71–80 of 84 posts
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Because it is "perpetually, exclusively, and irrevocably" licensed to Automattic.
Irrevocably? Sure about that?
It only controls the trademark anyway no different from firefox or anything else with a trademarked name.
Anyone else can do anything else the gpl allows with the software, just under some other name.
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He can't relicense as WordPress is a fork of B2 which is GPL. That's one reason why he's trying to extort instead.
I don’t think the fact that it’s a B2 fork is relevant. He wouldn’t be able to relicense even if it wasn’t a fork but initially chosen GPL.
IP issues withstanding, the owner of a software can relicense any time they want.
Any software released in the past would still be subject to the GPL.
So, if Matt decided to make WordPress closed source, previous versions would still be licensed under the terms of the GPL.
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You might want to actually understand what's happening instead of simplifying the whole thing as tldr.
is this not true? Main Points of Contention Trademark and Branding Issues Mullenweg accuses WP Engine of misusing the WordPress trademark and causing confusion among users1. WP Engine has since changed some of its plan names to address these concerns1. Open Source Contributions Mullenweg criticizes WP Engine for not contributing enough to the WordPress open-source project relative to their profits5 . Core Feature Mod…
WPEngine used "WP", which until a few weeks ago was explicitly stated as "feel free to use". Nominative usage also says factual statements are protected. If you offer WordPress hosting, you are allowed to say "We offer WordPress hosting". You might highlight (and WPE did) that "WordPress is a trademark of...".
Matt's claim, "My mom is confused and thinks that WPEngine is part of the open source project", is a deflection, and laughable coming from the man who runs wordpress.org as a "independent website" (running on the Foundation's IP addresses) and wordpress.com as a for-profit business. That seems just a little more confusing.
> Open Source Contributions Mullenweg criticizes WP Engine for not contributing enough to the WordPress open-source project relative to their profits
WPE donated hundreds of thousands a year to events alone, maintains several of the most popular plugins (all of which are free to use, unlike several of Automattic's, which are commercial).
> Core Feature Modifications WP Engine is accused of altering core WordPress features, particularly disabling post revisions by default
This is laughable. It's literally a configuration option in the control panel. It just defaults to "disabled" on WPE.
> Mullenweg argues this compromises the integrity of WordPress and its promise to users
Why is it even a configuration option, then, Matt?
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I don’t think the fact that it’s a B2 fork is relevant. He wouldn’t be able to relicense even if it wasn’t a fork but initially chosen GPL.
Based on my understanding, this is not how it works. IP issues withstanding, the owner of a software can relicense any time they want. Any software released in the past would still be subject to the GPL. So, if Matt decided to make WordPress closed source, previous versions would still be licensed under the terms of the GPL.
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Would love to know which pages you used in the prompt for that shoddy summary job.
perplexity. https://files.catbox.moe/tqxnp8.png i wonder if the summary is totally inaccurate or really just debated.
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> He could have had basically the entire internet on his side just by laying out the facts: "They use our product for free, generate hundreds of millions in revenue, and don't contribute back. It's just not fair. Please contribute more." I remember reading exactly this statement about corps generating profits on a open source thousand of times. Usually with zero effect.
Zero effect would have been strictly better than what we're seeing here.
Expect to see this kind of drama happening regularly and frequently as the gazillion dollar commercial industry continues to subvert every ideal of the original open source ethos. Some of the best and now most commercially critical open source software started a long time ago, by people buying into RMS-like visions of the future. Turns out, we did not arrive in that future. We arrived in the one where both $xxxB comp…
RMS was and still is right. If you care what someone else does with free software beyond making the source available, that is a you problem.
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Based on my understanding, this is not how it works. IP issues withstanding, the owner of a software can relicense any time they want. Any software released in the past would still be subject to the GPL. So, if Matt decided to make WordPress closed source, previous versions would still be licensed under the terms of the GPL.
According to `git blame`, Matt isn't the sole, or even majority, owner of the WordPress codebase.
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RMS was and still is right. If you care what someone else does with free software beyond making the source available, that is a you problem.
Then why is GPL-3 encroaching on what I can do with open source software?
Even gpl3 isn't "encroaching" on anything.
It's terms are no different than any other terms, in that you can either accept or not. No different than if the terms are for money.
If you don't agree to them, then luckily you don't have to use the software. You can write your own software that you don't have to share with anyone. Or you can pay for software that has other terms which are surely much more generous and empowering than gpl3.
The only reason the software exists and is good enough to be valuable in the first place, is because it had those terms. If it had other terms, it wouldn't exist in the first place or be worth stealing for you complain that it doesn't let you steal it. If it had other terms, then most of the people who gave their time to work on it, would not have done so, because it would be a bad investment of their time.
I guess the actual complaint here is "why can't you just give me software like MIT?" Why should anyone care about that complaint? It's like trying to use a freedom argument to criticize the limitation on your freedom to keep slaves.
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According to `git blame`, Matt isn't the sole, or even majority, owner of the WordPress codebase.
I understand your point, but that wasn’t my point. And in terms of reality, it’s easy to argue that Matt is the effective owner of the codebase.