WP Engine revs Automattic lawsuit with antitrust claim WP Engine, a hosting provider for websites running open source WordPress software, has revised its legal complaint against rival Automattic and its CEO Matthew Mullenweg to include antitrust allegations. "We have amended and expanded our initial complaint to include antitrust claims brought under laws designed to protect …
Yeah, it's not the first time they've said that in a response, and it had me scratching my head too. I don't understand on what possible interpretation of the facts they can base that assertion. All I can conclude is that Automattic has joined the post-truth brigade, rendering any statement of theirs immediately dismissable. They can go deny reality with the other fruitcakes and the cheeto's mob, I've lost interest in anything they have to say on the matter at this point. WPE have them bang to rights, and Matt's expensive lawyers are milking him for all they can - feeding his delusions, when the most he can hope to achieve here is damage limitation.
"Matt needs to change the terms for the software he produces then. While it remains open source he's not got a leg to stand on"
That is not an option he has, for two reasons:
1. It is GPL licensed and always was so he would need the permission of every copyright holder of code in Wordpress - so every contributor from outside his company and the developer of the project he forked.
2. Even if he could do that, the existing code remains GPL and its like people would fork it. There are already forks like Classic Press so people can just switch to those.
> WP Engine and Silver Lake should not expect to profit off the back of others without carrying some of the weight.
Then these others should provide the results of their hard labour under a license which grants its use only in exchange for carrying said weight and not one which explicitly allows all and sundry to do as they please.
How much is this idiot paying his lawyers not to tell him this?
Instead of Paying Blogs like The Register, TechCrunch and many others to post against WordPress actions, why not channel the money into the WordPress ecosystem? You're reaping money using the WordPress software and acronym (WP), yet you do not want to pay a dime.
I also initially thought wpengine was owned by WordPress because they used WordPress hosting, logo and other stuffs on their website.
I do not think so.
Most Wordpress installs are for individuals or small businesses. They will not know about this, and will not pay attention. their hosting provider makes Wordpress a one click install, and they are familiar with it, so no reason to change.
In big organisations the decision makes will mostly not care, except those hosted by WP Engine.
A lot of people who do know will side with Wordpress.
I think you are right about most users not knowing or caring about this. I sort of manage a Word Press site for an organization, my main job being to have it not break. I'm not going to try to move them to something else because I would have to do all the work involved and I would get all the complaints for anything that even slightly changed. Small Word Press sites will not be affected much by this, whereas large sites have probably put a lot of time and effort into their config and can't change CMS on a whim. I expect this will have some effect on the number of new Word Press sites, but I don't know how large or long-lasting that effect will be. That's also from someone who has been following this issue at least since the first article about it was posted to The Register, where I said it was probably a boring argument over unimportant things. I was right about nothing serious in Automattic's complaint, but very wrong about this not going very out of control. There are probably a lot of people who are not watching this who won't make any decisions about either company.
I don't know why you think this part, though:
"A lot of people who do know will side with Wordpress."
Why? I assume you mean they'll side with Automattic? If so, do you think that Automattic is in the right, and if so, why? Or do you think Automattic is in the wrong but people will side with them anyway? Those who are following this and in a position to make a decision should understand how potentially destructive each side has proven themselves to be, and Automattic has done more active damage than WP Engine has. They may side with neither, but why do you think they would support Automattic?
There seems to be a lot of whining about "promises" and bad behaviour. But, however morally reprehensible and against the spirit of open source Automattic's behaviour may be, I'm not sure that their marketing is legally enforceable. I hope there's something a bit more substantial in that ~140 pages; i.e actual statues that they've broken. WP Engine are, after all, a savvy company and not a powerless consumer.
Also, I'm quite surprised at the anti-Wordpress hostility here. I don't use it, so I've no dog in the race. But what I'm reading is an open source company taking vigorous action to defend the community from a vulture. If Silver Lake had their way, they would extract all the value that's been built up by the community and leave a few volunteers manning the pumps. How often have we talked about making Amazon and the like contribute back to the community? So while it's slightly worrying that Automattic has this power. Right now, they're using it to defend the community - attacking one private equity player. If I'm forced to pick a side, it's with Automattic. (But maybe I've misread things?)
I think the issue here is publishing something as FOSS - or maybe "jumping on the FOSS bandwagon" would be a better phrase - without thinking it through. Failing to have done so is no excuse for behaving like a sulky kid.
If he'd started off with a more restrictive licence than it wouldn't have been such an issue; a different one, maybe but not one that resulted in writs.
Precisely this. Their marketing may not be enforceable, but rights under the GPLv2 license are. WP Engine are well within their rights to commercialise the hosting of the software under the terms of that license, and calling it by its official name is clearly fair use, especially given that Automattic have never (to my knowledge, happy to be corrected on this point!) enforced their 'exclusive commercial rights' to the WordPress brand, despite having been very aware of WP Engine's existence pretty much since its inception. I disagree strongly with the idea that WP Engine are somehow automatically in the wrong, just because they disproportionately profit from the work others do on the project while putting proportionately less in themselves. That's just sensible business, and if Automattic were to become insolvent as a result of it, the end result would simply be that companies like WPE would just be forced to step up or fall behind to other competitors. FOSS doesn't get a free pass from market forces just by virtue of there being some other motive beyond profit. Just like any other part of the voluntary sector, it has to compete, and if it can't, it folds. If Matt doesn't like that, he can change the license terms accordingly.
Ultimately, the fix here is for government to wake up to the fact that FOSS is a societal necessity like many other services provided by the third sector, and to start funding it on similar terms, out of general taxation. Hell, they should probably be adopting some projects outright, on the basis that they're effectively infrastructure vital to national security interests (log4j, anyone?) but that would require legislators to have a clue what they're doing when it comes to tech, so... Yeah, see the icon.
Why do you see their actions as defending the community? Defending them from what? So far, the things they've done that affect the community, as opposed to just WPE and themselves are the following:
1. Forking a WPE-developed plugin without clarifying why and whether they'll keep up with fixes and improvements.
2. Broken access to updates to any customer of WPE.
3. Cut off WPE funding to community events.
4. Demanded extra control over any community event or organization to prevent them from saying nice things about WPE.
5. Released information about current and former WPE users and sites to the public to brag, information which probably but not definitely won't cause those users problems.
What has WPE done to the community that makes them worse? I have nothing so far. Their biggest "crime" is that they haven't given Automattic, not even the Word Press Foundation, but the for-profit company, lots of money. A lot of other Word Press hosts haven't done that either, but somehow it's WPE that is solely at fault.
That's why there is negativity. If this was yet another argument about money, we might decide who seems sympathetic based on opinions about private equity. Automattic have made it easier by breaking a lot of things for a lot of people, not just the company they dislike.
> Forking a WPE-developed plugin without clarifying why and whether they'll keep up with fixes and improvements.
Worth noting it's worse than this - the put their fork into wordpress.org in place of that plugin, masquerading under the same slug so sites using it updated to their version (allegedly breaking some sites in the process)
> I hope there's something a bit more substantial in that ~140 pages; i.e actual statues that they've broken.
There is (it's here btw)
In fact, whilst the position you take in your comment is understandable, had you read it (or been following things as they unfolded), I suspect you wouldn't be so inclined to characterise this as "defending the community"
That's just the veneer Matt has tried to apply - in reality, he's massively abused his power, banned anyone who dares question him **and** taken actions (including supply chain attacks) with no regard for the impact it has on users in the community (or remorse when it comes out its screwed them over).
It's also entirely in line with over a decade of complaints of Matt being problematic
So, yeah, you've misread *but* you've read exactly the way Automattic want you to
Could I use a CC license to share my logo or trademark?
Creative Commons does not recommend using a CC license on a logo or trademark.
I mean cc says it shouldn't use it for trademarks so therefore the fsf shouldn't recommend it for trademarks as well if it's under gnu GPL
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