Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine

Post by Kye » Wed, Sep 25, 2024, 2:39 PM UTC

keane wrote: post #32

AnonC wrote: post #30

This whole incident (with the information from texts and posts shared in the “Cease and Desist” letter by WP Engine) makes Matt seem like a disgruntled person who’s after another company because his ego is hurt when his efforts to extort money from it failed. This doesn’t do any good to the reputation of Automattic or WordPress. If this goes to court, I hope WP Engine wins, not because it’s a good open source partici…

Correct me if I have the timeline wrong but is my assessment correct that this played out roughly: 1) Matt creates WordPress under GPL, his friend coins the software’s name, Matt creates a company to offer commercial services of it, and registers the trademark. (2003—2006) 2) Automattic donates the trademark to a Foundation while retaining an unlimited license to the marks for commercial use and is designated to enfo…

Post by keane » Thu, Sep 26, 2024, 3:35 AM UTC

Kye wrote: post #51

keane wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Correct me if I have the timeline wrong but is my assessment correct that this played out roughly: 1) Matt creates WordPress under GPL, his friend coins the software’s name, Matt creates a company to offer commercial services of it, and registers the trademark. (2003—2006) 2) Automattic donates the trademark to a Foundation while retaining an unlimited license to the marks for commercial use and is designated to enfo…

Correction on 1: he forked a GPL project (b2/cafelog). He had no choice but to release it under GPL if he wanted to release it at all. It's a very long ago piece of history that, while acknowledged by WordPress in its history pages, doesn't seem well-known. People who don't know sometimes present it as some grand act of charity for the good of open source. It was just what you did.