WordPress bans WP Engine from sponsoring or participating in user groups WordPress has banned its user groups from accepting sponsorship from WP Engine – or even allowing its employees to attend events. WordCamp Sydney, a forthcoming WordPress event for enthusiasts, advised attendees on Monday that "we've been officially told @wpengine can't sponsor WordCamp Sydney, and its employees are banned …
"There's a difference."
There really isn't, people take offence at different things, some people are more sensitive. Matt Mullenweg has clearly taken offence at the behaviour of the folk at WP Engine.
If the person/organisation running the WordPress conference doesn't want to allow people associated with WP Engine in because they have done something he finds offensive then he is free to do that.
In his view they are the arseholes and he is banning them.
I think the point that you're missing is that there are actual laws about racism, discrimination, etc.
There aren't any laws about "making use of something that was given to you to use in a way that the giving party doesn't like even when you're fully abiding by the rules".
"There aren't any laws about..."
There doesn't need to be, people have the right to free association.
If somebody doesn't like how you are behaving they are free to not invite you to their parties.
GPL doesn't give you a right to turn up to any event or conference relating to the software that is licenced under it.
Legally though he's in the clear he didn't remove wp engines contributions but going forward he won't be accepting their code which is legal according to the terms of the GPL which means their code is toxic to him just as much as his code is toxic to them. Going red hat way
Agreed. He's really making a mess and turning people off with his behaviour. The more he spits his dummy out and the more he starts banning this, that, and everything else that has a whiff of WP Engine about it, the more people will eventually look at it and go "not worth the aggro" and start looking for alternatives.
He might've had a point originally, but going nuclear like a toddler does not endear him (or his cause) to anyone.
Hannsen probably had it right about mad Kings not that a few tech billionaire mightn't be tarred with that the same brush.
French? One use to resort to French, if only as a stage convention, when speaking in front of children pas devant les enfants.*
The whole sad affair has descended into little better than a school yard squabble.
* pretty daft if the kids had a French governess - they almost certainly spoke better French than you.
So basically ALL users have to either pay several thousand dollars a year to use "wordpress" trademarks or stop using wordpress and migrate to a rival system.
Same as Oracle and it's $400 per user per year that basically killed Java for most businesses.
Wordpress will probably be dead in the water within 2-3years, as no ordinary user is going to pay $1000 just to use wordpress.
The tone of his message was awful. Basically attempting to mock DHH for not doing something (making extreme profit from) his invention, whilst the only one here pissed that he's not making extreme profit is Matt himself.
Yes, mirrors all around him.
Oh, he deleted the post, but it's here: https://archive.is/4yLNR
"Sydney WordCamp argued that banning WP Engine's participation in events denies the business the chance to make such a contribution."
That's exactly the (rather obvious) point that hit me.
Nothing like complaining a company doesn't contribute enough and then banning said company from contributing!
That's different Microsoft trademarked ms and windows. This is a case of changing the name of the software and company to other than WordPress and make it a spoon alongside major release the code is free the trademark is not. Like Firefox Mozilla's trademark does not extend to the code that's why we have loops and spoons with different names like forks but they follow the mainline
This post has been deleted by its author
It also (apparently) stands for:
Well Played
White Power
Widow's Pension
Water Power
Widening Participation
Work Proposal
Weather Permitting
Washington Post
Waterproof
Withdraw — Pass
Warsaw Pact
With Place
Water Point
Weapons Processor
Wettable Powder (personal favourite... is there any other kind? Oh, wait...)
White Phosphorous (don't try this at home)
Alpaca (yes, really)
.
.
.
And many, many more...
For a trademark to be enforceable, it must be actively defended. The "WordPress" trademark has been minimally defended since its inception, and the WP trademark is basically non-existent. Sure, WordPress has a logomark featuring those letters, but my understanding is that those two concepts aren't cognate in IP law - the logomark doesn't equate to the letters it bears any more than the McDonald's 'golden arches' logomark grants them exclusive rights to the letter "M" in the fast food industry. The law here is clear - unless WordPress a) actively used the 'WP' letters as an integral part of its branding, b) used them as such prior to any other claims being made over their use in a trade context, and c) actively defended their exclusive rights to use said trademark against infringement by other parties; there simply isn't a legal trademark to be defended. Again, the same could probably be argued regarding the rest of the WordPress brand as a whole, given how freely it's been bandied around for the past decade and a half, with little to no enforcement of any rights (commercial or otherwise) until very recently. Matt is an idiot for trying this tactic, as it's very likely to blow up in his face. Add to that the mess of potential tortious interference claims he's racking up, all with measurable monetary damages, and he's created a legal minefield for himself, his business, and the WordPress foundation he effectively owns.
So no, it's nothing like the situation with Microsoft and its trademarks, all of which have been vigorously defended from the very beginning. Oh, and they also do allow others to brand themselves using the letters 'MS', which they don't consider to be a trademark, and don't use officially for that reason. See 'MSCRM-ADDONS' for a real-life example.
I've come back to WordPress recently, having taken a regrettable pause using various SaaS alternatives. I do like Gutenberg and can see the potential, I took one look at ACF and immediately steered clear as it's just a repeat of a waste of my time. Perhaps that is the crux and why some refer to it as drama?
I've said it before, but if Matt doesn't back down fast, this could easily kill his business, and/or split the community, with the bulk joining the breakaway group. Or the bulk of those who remain at that point, given they're already haemorrhaging commercial customers afraid of Matt's next decree on commercial licensing terms.
To anyone who is shopping for a new commercial website solution that's powerful but user-friendly, I'd recommend looking into a headless CMS like Strapi or Cockpit, paired with a static site generator or server-side generator like Gatsby or Next.js. Decoupling the front and back ends is a useful trick for making your site easier to overhaul when necessary, and getting away from the awful mess that is WordPress themes will greatly expand your Web design options and the pool of talent available to build and implement them, given the relative popularity of Javascript/Typescript compared to PHP.
Someone needs to remind Matt that when you scorch the earth, everyone starves, not just your enemies.
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