Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

wpengine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 717 posts

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#461

Post by mort96 »

kemayo wrote: post #306
DannyBee wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The agreement wasn't about their license to the code," Maybe you misread it (or miswrote it i guess)? it says: "WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying any of Automattic’s, WooCommerce’s, or its affiliates' software (including, but not limited to plugins and extensions) ..." It could not more plainly say that they cannot fork or modify software .

I think what Matt's saying is that they absolutely had the GPL rights to fork and modify the code... but those rights don't include the right to use the trademark. So if they wanted to be able to market themselves as offering WooCommerce(TM), they had to agree to the license, in which they'd have to promise not to use the aforementioned GPL rights. I am nowhere near knowing enough about trademark law to say whether t…

But that's not what the legal document says? "Cease and desist from using the trademark" is a different sentence from "cease and decist from forking and modifying code"

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#462

Post by biccboii »

dncornholio wrote: post #388
safety1st wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is where Matt's perspective actually makes sense: "So, you guys built a $400M/yr business on our open source project, and when you had problems with the revision system, instead of contributing improvements, you just turned it off (and maybe converted it into an enterprise upsell some people are paying extra for!)?" Intel, Google, even Microsoft etc. develop improvements to Linux knowing full well that t…

WPEngine has tons of developers working on the WordPress ecosystem. This contribution argument doesn't work with me. They're contributing plenty of hours into WordPress plugins that their competition also can use.

No they don't. They contribute 40 hours a week.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#463

Post by stephenr »

chippiewill wrote: post #448
stephenr wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> WP Core has particularly poor technical and architectural direction, this arises when an organization stops valuing the tech and the tech people You make it sound like Wordpress had particularly good technical and architectural direction until this person was appointed, which is honestly just laughable. In my ~20 year career I've seen exactly one PHP codebase that was more shocking than Wordpress for the way that m…

Yeah, I agree. While Wordpress itself is impressively functional software it would surprise many people just how shaky the foundations its built on are. The PHP ecosystem has never had a strong reputation for quality engineering, and Wordpress originates from a time when quality in that ecosystem was at its lowest. Ironically Wordpress's failure to modernise is actually key to its success - not making changes has all…

> allowed its plugin system to be very stable

I have to assume by stable you mean "maintain an unchanging 'api' for plugins" as opposed to meaning that the plugin system is reliable.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#464

Post by amanzi »

photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Hi Matt - long time WordPress user here, and I've been hosting and running a WordPress multisite for over 15 years now. In fact, I met you at a WordCamp here in NZ 15 or 16 years ago. Anyway, this whole episode has been the final nail in the coffin for me, and I no longer want to have anything to do with WordPress.

I've long thought that the relationship between Automattic/WordPress.com and WordPress.org was not good for the community, and your behaviour here has put that beyond doubt.

I honestly don't know what's going through your head, but you need to try to wind back the clock a couple of weeks and put things right. You continue to lie and manipulate words (even in this thread!) to make it sound like you are in the right, but it's not working. You need to stop.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#465

Post by biccboii »

pclmulqdq wrote: post #88
photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Your response to this complaint is going to look very interesting. Also, a note for the audience: Quinn Emanuel is one of the premier (and most expensive) litigation firms in the US. Partners in their litigation department run $2000/hour or more. Associates cost almost $1000/hour. WPEngine apparently has deep pockets.

> WPEngine apparently has deep pockets.

Yeah because they don't have to spend any money on R&D nor do they spend money contributing to the open source project :)

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#466

Post by bwb »

amanzi wrote: post #464
photomatt wrote: post #57

Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here. One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/ They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive…

Hi Matt - long time WordPress user here, and I've been hosting and running a WordPress multisite for over 15 years now. In fact, I met you at a WordCamp here in NZ 15 or 16 years ago. Anyway, this whole episode has been the final nail in the coffin for me, and I no longer want to have anything to do with WordPress. I've long thought that the relationship between Automattic/WordPress.com and WordPress.org was not good…

I left WordPress ~8 years ago for a similar reason.

I watched Matt destroy friends' WordPress businesses by saying they violated the WP ethos while he and Automattic did the same thing in their businesses.

I've seen them break legal agreements with theme creators and refuse to pay them despite contracts. They also use legal threats against small creators to force them to accept an agreement that pays far less.

I would never do business with Matt or Automattic. They have behaved unethically in my experience.

Matt has too much power and uses it to do whatever he wants. He should never have been allowed to be involved in WordPress.org once he was working at Automattic.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#468

Post by lsaferite »

jdub wrote: post #428
mike_d wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers and do not depend on Canonical to run their business. WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers.

But from the very beginning, Canonical/Ubuntu chose to make mirroring the repo easy, and encouraged the usual network of public mirrors to participate, much as Debian and other distros had done for years. (It wouldn't be unfair to say that Canonical/Ubuntu had to meet the expectation those distributions had set.) That is something the WordPress community (albeit centralised in the WordPress.org decision makers) could…

> WordPress.org decision makers

That would be Matt as the sole owner of wordpress.org, not a plural 'decision makers'

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#469

Post by commoner »

ceejayoz wrote: post #455
austhrow743 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the contract that gives WP Engine the free house?

The GPL, and WordPress's trademark policy, which up to a week ago stated " The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."

On the other hand, the use of WordPress servers is in no way covered by the GPL. WP Engine can pay for their own servers the same way Bluehost used to.

Re: Filed: WP Engine Inc. v Automattic Inc. and Matthew Charles Mullenweg [pdf]

#470

Post by austhrow743 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #455
austhrow743 wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the contract that gives WP Engine the free house?

The GPL, and WordPress's trademark policy, which up to a week ago stated " The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."

That someone gives you the right to use their code doesn't mean they're required to be a free hosting provider for you.
Post reply on HN