8 ms·

The problem I have with this is simple and has to do with the lack of separation of entities. Automattic is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.com is a comp

The problem I have with this is simple and has to do with the lack of separation of entities. Automattic is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.com is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation IS NOT a competitor with WPEngine. There is a dispute between Automattic and WPEngine. The resources of Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation should not be leverage in this dispute. The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. It is very poor taste and changes the perspective of the product. Instead of a professional entity who will engage professionally it is now a form of leverage that a single person could wield against anyone who crosses them. To be clear these same exact actions can be taken against anyone who insults one individual. This look is embarrassing.

davidandgoliath 2y ago
Gets even more wild when you consider Automattic invested in WP Engine's Series A in 2011, despite all this insidious trademark abuse commencing in 2010. No chance this is personal.
rgbrenner 2y ago
this dispute is with wordpress though. “wordpress” is not a generic term. if i called my company “MSengine”, and described it as “the most trusted microsoft platform” (a phrase i copied straight from wpengine.com)… i would get a cease and desist almost immediately. even in the open source community, there are dozens (probably more) linux distros that have been told by ubuntu to rename their projects from “ubuntu x” to something else, for example. there are no trademark grants contained in the gpl or any of the popular open source licenses. the only mystery is why they’ve waited so long to enforce their trademark.. but matt says they’ve been working on a deal “for a while”.. and i guess we’ll have to wait until the court case to see what that means.
- kadoban 2y ago
  The WordPress trademark guides say explicitly that "WP" is allowed to be used by others. Several other parts of the wording the WP Engine uses are also explicitly allowed. So your whole first two paragraphs are mistaken.
  - rgbrenner 2y ago
    if we’re going by the trademark policy, it also says you can’t use the wordpress name in the name of your project or service. and arguing that “wp” doesn’t mean “wordpress” and therefore is allowed, is exactly the same as me selling “msengine” for microsoft products, and telling everyone “ms” doesn’t mean microsoft. we all know what it stands for for, and if you weren’t sure, you can jut scan the page and see it’s clearly associated with wordpress. if that’s the basis of the legal defense wpengine wants to make in court, they are truly f’d.
    - ok_dad 2y ago
      > The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks Straight from the Wordpress trademark page that was just recently changed to talk shit about a competitor: https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/
      - rgbrenner 2y ago
        microsoft doesn’t have a trademark on “ms” either. like i said, if wpengine is hoping to go into court and explain that wp is not related to wordpress, while selling wordpress services… i dont think its going to go well for them. this is going to be just as flimsy of a defense as “mikerowesoft”
        tapoxi 2y ago
        yeah but Wordpress.org explicitly said "using WP is okay". if they turn around and say "no it's not" that's promissory estoppel
- mdasen 2y ago
  Earlier this month, WordPress explicitly said that their trademark didn't cover "WP" https://web.archive.org/web/20240901224354/https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240901224354/https://wordpress... The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. They changed the wording as of this dispute with WP Engine: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress. https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ Trademarks need to be defended to be valid. If I started a website "YC Hacker News", Y Combinator would need to defend their trademark (if they think they have one over "YC Hacker News") or the fact that I'm using "YC Hacker News" means they don't have a trademark over that. WP Engine has been around for over a decade. Automattic and the WordPress foundation didn't have an issue with it for such a long time. If you think someone is infringing on your trademark, you can't just let them use it and come back a decade later and change your mind. In this case, WordPress has even less argument. If Y Combinator said "you can use 'YC' and 'Hacker News' in any way you see fit," they couldn't later come back and say "nooooo, YC sounds like Y Combinator and people get confused!" The WordPress Foundation explicitly allowed everyone to use "WP" in any way they saw fit and disclaimed all trademark over "WP". Yes, lots of companies/foundations wouldn't have allowed the generic use of "WP" for anyone to use. In this case, they explicitly allowed it and also didn't have a problem with WP Engine's use for well over a decade. They waited so long to "enforce their trademark" because they don't have a trademark on "WP". They explicitly said so. Now they're trying to create a trademark on a term that's already been in generic use for a while - and explicitly blessed by the WordPress Foundation. I certainly understand Automattic not liking the fact that they're doing (and paying for) the development work on WordPress while many WordPress users pay WP Engine instead of Automattic/WordPress.com. However, the ship has sailed on claiming that people aren't allowed to use "WP". From where I'm sitting, this feels similar to Elastic, Mongo and other open-source companies disliking it when third parties make money off their open-source code. Of course, WordPress (and Automattic's WordPress.com) wouldn't be the success it is without its open-source nature (just ask Movable Type).
- patmcc 2y ago
  Trademarks are largely (but not exclusively) about preventing consumer confusion. I can offer a course called "Learn how to use Excel like a pro" and not get sued by MS, as long as I'm not making it seem like I'm Microsoft. Just like DigitalOcean can say "We will rent you an Ubuntu server". We can argue about whether calling something "Wordpress Hosting" or "Hosting a Wordpress site" is different, but I think WP Engine is being perfectly reasonable. "Wordpress Hosting" is as generic as Kleenex and Xerox at this point.
  - neom 2y ago
    I've been thinking about this all week since this WP stuff kicked off. You know what's funny, as far as I know I was the first senior person to have a conversation with Ubuntu about that from the DO side, and as far as I recall it (granted it was a long time ago) it was basically them: "Uhm, you can't do that"- me: "maybe, not sure, but probably better to be friends tho yah?" them: "yah" me: "k" - dunno how it is today, but at least till I left, that was how it remained, always earned a shit load of respect in my book, not sure how it'd have gone for us if they decided to really get nasty, but either way, super grateful they didn't, good job Ubuntu people!!!!
flutas 2y ago
> The resources of Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation should not be leverage in this dispute. I honestly wonder if it crosses any legal boundaries. From what I can tell, it's essentially the non-profit acting on commands from the for-profit. Basically the equivalent in my mind to a "in-kind donation".
- that_guy_iain 2y ago
  To me, I think it's more that it shows they're one entity and then it is a massive issue about the tax write offs Automattic will have been claiming for years. But, I guess we'll see because WP Engine is going to come out swinging on this. They have to. There is also the fact that WP Engine sponsored a WordPress Foundation event and then was kicked out of it because of this dispute. The WordPress foundation accepted 75k knowing what WP Engine was doing and then didn't honour the deal.
  - safety1st 2y ago
    This is also the most shocking thing to me, that Matt seems to be very blasé about using Automattic and the foundation more or less interchangeably and in a very public way to further his goals. So other than the tax writeoffs what was the point of creating the foundation? Where is this guy's legal counsel? Surely they have to be screaming their heads off right now because from the outside every indication now is that the Foundation is really just an extension of Automattic that exists to dodge taxes and whether it is claiming its nonprofit status legally is now becoming a question mark. This is so far for Matt to have fallen and taken WordPress with him
    - that_guy_iain 2y ago
      > Where is this guy's legal counsel? They're represented by Perkins Coie. Who, even as someone from the EU who doesn't do any legal stuff, I have heard of and know are very good. I think they'll be kind of loving this mess. Because even though this is a mess, they're going to get paid to deal with the mess.
  - Nemo_bis 2y ago
tomphoolery 2y ago
> The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. There was never a boundary in the first place if it's the same guy doing both things. WordPress has always had this veneer of "community-driven", which is what they hide behind when people get their sites exploited, but Automattic really holds all the keys here. Just because Matt replies with an `@wordpress.org` email vs. an `@wordpress.com` email doesn't mean he's a different person all of a sudden.
- SSLy 2y ago
  Compare and contrast with the OpenAI old board vs sama drama the other day. And the end result of non-profit being steered by the for-profit entity.
  - forgetfreeman 2y ago
    You could also draw parallels from Drupal's death spiral that kicked off when (at the behest of corporate clients) Aquia decided to pivot to "large core" architecture and tossed the bulk of the community overboard in the process.
- datahack 2y ago
  If that’s the case, I’d like to hear from Matt about this. I’ve known him for years, and I don’t think he is unaware of conflicts like these. In fact I’ve seen him be deeply thoughtful about complex problems in the past. He’s not perfect (who is?), but he really does try. Given that he has been pretty reasonable about stuff like this in the past, I don’t find myself inclined to ascribe bad intent until I hear from him personally. Seems like the kind of situation where only one person can answer. Am I off?
  - swyx 2y ago
    > Given that he has been pretty reasonable about stuff like this in the past, I don’t find myself inclined to ascribe bad intent until I hear from him personally. there is a level of actions that are so bad that intent doesnt actually matter anymore. i would say matt has crossed that line here.
sjs382 2y ago
> The problem I have with this is simple and has to do with the lack of separation of entities. > Automattic is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.com is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation IS NOT a competitor with WPEngine. > There is a dispute between Automattic and WPEngine. The resources of Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation should not be leverage in this dispute. > The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. Can an action like this put the WordPress Foundation's 501c(3) at risk? And if so, how likely is it to actually become a legal problem?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Were it to go to trial, legal discovery would be fun. How many internal conversations were had about, “Those jerks at WPEngine are eating our lunch”. Rather than, “I am truly concerned about how the trademark is being confused by this one specific successful company. Whatever can we do?”
  - ttul 2y ago
    I kind of want discovery to happen in this situation.
  - otterley 2y ago
    Civil discovery isn’t a public process. The parties don’t get to share what they discovered with the public, and sensitive information is frequently redacted before documents are provided to the opposing party.
    - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
      I was more thinking that this would be government intervention regarding the non-profit status. Discovery would still be secret, but probably a smoking gun there that the organization is not independent of the commercial entity. As far as I am aware, the WP.org”s (or is it the foundation?) actions are distasteful, but they are allowed to ban whomever they like.
usaphp 2y ago
> There is a dispute between Automattic and WPEngine I think the dispute is in fact between the org and wpengine. Wpengine doesn’t contribute to the core as much as they promised, and prohibits their employees to do so.
- InsomniacL 2y ago
  > I think the dispute is in fact between the org and wpengine. Automattic sent the cease and desist to WP Engine.
- threeseed 2y ago
  WPEngine has no obligation to contribute anything. This is not how open source has or is supposed to work.
  - austhrow743 2y ago
    If they had an informal development in exchange for server access type relationship then that would qualify as some sort of obligation. Doesn't really have anything to do with open source though. Haven't seen anything about matt/wordpress.org/Automattic trying to prevent them from using open source code.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    Exactly. Conclusion: This isn't about OSS, it's about money (and power). Shamelessly, MM has dug himself a hole. If X is any indication, going forward there are few in the community who will trust him. A leader who isn't trusted is no leaser at all. Evidently he realizes this and is stuck doubling down on stupid. Rinse and repeat. If feel bad for the people who took off work, went to WordCamp US and they keynote they got was a complete turd.
    - rafark 2y ago
      >If feel bad for the people who took off work, went to WordCamp US and they keynote they got was a complete turd. I feel like this is a half empty half full kind of situation. Some people might think like you but others might view it as probably the most memorable keynote in Wordpress history (because if all the drama).
DannyBee 2y ago
100% - i raised exactly this issue in the legal claim concerns. This is a remarkably bad plan from a legal perspective.
AlienRobot 2y ago
Have you read this? https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/wp-engine-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-automattic-over-mullenwegs-comments/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/wp-engine-sends-cease-and-... >Last week, in a blog post, Mullenweg said WP Engine was contributing 47 hours per week to the “Five for the Future” investment pledge to contribute resources toward the sustained growth of WordPress. Comparatively, he said Automattic was contributing 3,786 hours per week. He acknowledged that while these figures are just a “proxy,” there is a large gap in contribution despite both companies being a similar size and generating around a half billion dollars in revenue. It seems to me that it isn't a simple "dispute." Automattic is contributing to WP org, but WP Engine isn't. If WP org was completely neutral, they still would have reasons to side with Automattic over WP Engine on this.
- that_guy_iain 2y ago
  The quote says WP Engine is contributing. WP Engine also gave WP.org 75k in sponsorship money, I would say that's a contribution. It's also important to know that after WP.org took that 75k sponsorship money, they kicked them out of the event they sponsored.
- ttul 2y ago
  I suspect that his figure on the number of hours is somewhat cooked up and biased. Did he cite a reliable and reasonable source of data that we can all consult to check the veracity of this claim?
  - ValentineC 2y ago
    The numbers are on WordPress.org's Five for the Future website: - https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/ https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/ - https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/ https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/
- munbun 2y ago
  That’s really not a fair statement from him given: 1. Based on their github orgs, there is effectively no separation between wordpress.org and Automattic. 2. The core WP contributors trac has a long history of not really being welcome to new contributions. Outside of the design decisions coming from Automattic, third party contributions either die in multi-year deliberations or get directed to the plugin system. 3. The development culture around WP, which largely revolves around the plugin ecosystem - has always trended towards paid plugins over OSS software.
that_guy_iain 2y ago
> The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. I think the fact those boundaries have been crossed will be a massive legal issue for WordPress.org and Automattic since they'll have problems proving they're two separate entities and they will have been using that as a charity as a tax write-off. What is the penalty for tax evasion where you create a fake charity to write tax off of? It's prison, right?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
  Not that I think it would happen, but that would some outcome. Attempting to squeeze a competitor only to land in jail for tax fraud.
troyvit 2y ago
Does Automattic follow wordpress.org's copyright rules? If not then I see the hypocrisy. If so then I don't. Also it seems wordpress.org kept their resources open to WPEngine until WPEngine sued wordpress.org[1] (not wordpress.com according to the blog post). So if wordpress.org is getting sued, why would they keep their resources open to the litigant? [1] https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- eXpl0it3r 2y ago
  The dispute (on the surface) is about trademark not copyright and Automattic has an exclusive license to the trademark.
  - troyvit 2y ago
    Arg, thanks for clarifying that. I misused that term.
  - gscott 2y ago
    I went to WP Engines website and on it they say "Host your WordPress site with the WordPress experts". It feels confusing to me. The word "the" makes me explicitly think this is Wordpress themselves. They are "the" experts. WP Engine makes it pretty clear they are Wordpress. It is front and center. It has a different meaning than "Host your WordPress site with WordPress experts".
- lolinder 2y ago
  Part of what's so weird about the communication from Matt here is that WordPress.org is not getting sued by anyone—indeed, as far as I can tell WP Engine isn't suing anyone. All that happened is that WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Automattic. WordPress.org misrepresenting the situation is not a good look.
- mthoms 2y ago
  No-one is being sued (yet) and wordpress.org was not targeted in any way. Matt is being dishonest by repeating this lie anywhere and everywhere. Including on the very page you linked. WPEngine sent a cease and desist letter addressed to, and targetting only, Matt Mullenweg and his for profit company Automattic. WPEngine are explicitly not targeting wordpress.org in the letter. You can read it here: https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-De... Side note: wp.org is indeed mentioned a couple times in the letter but only when referencing Matt's blog post on the site, the trademark rules, and some technical information around the revisions feature. The "demands" part of the letter address Matt and Automattic exclusively. Matt knows that an attack on dot org would rally everyone to his side, which is why he is repeating this lie over and over. He is trying to use the community as shield. This is also (IMHO) why he shut off access to dot org. He wants WPEngine to be seen taking some sort of action against the community. Matt is constantly shifting between "Matt from Automattic" and "Matt from the WP Foundation" wherever it suits him. It's sickening. He needs to be removed from the foundation immediately. https://x.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287 https://x.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287
croes 2y ago
Isn't that the same what MS does with VS Code? Open Source so that VS Codium exists but Codium can't access MS's extension store.
- PeterZaitsev 2y ago
  If MS Does it, does it make it right ?
  - nailer 2y ago
    Nobody is asserting this.
- ensignavenger 2y ago
  VS Code is a product of Microsoft Corp, not a nonorofit foundation. Wordpress.org is a nonprofit foundation, and as a nonprofit, there are rules they have to follow that for profit organizations don't have to.
  - kelnos 2y ago
    Sure, but one of those rules is not "you must allow other entities to use your resources for free".
    - ensignavenger 2y ago
      Sure, but see this comment I made in another thread- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665361
fluidcruft 2y ago
Wouldn't that risk be mitigated if WPEngine were more engaged with supporting development?
- mplewis 2y ago
  What difference would that make?
  - fluidcruft 2y ago
    Because they would be represented in the org. If you choose to stay on the sidelines, should you be surprised to find out your not important to the action?
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
lnxg33k1 2y ago
It's not really crossing the boundaries, in this kind of situations I don't know if people is misunderstanding genuinely or they do the interests of corporations because they have interests in WPEngine. WordPress.org is not going against all competitors of WordPress.com, is going against a competitor that has high load towards free resources of WordPress.org, having many customers, but not contributing anything towards those free resources. And WordPress.org has banned that leecher from keep stressing their systems for free with no contributions. When Matt said to go to pick another WordPress hosting instead of WPEngine, WordPress.com wasn't mentioned either.
larodi 2y ago
Wordpress is past its prime. A nice api based platform will replace it very fast. The whole wp concept is wrong from 2024 perspective, cause much of it is API calls from web already and not PHP/html loads. They will try to move towards enterprise infrastructure with v7 but will probably fail as their (third party) devs are not that good. I’ve actually seen a lot of PHP code for Wordpress, wrote some, and the only way to get it right today is to make use of a GPT, cause their (WP’s) internals are so many and so weird and inconsistent sometimes.
- closewith 2y ago
  > Wordpress is past its prime. A nice api based platform will replace it very fast. The whole wp concept is wrong from 2024 perspective, cause much of it is API calls from web already and not PHP/html loads. I wonder are you very young? People were saying this a decade, even 15 years, ago
  - larodi 2y ago
    Not much younger anymore but still following Wordpress. This time the difference is GPT which writes and modifies html static site as if it was WP render.
  - collinmanderson 2y ago
    I can confirm WordPress felt like it was fundamentally flawed in 2009, yet it amazingly continues to grow in market share. I think they’ve succeeded by staying stable with minimal large changes for 20 years and maintaining strong backward compatibility. Meanwhile the rest of the web chases the latest technology cycles, where everything needs to be redone every 5 years because there’s a new way to do things. The developers who make WordPress understand and are pretty empathetic to their audience / user base, and don’t expect them to put in much work to install and maintain their website. Other technologies seem to almost intentionally create backwards compatibilities in order to set user expectations that, yes you need to put in work to continue use our framework.
norswap 2y ago
True, but in this case we can simply judge based on the actions taken. The claims (trademark violation, no contributing anything back) seem pretty sensible and borne out in practice. WordPress is an open source project stewarded by a foundation that set rules for its use. If you don't follow them there are consequences. As simple as that, really. These rules (paying a license or contributing back) seem sensible too. Normalizing people leeching off the work of other doesn't seem like a good approach. Some people might disagree with the philosophy — perfectly fine! They can write their own blog engine and release it in a permissive open-source license and make copyrights freely available to anyone. This is a blog engine, not exactly antitrust material.

davidandgoliath 2y ago

Gets even more wild when you consider Automattic invested in WP Engine's Series A in 2011, despite all this insidious trademark abuse commencing in 2010. No chance this is personal.

rgbrenner 2y ago

this dispute is with wordpress though. “wordpress” is not a generic term. if i called my company “MSengine”, and described it as “the most trusted microsoft platform” (a phrase i copied straight from wpengine.com)… i would get a cease and desist almost immediately. even in the open source community, there are dozens (probably more) linux distros that have been told by ubuntu to rename their projects from “ubuntu x” to something else, for example. there are no trademark grants contained in the gpl or any of the popular open source licenses. the only mystery is why they’ve waited so long to enforce their trademark.. but matt says they’ve been working on a deal “for a while”.. and i guess we’ll have to wait until the court case to see what that means.

kadoban 2y ago
The WordPress trademark guides say explicitly that "WP" is allowed to be used by others. Several other parts of the wording the WP Engine uses are also explicitly allowed. So your whole first two paragraphs are mistaken.
- rgbrenner 2y ago
  if we’re going by the trademark policy, it also says you can’t use the wordpress name in the name of your project or service. and arguing that “wp” doesn’t mean “wordpress” and therefore is allowed, is exactly the same as me selling “msengine” for microsoft products, and telling everyone “ms” doesn’t mean microsoft. we all know what it stands for for, and if you weren’t sure, you can jut scan the page and see it’s clearly associated with wordpress. if that’s the basis of the legal defense wpengine wants to make in court, they are truly f’d.
  - ok_dad 2y ago
    > The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks Straight from the Wordpress trademark page that was just recently changed to talk shit about a competitor: https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/
    - rgbrenner 2y ago
      microsoft doesn’t have a trademark on “ms” either. like i said, if wpengine is hoping to go into court and explain that wp is not related to wordpress, while selling wordpress services… i dont think its going to go well for them. this is going to be just as flimsy of a defense as “mikerowesoft”
      - tapoxi 2y ago
        yeah but Wordpress.org explicitly said "using WP is okay". if they turn around and say "no it's not" that's promissory estoppel
mdasen 2y ago
Earlier this month, WordPress explicitly said that their trademark didn't cover "WP" https://web.archive.org/web/20240901224354/https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240901224354/https://wordpress... The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit. They changed the wording as of this dispute with WP Engine: The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress. https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ Trademarks need to be defended to be valid. If I started a website "YC Hacker News", Y Combinator would need to defend their trademark (if they think they have one over "YC Hacker News") or the fact that I'm using "YC Hacker News" means they don't have a trademark over that. WP Engine has been around for over a decade. Automattic and the WordPress foundation didn't have an issue with it for such a long time. If you think someone is infringing on your trademark, you can't just let them use it and come back a decade later and change your mind. In this case, WordPress has even less argument. If Y Combinator said "you can use 'YC' and 'Hacker News' in any way you see fit," they couldn't later come back and say "nooooo, YC sounds like Y Combinator and people get confused!" The WordPress Foundation explicitly allowed everyone to use "WP" in any way they saw fit and disclaimed all trademark over "WP". Yes, lots of companies/foundations wouldn't have allowed the generic use of "WP" for anyone to use. In this case, they explicitly allowed it and also didn't have a problem with WP Engine's use for well over a decade. They waited so long to "enforce their trademark" because they don't have a trademark on "WP". They explicitly said so. Now they're trying to create a trademark on a term that's already been in generic use for a while - and explicitly blessed by the WordPress Foundation. I certainly understand Automattic not liking the fact that they're doing (and paying for) the development work on WordPress while many WordPress users pay WP Engine instead of Automattic/WordPress.com. However, the ship has sailed on claiming that people aren't allowed to use "WP". From where I'm sitting, this feels similar to Elastic, Mongo and other open-source companies disliking it when third parties make money off their open-source code. Of course, WordPress (and Automattic's WordPress.com) wouldn't be the success it is without its open-source nature (just ask Movable Type).
patmcc 2y ago
Trademarks are largely (but not exclusively) about preventing consumer confusion. I can offer a course called "Learn how to use Excel like a pro" and not get sued by MS, as long as I'm not making it seem like I'm Microsoft. Just like DigitalOcean can say "We will rent you an Ubuntu server". We can argue about whether calling something "Wordpress Hosting" or "Hosting a Wordpress site" is different, but I think WP Engine is being perfectly reasonable. "Wordpress Hosting" is as generic as Kleenex and Xerox at this point.
- neom 2y ago
  I've been thinking about this all week since this WP stuff kicked off. You know what's funny, as far as I know I was the first senior person to have a conversation with Ubuntu about that from the DO side, and as far as I recall it (granted it was a long time ago) it was basically them: "Uhm, you can't do that"- me: "maybe, not sure, but probably better to be friends tho yah?" them: "yah" me: "k" - dunno how it is today, but at least till I left, that was how it remained, always earned a shit load of respect in my book, not sure how it'd have gone for us if they decided to really get nasty, but either way, super grateful they didn't, good job Ubuntu people!!!!

flutas 2y ago

> The resources of Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation should not be leverage in this dispute. I honestly wonder if it crosses any legal boundaries. From what I can tell, it's essentially the non-profit acting on commands from the for-profit. Basically the equivalent in my mind to a "in-kind donation".

that_guy_iain 2y ago
To me, I think it's more that it shows they're one entity and then it is a massive issue about the tax write offs Automattic will have been claiming for years. But, I guess we'll see because WP Engine is going to come out swinging on this. They have to. There is also the fact that WP Engine sponsored a WordPress Foundation event and then was kicked out of it because of this dispute. The WordPress foundation accepted 75k knowing what WP Engine was doing and then didn't honour the deal.
- safety1st 2y ago
  This is also the most shocking thing to me, that Matt seems to be very blasé about using Automattic and the foundation more or less interchangeably and in a very public way to further his goals. So other than the tax writeoffs what was the point of creating the foundation? Where is this guy's legal counsel? Surely they have to be screaming their heads off right now because from the outside every indication now is that the Foundation is really just an extension of Automattic that exists to dodge taxes and whether it is claiming its nonprofit status legally is now becoming a question mark. This is so far for Matt to have fallen and taken WordPress with him
  - that_guy_iain 2y ago
    > Where is this guy's legal counsel? They're represented by Perkins Coie. Who, even as someone from the EU who doesn't do any legal stuff, I have heard of and know are very good. I think they'll be kind of loving this mess. Because even though this is a mess, they're going to get paid to deal with the mess.
- Nemo_bis 2y ago

tomphoolery 2y ago

> The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. There was never a boundary in the first place if it's the same guy doing both things. WordPress has always had this veneer of "community-driven", which is what they hide behind when people get their sites exploited, but Automattic really holds all the keys here. Just because Matt replies with an `@wordpress.org` email vs. an `@wordpress.com` email doesn't mean he's a different person all of a sudden.

SSLy 2y ago
Compare and contrast with the OpenAI old board vs sama drama the other day. And the end result of non-profit being steered by the for-profit entity.
- forgetfreeman 2y ago
  You could also draw parallels from Drupal's death spiral that kicked off when (at the behest of corporate clients) Aquia decided to pivot to "large core" architecture and tossed the bulk of the community overboard in the process.
datahack 2y ago
If that’s the case, I’d like to hear from Matt about this. I’ve known him for years, and I don’t think he is unaware of conflicts like these. In fact I’ve seen him be deeply thoughtful about complex problems in the past. He’s not perfect (who is?), but he really does try. Given that he has been pretty reasonable about stuff like this in the past, I don’t find myself inclined to ascribe bad intent until I hear from him personally. Seems like the kind of situation where only one person can answer. Am I off?
- swyx 2y ago
  > Given that he has been pretty reasonable about stuff like this in the past, I don’t find myself inclined to ascribe bad intent until I hear from him personally. there is a level of actions that are so bad that intent doesnt actually matter anymore. i would say matt has crossed that line here.

sjs382 2y ago

> The problem I have with this is simple and has to do with the lack of separation of entities. > Automattic is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.com is a competitor with WPEngine. Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation IS NOT a competitor with WPEngine. > There is a dispute between Automattic and WPEngine. The resources of Wordpress.org and the Wordpress Foundation should not be leverage in this dispute. > The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. Can an action like this put the WordPress Foundation's 501c(3) at risk? And if so, how likely is it to actually become a legal problem?

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Were it to go to trial, legal discovery would be fun. How many internal conversations were had about, “Those jerks at WPEngine are eating our lunch”. Rather than, “I am truly concerned about how the trademark is being confused by this one specific successful company. Whatever can we do?”
- ttul 2y ago
  I kind of want discovery to happen in this situation.
- otterley 2y ago
  Civil discovery isn’t a public process. The parties don’t get to share what they discovered with the public, and sensitive information is frequently redacted before documents are provided to the opposing party.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
    I was more thinking that this would be government intervention regarding the non-profit status. Discovery would still be secret, but probably a smoking gun there that the organization is not independent of the commercial entity. As far as I am aware, the WP.org”s (or is it the foundation?) actions are distasteful, but they are allowed to ban whomever they like.

usaphp 2y ago

> There is a dispute between Automattic and WPEngine I think the dispute is in fact between the org and wpengine. Wpengine doesn’t contribute to the core as much as they promised, and prohibits their employees to do so.

InsomniacL 2y ago
> I think the dispute is in fact between the org and wpengine. Automattic sent the cease and desist to WP Engine.
threeseed 2y ago
WPEngine has no obligation to contribute anything. This is not how open source has or is supposed to work.
- austhrow743 2y ago
  If they had an informal development in exchange for server access type relationship then that would qualify as some sort of obligation. Doesn't really have anything to do with open source though. Haven't seen anything about matt/wordpress.org/Automattic trying to prevent them from using open source code.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  Exactly. Conclusion: This isn't about OSS, it's about money (and power). Shamelessly, MM has dug himself a hole. If X is any indication, going forward there are few in the community who will trust him. A leader who isn't trusted is no leaser at all. Evidently he realizes this and is stuck doubling down on stupid. Rinse and repeat. If feel bad for the people who took off work, went to WordCamp US and they keynote they got was a complete turd.
  - rafark 2y ago
    >If feel bad for the people who took off work, went to WordCamp US and they keynote they got was a complete turd. I feel like this is a half empty half full kind of situation. Some people might think like you but others might view it as probably the most memorable keynote in Wordpress history (because if all the drama).

DannyBee 2y ago

100% - i raised exactly this issue in the legal claim concerns. This is a remarkably bad plan from a legal perspective.

AlienRobot 2y ago

Have you read this? https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/wp-engine-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-automattic-over-mullenwegs-comments/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/wp-engine-sends-cease-and-... >Last week, in a blog post, Mullenweg said WP Engine was contributing 47 hours per week to the “Five for the Future” investment pledge to contribute resources toward the sustained growth of WordPress. Comparatively, he said Automattic was contributing 3,786 hours per week. He acknowledged that while these figures are just a “proxy,” there is a large gap in contribution despite both companies being a similar size and generating around a half billion dollars in revenue. It seems to me that it isn't a simple "dispute." Automattic is contributing to WP org, but WP Engine isn't. If WP org was completely neutral, they still would have reasons to side with Automattic over WP Engine on this.

that_guy_iain 2y ago
The quote says WP Engine is contributing. WP Engine also gave WP.org 75k in sponsorship money, I would say that's a contribution. It's also important to know that after WP.org took that 75k sponsorship money, they kicked them out of the event they sponsored.
ttul 2y ago
I suspect that his figure on the number of hours is somewhat cooked up and biased. Did he cite a reliable and reasonable source of data that we can all consult to check the veracity of this claim?
- ValentineC 2y ago
  The numbers are on WordPress.org's Five for the Future website: - https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/ https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/automattic/ - https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/ https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/pledge/wp-engine/
munbun 2y ago
That’s really not a fair statement from him given: 1. Based on their github orgs, there is effectively no separation between wordpress.org and Automattic. 2. The core WP contributors trac has a long history of not really being welcome to new contributions. Outside of the design decisions coming from Automattic, third party contributions either die in multi-year deliberations or get directed to the plugin system. 3. The development culture around WP, which largely revolves around the plugin ecosystem - has always trended towards paid plugins over OSS software.

that_guy_iain 2y ago

> The fact that those boundaries are crossed means that anyone who is in competition with Automattic might have any and all ecosystems that Matt has any control over leveraged against them if they upset Matt or Automattic in any way. I think the fact those boundaries have been crossed will be a massive legal issue for WordPress.org and Automattic since they'll have problems proving they're two separate entities and they will have been using that as a charity as a tax write-off. What is the penalty for tax evasion where you create a fake charity to write tax off of? It's prison, right?

0cf8612b2e1e 2y ago
Not that I think it would happen, but that would some outcome. Attempting to squeeze a competitor only to land in jail for tax fraud.

troyvit 2y ago

Does Automattic follow wordpress.org's copyright rules? If not then I see the hypocrisy. If so then I don't. Also it seems wordpress.org kept their resources open to WPEngine until WPEngine sued wordpress.org[1] (not wordpress.com according to the blog post). So if wordpress.org is getting sued, why would they keep their resources open to the litigant? [1] https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/ https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/

deleted 2y ago
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eXpl0it3r 2y ago
The dispute (on the surface) is about trademark not copyright and Automattic has an exclusive license to the trademark.
- troyvit 2y ago
  Arg, thanks for clarifying that. I misused that term.
- gscott 2y ago
  I went to WP Engines website and on it they say "Host your WordPress site with the WordPress experts". It feels confusing to me. The word "the" makes me explicitly think this is Wordpress themselves. They are "the" experts. WP Engine makes it pretty clear they are Wordpress. It is front and center. It has a different meaning than "Host your WordPress site with WordPress experts".
lolinder 2y ago
Part of what's so weird about the communication from Matt here is that WordPress.org is not getting sued by anyone—indeed, as far as I can tell WP Engine isn't suing anyone. All that happened is that WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Automattic. WordPress.org misrepresenting the situation is not a good look.
mthoms 2y ago
No-one is being sued (yet) and wordpress.org was not targeted in any way. Matt is being dishonest by repeating this lie anywhere and everywhere. Including on the very page you linked. WPEngine sent a cease and desist letter addressed to, and targetting only, Matt Mullenweg and his for profit company Automattic. WPEngine are explicitly not targeting wordpress.org in the letter. You can read it here: https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-De... Side note: wp.org is indeed mentioned a couple times in the letter but only when referencing Matt's blog post on the site, the trademark rules, and some technical information around the revisions feature. The "demands" part of the letter address Matt and Automattic exclusively. Matt knows that an attack on dot org would rally everyone to his side, which is why he is repeating this lie over and over. He is trying to use the community as shield. This is also (IMHO) why he shut off access to dot org. He wants WPEngine to be seen taking some sort of action against the community. Matt is constantly shifting between "Matt from Automattic" and "Matt from the WP Foundation" wherever it suits him. It's sickening. He needs to be removed from the foundation immediately. https://x.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287 https://x.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287

croes 2y ago

Isn't that the same what MS does with VS Code? Open Source so that VS Codium exists but Codium can't access MS's extension store.

PeterZaitsev 2y ago
If MS Does it, does it make it right ?
- nailer 2y ago
  Nobody is asserting this.
ensignavenger 2y ago
VS Code is a product of Microsoft Corp, not a nonorofit foundation. Wordpress.org is a nonprofit foundation, and as a nonprofit, there are rules they have to follow that for profit organizations don't have to.
- kelnos 2y ago
  Sure, but one of those rules is not "you must allow other entities to use your resources for free".
  - ensignavenger 2y ago
    Sure, but see this comment I made in another thread- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665361 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41665361

fluidcruft 2y ago

Wouldn't that risk be mitigated if WPEngine were more engaged with supporting development?

mplewis 2y ago
What difference would that make?
- fluidcruft 2y ago
  Because they would be represented in the org. If you choose to stay on the sidelines, should you be surprised to find out your not important to the action?

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

lnxg33k1 2y ago

It's not really crossing the boundaries, in this kind of situations I don't know if people is misunderstanding genuinely or they do the interests of corporations because they have interests in WPEngine. WordPress.org is not going against all competitors of WordPress.com, is going against a competitor that has high load towards free resources of WordPress.org, having many customers, but not contributing anything towards those free resources. And WordPress.org has banned that leecher from keep stressing their systems for free with no contributions. When Matt said to go to pick another WordPress hosting instead of WPEngine, WordPress.com wasn't mentioned either.

larodi 2y ago

Wordpress is past its prime. A nice api based platform will replace it very fast. The whole wp concept is wrong from 2024 perspective, cause much of it is API calls from web already and not PHP/html loads. They will try to move towards enterprise infrastructure with v7 but will probably fail as their (third party) devs are not that good. I’ve actually seen a lot of PHP code for Wordpress, wrote some, and the only way to get it right today is to make use of a GPT, cause their (WP’s) internals are so many and so weird and inconsistent sometimes.

closewith 2y ago
> Wordpress is past its prime. A nice api based platform will replace it very fast. The whole wp concept is wrong from 2024 perspective, cause much of it is API calls from web already and not PHP/html loads. I wonder are you very young? People were saying this a decade, even 15 years, ago
- larodi 2y ago
  Not much younger anymore but still following Wordpress. This time the difference is GPT which writes and modifies html static site as if it was WP render.
- collinmanderson 2y ago
  I can confirm WordPress felt like it was fundamentally flawed in 2009, yet it amazingly continues to grow in market share. I think they’ve succeeded by staying stable with minimal large changes for 20 years and maintaining strong backward compatibility. Meanwhile the rest of the web chases the latest technology cycles, where everything needs to be redone every 5 years because there’s a new way to do things. The developers who make WordPress understand and are pretty empathetic to their audience / user base, and don’t expect them to put in much work to install and maintain their website. Other technologies seem to almost intentionally create backwards compatibilities in order to set user expectations that, yes you need to put in work to continue use our framework.

norswap 2y ago

True, but in this case we can simply judge based on the actions taken. The claims (trademark violation, no contributing anything back) seem pretty sensible and borne out in practice. WordPress is an open source project stewarded by a foundation that set rules for its use. If you don't follow them there are consequences. As simple as that, really. These rules (paying a license or contributing back) seem sensible too. Normalizing people leeching off the work of other doesn't seem like a good approach. Some people might disagree with the philosophy — perfectly fine! They can write their own blog engine and release it in a permissive open-source license and make copyrights freely available to anyone. This is a blog engine, not exactly antitrust material.