaced, even after everything that has been going on.

> But I imagine WordPress is far from being displaced, even after everything that has been going on. Right. But this is because of a very simple, undeniable fact that is unpopular around these here parts: There is nothing close to as good as WordPress at everything WordPress can be made to do. No GUI-based CMS not built on PHP can be as flexibly hosted as one that is. PHP is easy and can be secured. There are no real…

I can't think of another CMS that lets you easily make over $1000 for a day or two worth of work, often times without actually writing any PHP or doing some minimal overrides with filters and actions. Everything is pretty streamlined for the most part. There's stable plugins that have been active for over 10 years that pretty much do anything you can think of. Page builders that output modern HTML and CSS. Optimized hosting ready to go. Secure backup solutions that let you restore everything easily without needing to SSH into a remote server. You're not locked into an obscure language or niche CMS that leaves the client stranded down the road, or with big bills because they needed to hire an Elixir developer for their Phoenix blog they deployed via wasm to fly.io 3 years ago.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#27

Post by lordgroff »

rjmunro wrote: post #14
thimabi wrote: post #3

This whole affair has been a disaster for everyone involved. Just a ton of dirty laundry being aired in public… Time is ripe for a new publishing ecosystem — more secure, with less cruft, and preferably better governance. But I imagine WordPress is far from being displaced, even after everything that has been going on.

There's already Drupal, Joomla, Ghost and many more. What I'd like to see is a CMS that uses git as a data store and renders to a static site. Something that can render to S3, Google pages, Cloudflare pages or a random FTP server. Ideally I could run it locally in Electron or similar, but also be able to have it hosted somewhere online that isn't the same place as the website being managed. I haven't seen a good offe…

The problem is that what WP can do is so, so much more than that. And this is the secret to its success since it can grow from a blog to "here's a bunch of static pages" to a full ecommerce site with CRM/ERP integrations, etc. Boutique mini CMS is a fine thing but won't be displacing WP.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#28

Post by c0brac0bra »

cosiiine wrote: post #23
rjmunro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already Drupal, Joomla, Ghost and many more. What I'd like to see is a CMS that uses git as a data store and renders to a static site. Something that can render to S3, Google pages, Cloudflare pages or a random FTP server. Ideally I could run it locally in Electron or similar, but also be able to have it hosted somewhere online that isn't the same place as the website being managed. I haven't seen a good offe…

That’s the jamstack in a nutshell. I use DecapCMS to manage some client sites using that exact strategy. It’s always nice to rollback their content issues using git, it’s saved me many hours of headaches. The only challenge is markdown is not a great store of complex component data IMO.

I really like Decap, but I wish that the UX was better. With a bit more polish it would be very compelling.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#29

Post by bullenweg »

ndheebebe wrote: post #17
bullenweg wrote: post #11

> WordPress and Automattic as Subject to EU Legislation I'm loath to defend Mullenweg but WordPress.com is not 43% of the internet. WordPress (the software) is used by 43% of websites, WordPress.com is used by a few million, making it smaller than Wix, Squarespace and even other WordPress hosts like WPEngine.com. Automattic has no relationship with a meaningful amount of end-user data.

How does Jetpack play into that? Wordpress.anything in general must be a data juristional nightmare. Every plugin has access to UGC and could be sending bits of that anywhere.

Jetpack the plugin does not send end-user data home, only Jetpack the paid service does that, the customer base of Jetpack is small. If a plugin's theoretical access to user data is enough to cause GDPR responsibilities for the developer that would have broad ramifications across the world of open-source, as code written by some developer in their free time is being used by every company.

Re: My experiences with Automattic: Part 3

#30

Post by Karellen »

briandear wrote: post #16

Can someone explain the whole drama of all of this? I have heard of “Wordpress” and I have heard of “WP Engine” and I have heard that .com and .org are apparently not the same thing. But other than that this feels like walking into someone else’s family argument halfway through it. I don’t know what “side” to be on, nor what those “sides” even are.

A really good primer on the whole background is LWN's recent "The WordPress mess"

https://lwn.net/Articles/991906/

They have a follow-up "WordPress retaliation impacts community". It's currently subscribers-only for another week, but they do allow subscribers to generate free links provided subscribers don't abuse that - which I don't think this should count as?

https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/993895/8482b183b2dcb418/

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