philsquared_
6 hours 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.
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.
tomphoolery
3 hours 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
4 minutes 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.
sjs382
2 hours 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
2 hours 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?”
otterley
an hour 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
an hour 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.
FireBeyond
an hour ago
> The parties don’t get to share what they discovered with the public
Well certainly.
> and sensitive information is frequently redacted before documents are provided to the opposing party.
In this case that kind of sensitive information absolutely wouldn't be able to be redacted (successfully) because those conversations would be entirely germane.
ttul
an hour ago
I kind of want discovery to happen in this situation.
snowwrestler
2 hours ago
WP Engine could file a complaint with the IRS about tax exempt status abuse. But that would be a heck of an escalation, and even more damaging to the WordPress ecosystem than Matt’s ridiculous actions so far.
But it wouldn’t have to be them. Any U.S. citizen can file such a complaint, even anonymously. That said, it would likely not be pursued by the IRS unless it was written based on detailed accurate knowledge of tax exempt regulations, and clear proof of abuse.
flutas
3 hours 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
an hour 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.
troyvit
an hour 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?
lolinder
29 minutes 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.
eXpl0it3r
an hour ago
The dispute (on the surface) is about trademark not copyright and Automattic has an exclusive license to the trademark.
troyvit
an hour ago
Arg, thanks for clarifying that. I misused that term.
usaphp
2 hours 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.
threeseed
an hour ago
WPEngine has no obligation to contribute anything.
This is not how open source has or is supposed to work.
rgbrenner
3 hours 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
3 hours 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.
WillPostForFood
an hour ago
It also explicitly says you can't use "Wordpress" in your product names, and WP Engine is doing that. I thought it might be common, but the other big providers do not use WordPress in their product names.
Essential Wordpress
Core Wordpress
Enterprise Wordpress
rgbrenner
3 hours 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.
lolinder
2 hours ago
Up until this dispute the WordPress trademark policy contained this:
> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.
Now it's been updated to say this:
> 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.
It's pretty clear that WP Engine has been in compliance with the old trademark policy and that the new one is acknowledging that they don't have legal standing to demand anything about the WP abbreviation (not least because they waited so long to complain about the usage) so they're instead inserting a petulant and childish slight.
http://web.archive.org/web/20240101165105/https://wordpressf...
ok_dad
2 hours 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:
rgbrenner
2 hours 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
2 hours 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
3 hours ago
Earlier this month, WordPress explicitly said that their trademark didn't cover "WP"
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/
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).
beerandt
2 hours ago
The whole standard for trademark law is whether it causes confusion in commerce.
Sounds like they might have a not-great ip lawyer.
Your don't have to claim WP to claim it's being marketed as an abbreviation for your trademark, within your market.
I'm not saying it's a winning argument, but better than whatever the legal framing/ posturing of 'WP isn't our TM' is. Bad PR, if not bad legal take.
patmcc
2 hours ago
Except Wordpress even explicitly suggests using wp in the domain: https://wordpress.org/about/domains/
>>>we ask if you’re going to start a site about WordPress or related to it that you not use “WordPress” in the domain name. Try using “wp” instead, or another variation...
beerandt
an hour ago
Yea- same point though. Bad IP advice / strategy.
Don't condone confusing ip policy if you don't want to end up with confusing product names, especially in a resurgence of 'the domain name is the product' of unlimited tlds.
patmcc
an hour ago
Definitely bad IP advice, but I think it helps WP Engine to be able to say "look even all the various 'official' Wordpress sites said our name was fine for years".
DannyBee
2 hours ago
100% - i raised exactly this issue in the legal claim concerns.
This is a remarkably bad plan from a legal perspective.
AlienRobot
2 hours ago
Have you read this? 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.
ttul
an hour 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
37 minutes 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/wp-engine/
that_guy_iain
an hour 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.
that_guy_iain
an hour 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?