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Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

wpenginestatus.com

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Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#41

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

timkq wrote: post #27
robjwells wrote: post #13

I have no dog in this fight, but from the outside this is ludicrous behaviour. Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of a for-profit WordPress hosting company, should not be using his position in the open-source WordPress project to attack another for-profit WordPress hosting company. Nothing could tank the reputation of the open-source WordPress project faster.

This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company. WordPress powers about 40% of the web - it is too big to fail (as of now).

> This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company.

I am only looking at this from the outside but given that Wordpress.org (not the wordpress hosting company wordpress.com) is involved here, it's clear that this dispute involves the Wordpress project itself and not just the commercial Automattic entity/Matt Mullenweg.

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#42

Post by debesyla »

timkq wrote: post #32
yellow_lead wrote: post #22

So Matt's mom confused WP Engine for official WordPress and Matt then decided that they are infringing on the WordPress trademark, by using "WP" and calling themselves "#1 platform for WordPress." Then, he threatened WP Engine to pay up or he will go to war against them, and now we are seeing what he meant by that. Honestly, seems like pretty immature behavior, but it's entertaining at least.

His biggest beef with WP Engine is that their code is "bastardized" (???), because it doesn't enable revisions by default for their websites. That's one of the dumbest arguments I've heard. He's trying to convince us that only WP Engine is bad - and all other WP hosting companies are supposedly good.

Yeah, I expected something more serious (like tracking usage analytics, scrapping data for some content generator or etc.) but it seems like the real problem is a minor function that {a lot} of users don't even know about?

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#43

Post by Ukv »

pooper wrote: post #33
timkq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company. WordPress powers about 40% of the web - it is too big to fail (as of now).

The question still stands though. Why does wp engine get to infringe on WordPress trademark AND get access to server resources for free?

WordPress's trademark policy[0] explicitly said:

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

and

> Similarly, a business related to WordPress themes can describe itself as “XYZ Themes, the world’s best WordPress themes,” but cannot call itself “The WordPress Theme Portal.”

[0]: https://web.archive.org/web/20240901224354/https://wordpress...

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#44

Post by timkq »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #23

Has WP Engine actually done anything wrong? Wordpress is released under GPLv2 which allows modification and commercial use. I don't see the justification for Automattic demanding royalties.

They've realized it's an untapped source of revenue and they want their share, somehow

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#45

Post by bilekas »

toenail wrote: post #29

God the hubris of the Wordpress camp.. https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/ > WordPress is a content management system, and the content is sacred. Wordpress people have been rewriting content without asking for permission FOREVER, potentially breaking code embedded in content. They rewrite (or perhaps stopped by now, I've moved on) Wordpress to WordPress.

> Every change you make to every page, every post, is tracked in a revision system, just like the Wikipedia

If I was a hosting service I would have that noise off by default too.

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#46

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #23

Has WP Engine actually done anything wrong? Wordpress is released under GPLv2 which allows modification and commercial use. I don't see the justification for Automattic demanding royalties.

They are intending on enforcing this via trademarks and not code license. So the dispute is about "WP" and how "Wordpress" is used on the WP Engine website as a trademark.

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#47

Post by nodesocket »

This behavior seems incredibly hostile, especially considering both companies have been around for over a decade. So, what changed? WP Engine got big? They've been that way for quite some time. My guess is that developments over the past eight years—such as the rise of static sites, JavaScript, and Node.js have likely led to a decline in market share and revenue for both WordPress and WP Engine (though I don’t have specific data to back this up). This is just bad business. Focusing on competitors is a distraction, and at this point, it feels like a personal feud for Matt. What are the motives? Money (unlikely Matt already is wealthy), seems like hubris.

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#48

Post by timkq »

bilekas wrote: post #39
timkq wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company. WordPress powers about 40% of the web - it is too big to fail (as of now).

Do you have some references to that 40% number, because if that's true, thats terrifying.

https://w3techs.com/technologies/details/cm-wordpress

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#49

Post by notpushkin »

genmon wrote: post #37

I feel like I missed the entire back story to all of this. There was a cryptic post about private equity a week ago https://ma.tt/2024/09/are-investors-bad/ and then Mullenweg's attack on WPEngine (and their PE owners) ramped up 0-60 in no time at all. Like, is this just about support for the OSS project, and is there a conversation on the dev lists I've missed? Why now -- did WPEngine make a threat to fork the proje…

> did WPEngine make a threat to fork the project?

WP/Matt’s actions would only make them fork faster, no?

Re: Incident: Wordpress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from registry

#50

Post by raverbashing »

Matt needs to calm down, talk to their lawyers and keep the ego in check

Yes you released WP as GPL or whatever, you'll get competitors like WP Engine.

Sure, it's your prerogative to block access to plugins, but that won't win you any points, quite the contrary. And now there's a reason for WPE to come up with a competing store

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