[HN Gopher] WP Engine Reprieve
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WP Engine Reprieve
Author : program
Score : 28 points
Date : 2024-09-27 21:23 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (wordpress.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (wordpress.org)
| ronsor wrote:
| This dispute continues to escalate and I can only conclude that
| both parties are acting like fools.
| seriocomic wrote:
| I've found myself staring at this in-progress train-wreck of a
| spat in the past 24/48 hours. Honestly, the childish tone of
| @matt's posts on this, the silly C&D from WPE, all show real
| immaturity from people and companies that should know better.
| ncr100 wrote:
| A comment, power seem like a hell of a drug.
| crabique wrote:
| How does one spin up a mirror of the entire WordPress.org
| registry, not to mention keeping up with plugin/theme updates
| that are uploaded there by the respective maintainers?
|
| Furthermore, does WordPress even support custom resource
| registries?
| benwills wrote:
| If I understand correctly, this is the SVN repository for all
| public WordPress.org plugins:
|
| https://plugins.svn.wordpress.org/
|
| If so, I'd imagine creating a mirror of the registry would
| start there.
| pluc wrote:
| None of that is documented, if it's even supported at all.
| Beyond using network trickery to reverse-engineer API calls, I
| don't see how it can be expected that it should already be in
| place.
|
| Does Matt really want to risk creating alternative repositories
| and losing the central role wp.org is providing (yes, free of
| charge)? What about plugin authors who want to ensure their
| stuff is available on all WordPress hosts, what will they have
| to do to push to all stores? WPEngine acquired some pretty
| popular plugins (acf, deliciousbrains), it'd be a shame to see
| them exclusively available outside of the wordpress.org
| ecosystem as a retaliation.
| ericb wrote:
| At what point is snide, petulant, childish, vengeful or blackmail
| ever a good way to do business?
|
| Reading this, the last thing I'd want to do is ever be in
| business with this person.
|
| The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me. There are
| approaches where he could present the "low contributions"
| grievance, and even take some action on it, without seeming
| awful, but this isn't it. Even this "gesture," which could have
| been almost magnanimous, comes off as still awful because of the
| childish screed.
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| > The WP Engine side seems much more reasonable to me.
|
| That seems unwarranted. Both parties can be shitty. One for
| "snide, petulant" communication, and the other for being a
| private equity leech.
| ninjastar99 wrote:
| Great work making the train-wreck worse, Matt. This whole
| situation is cringeworthy and makes me 100% dedicated to never
| trusting Matt or Wordpress with any important project, ever
| again.
| papichulo2023 wrote:
| Why would they need a license agreement with wordpress.ORG? the
| trademarks are owned by the foundation as far as we know.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I think it's abundantly clear at this point that Mullenweg does
| not recognize an operational distinction between his roles as
| CEO of Automattic, founder of the WordPress foundation, and
| operator of WordPress.org.
| deadfece wrote:
| This is not a good look, Matt.
| cyral wrote:
| This is not going to end well for Matt. Remember the dispute is
| between WP Engine and Automattic, not the WordPress foundation
| (the .org). Blurring the lines between the foundation and his
| for-profit competitor to WP Engine (confusingly called
| WordPress.com) is not at all in the spirit of open source. Maybe
| he will be successful in his trademark claim, despite the
| foundation saying that using "WP" was okay for a decade, and then
| deciding to update the trademark terms to say it is confusing
| (again, ironic). His other claims about WP Engine not being "real
| wordpress" is one of the silliest arguments I've ever heard,
| considering his own competitor also disables features unless you
| pay. The feature he is upset about (post revisions being
| disabled), is literally a one line change in the config. Isn't
| the whole point of wordpress to be super customizable and
| moddable? It's one of the greatest strengths of the software, and
| it's open source, changing the defaults should be expected.
|
| Edit: Oh I forgot about the part where all of these posts are
| being published on the .org, so they appear in the dashboard of
| every wordpress install (including WP Engine, until they disabled
| the news). I'd love to hear from a lawyers perspective on how
| this sabotage gets into unfair competition and tortious
| interference. I think that is going to make the trademark thing
| more difficult to take to court, knowing that WP Engine probably
| has good grounds to countersue for actual damages at this point.
| elashri wrote:
| The only conclusion that I can draw from all drama is that the
| legal and PR teams at those teo companies are not doing a good
| Job. Or that they are not given the chance to do their job.
| mvellandi wrote:
| All this reminds me of a much more minor spat years ago when Matt
| got upset Chris Pearson made a configurable premium theme
| (Thesis) which controversially went against the GPL license. Matt
| then purchased the domain thesis.com and tried unsuccessfully to
| revoke Chris' 3 trademarks related to the name and 'diy themes'.
|
| In this current case, it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to
| ensure end customers don't get unreasonably affected. But
| nonetheless, it certainly appears WP.org should at least be
| relationally more of an independent entity with a separate
| leadership, or at least appear to be so.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Or ... in 2022 when Mat called GoDaddy "Parasitic" and an
| "existential threat to [WordPress's] future." And then to argue
| at GoDaddy employees ... attempting to convince them they're
| working for a bad organization. All hovering around his
| presumption about the quantity and quality of GoDaddy's
| contribution back to WordPress, while GD simultaneously profits
| by being in the broader marketplace.
|
| * https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-
| as-a-...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| _it looks like Matt is thankfully trying to ensure end
| customers don't get unreasonably affected._
|
| No, WordPress' lawyers almost certainly told Matt he was
| committing tortious interference of contract, and opening up
| WordPress, Automattic, and himself to tens of millions in
| damages claims from WP Engine _and_ their affected customers.
|
| Given his behavior in prior such tantrums, it's clear that the
| decision to be reasonable was not Matt's choice. It was an
| ultimatum given to him by others.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Are other providers safe? How do I know they are not going to
| block other sites that offer Wordpress as a service? At least
| this will give me some leverage to tell management to move away
| from Wordpress.
| foosantos wrote:
| I'm so glad to see such a positive step in this conflict. It
| really shows how much Matt genuinely cares about the community
| and how he's willing to take the higher ground. WP Engine sent a
| cease-and-desist to WP.org, and Matt decided to keep providing
| the free service to them temporarily, prioritizing end users,
| even though it increases his costs for WP.org, and without WP
| Engine stepping back on the trademark infringements.
| brycelarkin wrote:
| I can see Matt's point of view. Data transfer fees are expensive,
| especially at WordPress scale. Automattic probably covers a lot
| of that cost that wordpress.org is incurring and wants WP Engine
| to pay their fair share.
|
| WP Engine also seems to do some other "not in good faith" things
| such as change the woocommmerce Stripe attribution from
| wordpress.org to their own Stripe account.
|
| While the legal dispute is on trademark, I think it's really on
| WP Engine profiting on wordpress.org without giving back. It's
| not illegal, but blacklisting WP Engine isn't illegal either.
|
| Automattic is essentially subsidizing a private equity backed
| company. I'd be upset and frustrated too if I was in Matt's
| position.
|
| If you support WP Engine, you're supporting Silver Lake Private
| Equity.
| itsdrewmiller wrote:
| This position rests pretty heavily on the idea that
| Wordpress.com is subsidizing wordpress.org, which is a
| charitable foundation that accepts donations. Do you have any
| specific reason to believe this is true? I don't recall seeing
| that complaint directly here but maybe I missed it.
| pluc wrote:
| Goddamn, that's embarrassing.
| walkingmiller wrote:
| "Remember the dispute is between WP Engine and Automattic, not
| the WordPress foundation (the .org)."
|
| While you can disagree with Matt's approach, it actually feels
| like this dispute is more between WP Engine and the WordPress
| project than it is between WP Engine and Automattic. WP Engine
| not contributing to the project hurts Automattic a little, but
| the largest, most profitable companies in the WordPress ecosystem
| not contributing to the project are an existential threat to the
| sustainability of the Open Source project.
|
| Companies will always optimize for profits, and contributing to
| an Open-Source project is only profitable when you are in it for
| the long run. And we all know that PE firms (which play an
| important role in our economy) are not in the game for long-term
| gains. Silver Lake is doing what they are meant to do -- maximize
| profits in the short-term so that they can turn around and sell
| WP Engine for as much as possible.
|
| Matt is using the leverage he has to ensure Silver Lake is forced
| to do something that is good for the WordPress project but will
| never happen because it cuts into WP Engine's P&L.
| angoragoats wrote:
| Not sure if Matt ever reads HN, but in case he does I'd like him
| to know that I will never use or recommend Wordpress again as a
| result of all of this garbage. I hope the internet at large can
| move to something else and WP can eventually be consigned to the
| dustbin of history.
| Sephr wrote:
| Automattic auto-rejects applications to sign up to their Jetpack
| WordPress plugin's non-commercial free tier if your blog has so
| much as a single contact link[1]. This behavior feels greedy in
| my opinion, and may reflect on other behaviors expressed by
| Automattic.
|
| 1. https://wordpress.org/support/topic/non-commercial-
| license-a...
| gamblor956 wrote:
| Matt's behavior is the reason I stopped making plugins for
| WordPress years ago and went into law.
|
| Not surprised to see more of the same from him, and this farce
| that WordPress is granting WP Engine a "reprieve" when it's
| really the case that WordPress is doing this to avoid a lawsuit
| that would result in the loss of its nonprofit status.
|
| WordPress is run primarily for the benefit of Matt. The IRS
| regards that as "private inurement" and it has bad consequences
| for both the organizations at the individual(s) receiving those
| benefits.
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(page generated 2024-09-27 23:01 UTC)