Ah Quinn Emanuel on the job - yeah, the defendants are cooked, one way or another!
Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
31–40 of 717 posts
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m an arm length removed from all this drama having not used Wordpress in a while, but to be honest this opinion feels overblown. To an outsider, it just looks like some legal issue between two entities irrelevant to my concerns on whether I’d use or contribute to Wordpress in the future. Something that happens between corporations all the time My guess is there will be some settlement, one party will walk away with…
> irrelevant to my concerns This is very relevant to anyone that cares about open source. Companies being able to host any OSS without the threat of a trademark dispute is vital to the software industry.
Kind of a similar situation as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debian%E2%80%93Mozilla_tradema...
This didn’t kill Mozilla in the end or really affect the OSS community for Firefox or Debian
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#33Um this seems pretty horrendous (from a moral PoV, no idea about legal), at the time Mullenweg apparently said > Automattic has transferred the WordPress trademark to the WordPress > Foundation, the nonprofit dedicated to promoting and ensuring access to WordPress and related > open source projects in perpetuity. This means that the most central piece of WordPress’s identity, > its name, is now fully independent from…
Also, I saw on X earlier today, someone posted that the agreement WP Engine was being asked to agree to included verbiage that WPE would not be allowed to fork WordPress. Is not forkability one of the keys to OSS? Shady.
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Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#34What's sad here is that this dispute isn't likely to make Wordpress any better, but rather send money to lawyers and reduce enthusiasm for the OSS project.
And what is more sad is that it really appears that the WordPress figurehead is to blame.
Matt has made so many unforced errors in the last month, in addition to revealing, one way or another, that he basically considers WordPress, the .org, the .com, the Foundation, and Automattic, all to be synonymous, which is news to a significant portion of the community, let alone to the incorporation and other founding filings.
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#35It's hard to even imagine what a best-case scenario looks like for Matt at this point. Putting aside the matter of righteousness, his business is pretty much chalked for professional applications at this point. B2B partnerships are done - anyone with lawyers on-staff are going to get shoulder-tapped and asked to find another hosting solution. Smaller customers have all the more reason to bleed out to competitors, and…
If it's any three things, it's about money, money, and money. Zooming out a bit, Automattic acquired Tumblr and like all those before it seems to be choking on it. Competitors like Wix, Squarespace, WebFlow and Shopify are all nipping at WordPress' marketshare. I don't know what WordPress.com's stats look like, but blogging is out of sytle. New cool kids want the new black. That is to be social media influencers. Alo…
> blogging is out of sytle
OTOH maybe the majority of WP users are not blogging.
It's anecdotal but I know about a dozen WP users first-hand (and maintain a couple of those installations) and none of them use it for blogging. It's mostly for marketing websites and shops with WooCommerce.
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#36That's what going "nuclear" looks like ... I guess Mullenweg found out. Sadly, instead of supporting open source with $5 million, they each will spend 10 million on lawyers.
Automattic requested well over $10 million annually from WP Engine, so WP engine would find a lawyer battle cheaper.
To go to Matt’s for profit entity, for his for profit entity to direct as they wish.
“I demand you give resources to your for profit competitor for them to use as they wish. And I’ll pretend to be wearing my non-profit, independent hat while demanding it.”
Is it any surprise this has gone the way it has?
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#37The alleged extortion of the WP Engine CEO seems absolutely inexcusable regardless of what you think of the trademark dispute. Impossible to imagine a valid justification for telling someone you'll tattle to their investors and the press if they don't accept a job offer.
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#38COMPLAINT FOR: (1) Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations; (2) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations; (3) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 et seq.; (4) Attempted Extortion; (5) Unfair Competition, Cal. Bus. Prof. Code§ 17200, et seq.; (6) Promissory Estoppel; (7) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement; (8) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Dilution; (9) Libel; (10) Trade…
Of these, the ones that are interesting are basically 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10.
The CFAA claim here is actually basically an extortion claim (plus other throwaway general claims) framed in CFAA terms.
See 18 U.S.C. § 1030(a)(7)
This is actually somewhat uncommon to see :)
However, it seems likely to be dismissed (without prejudice) or need to be amended since it looks like it doesn't plead the claim properly.
"(g)Any person who suffers damage ... may maintain a civil action ... A civil action for a violation of this section may be brought only if the conduct involves 1 of the factors set forth in subclauses (I), (II), (III), (IV), or (V) of subsection (c)(4)(A)(i).
They do not actually explicitly allege one of these factors is present, and it reads like it is a necessary element to maintain a civil action claim.
Now, mind you, the factors are present (It's stuff like 'you have to cause at least 5k in damage), but the response is going to state they've failed to plead a claim by not explicitly meeting all the necessary elements.
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#39The alleged extortion of the WP Engine CEO seems absolutely inexcusable regardless of what you think of the trademark dispute. Impossible to imagine a valid justification for telling someone you'll tattle to their investors and the press if they don't accept a job offer.
It's absolutely unhinged. I really wonder how much legal support Matt had during all of this.
Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it's any three things, it's about money, money, and money. Zooming out a bit, Automattic acquired Tumblr and like all those before it seems to be choking on it. Competitors like Wix, Squarespace, WebFlow and Shopify are all nipping at WordPress' marketshare. I don't know what WordPress.com's stats look like, but blogging is out of sytle. New cool kids want the new black. That is to be social media influencers. Alo…
> blogging is out of sytle OTOH maybe the majority of WP users are not blogging. It's anecdotal but I know about a dozen WP users first-hand (and maintain a couple of those installations) and none of them use it for blogging. It's mostly for marketing websites and shops with WooCommerce.
That's .org version of WP. WP.com - Automattic's bread & butter - was the big 2nd gen blogging platform.
Yes, agreed WooComm is new. Nonetheless, social media'ing has replaced "I got a website" and "I got a blog."