WP Engine is not WordPress

This thing is heating up.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841643374090031461

Matt Mullenweg and Automattic’s self-proclaimed scorched earth campaign against WP Engine has harmed not just our company, but the entire WordPress ecosystem. The symbiotic relationship between WordPress, its community and the businesses that invest millions to support WordPress users, and advance the ecosystem, is based on trust in the promises of openness and freedom.Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the last ten days has exposed significant conflicts of interests and governance issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community. Like so many of you, we love WordPress and are committed to the stability and longevity of the community.

Read the complaint here:

https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al.pdf (PDF)
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Matt is a strange person, he is now parading this around:

Some of the frantic changes WP Engine has been making to their site to hide their trademark abuse include editing customer quotes, without permission! I have confirmed with Phil Crumm he did not approve this change. Journalists should ask WPE and others about this.

GY7VKdbXMAA4kWM
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Yes, the WP Engine website is being altered, including quotes on the website which attributes a service (containing a WordPress trademark). This was in response to the cease and desist letter issued to them on the 23rd. Frantic changes? No, it is a demand.

It is in writing:

As you know, our Client owns all intellectual property rights globally in and to the world-famous WOOCOMMERCE and WOO trademarks; and the exclusive commercial rights from the WordPress Foundation to use, enforce, and sublicense the world-famous WORDPRESS trademark, among others, and all other associated intellectual property rights. We are writing about WP Engine’s web hosting and related services that improperly use our Client’s WORDPRESS and WOOCOMMERCE trademarks in their marketing. We understand that our Client has contacted you about securing a proper license to use its trademarks, yet no such agreement has been reached.

...

Accordingly, our Client insists that you immediately stop all unauthorized use of their trademarks.
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Framing here is unethical. Matt thinks that he is a politician. It is bizarre IMHO.
 
I guess I was right:

automattic.com

WordPress Trademarks: A Legal Perspective

Some questions—and answers—about the truth of the law.
automattic.com automattic.com

WordPress Trademarks: A Legal Perspective​


Neil Peretz is associate general counsel at Automattic.

It’s a simple question: Does Automattic own the right to the WordPress trademarks, or does the WordPress Foundation?

It’s also a simple answer: Yes.

I’ll explain.

When lawyers talk about property rights, they sometimes refer to them as a “bundle of sticks,” with each stick representing a different aspect of ownership. For example, I could have the right to use a ski house every third Saturday in the winter, while someone else has the right to use it in the month of July. The result is that we both “own” the ski house, albeit different aspects of it.

Let’s apply this to the WordPress trademarks (also called simply “marks”). The WordPress Foundation owns the right to use the WordPress marks for non-commercial purposes. It can also sublicense out this right for particular events (e.g., WordCamps) and to people supporting the WordPress project and community. The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software.

The right to use the WordPress marks for commercial purposes (e.g., selling software, hosting, and agency services) is owned by Automattic. Automattic, in its sole discretion, can sublicense the WordPress marks to others who wish to use them for commercial purposes. The concept of “sole discretion” also means that Automattic can refuse to license the marks to anyone it deems inappropriate.

How did we end up with two owners of the WordPress trademarks?

In olden times (i.e., before 2010), there was only one owner of the WordPress trademarks: Automattic Inc. In 2010 the WordPress Foundation was created and Automattic essentially signed over all non-commercial rights to the WordPress marks to the Foundation. This was accomplished by having Automattic turn over all rights to the WordPress marks to the WordPress Foundation and then simultaneously having the WordPress Foundation license the commercial rights to the marks back to Automattic.

If that sounds confusing, here’s another analogy: this is like telling your friends that they can drive your car on the weekend, and then accomplishing that by giving them your entire car outright and simultaneously having them sign an agreement allowing you to use the car (which is now theirs) on weekdays.

In order to effect a valid license agreement, there needs to be an actual exchange of value from both sides, which lawyers call “consideration.” For the licensing of the commercial use of the WordPress marks to Automattic, the consideration was Automattic turning over the entire trademarks to the WordPress Foundation.

tm-chart.jpg


What about users of WordPress software?

In the bundle of sticks that is the WordPress trademarks, users of WordPress software have a twig of rights as well, called nominative fair use. This means users have the right to refer to genuine WordPress software by name. (Genuine WordPress software comes only from a WordPress Foundation- or Automattic-approved repository.) For example, they are allowed to say: “I built a website with WordPress.”

The right to nominative fair use has clear limits under the law: it doesn’t include logos and it does not include the right to use the WordPress marks in a manner that suggests one is offering a product or service that comes from WordPress or is officially affiliated with WordPress. For example, calling a service “WordPress Hosting” would not be nominative fair use because it makes many people think it is a hosting service offered by WordPress. By contrast, offering “Hosting for websites built on WordPress software” would not lead anyone to think the hosting service itself is offered by WordPress. Thus, calling a service “Hosting for websites built on WordPress software” would be fair use of the WordPress marks.

What about the rights of software developers (and copiers)?

WordPress and WooCommerce software is typically released to the community via a GPL open source software license. It’s important to note that an open source software license is a copyright license, not a trademark license. That means the right to use, modify, look at, and share open source software related to WordPress and WooCommerce does not give you the right to use the WordPress or WooCommerce names.
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As it is now known, according to WP Engine's lawsuit which is still open to a counter-claim, that this is bigger than mere trademarks. Just see the last video I have posted, and there are now some things boiling over within Automattic too.

This is not good, everyone who uses WordPress in one way or the other is impacted.

For now, it is best to see how WordPress/Automattic will respond to the WP Engine lawsuit.
 
This said, WordPress.(org) have been making changes on their website too, where they could have 'possibly' promoted WordPress.(com). The whole thing with who is who? They are currently endorsing Pressable which is still WordPress.(com), but not reading like WordPress.

Matt aimed to use vagueness to strengthen his case against WP Engine but ended up with remedying vagueness on their own side. It is the same with the post revision limits I have pointed out.

It should have been settled with WP Engine cleaning up the trademark use.
 
WordPress rubbished the legal action by WP Engine:

automattic.com

Response to WP Engine’s Meritless Lawsuit

Last night, WP Engine filed a baseless lawsuit against Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, and WordPress.org. Their complaint is flawed, start to finish. We vehemently deny WP Engine’s allegations—which ar…
automattic.com automattic.com

Response to WP Engine’s Meritless Lawsuit​

Last night, WP Engine filed a baseless lawsuit against Automattic, Matt Mullenweg, and WordPress.org. Their complaint is flawed, start to finish. We vehemently deny WP Engine’s allegations—which are gross mischaracterizations of reality—and reserve all of our rights. Automattic is confident in our legal position, and will vigorously litigate against this absurd filing, as well as pursue all remedies against WP Engine. Automattic has retained Neal Katyal, former Acting Solicitor General of the United States, and his firm Hogan Lovells, LLP, to represent us.

Neal has been adverse to Quinn Emanuel a number of times, and won every case.

Mr. Katyal stated:

"I stayed up last night reading WP Engine’s Complaint, trying to find any merit anywhere to it. The whole thing is meritless, and we look forward to the federal court’s consideration of their lawsuit."

Our focus is and has always been protecting the integrity of WordPress and our mission to democratize publishing. From our earliest days, our highest priority has always been our customers. WP Engine can hardly say the same.
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The situation within Automattic I mentioned yesterday, I see Matt did a blog post:

ma.tt

Automattic Alignment

Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Since I last blogged here, WP Engine filed a meritless lawsuit and Automattic responded, and there’s been a hurrica…
ma.tt ma.tt

Automattic Alignment​


Winston Churchill said, “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Since I last blogged here, WP Engine filed a meritless lawsuit and Automattic responded, and there’s been a hurricane of public activity and press. Inside of Automattic, there’s been a parallel debate and process.

Silver Lake and WP Engine’s attacks on me and Automattic, while spurious, have been effective. It became clear a good chunk of my Automattic colleagues disagreed with me and our actions.

So we decided to design the most generous buy-out package possible, we called it an Alignment Offer: if you resigned before 20:00 UTC on Thursday, October 3, 2024, you would receive $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher. But you’d lose access to Automattic that evening, and you wouldn’t be eligible to boomerang (what we call re-hires). HR added some extra details to sweeten the deal; we wanted to make it as enticing as possible.

I’ve been asking people to vote with their wallet a lot recently, and this is another example!

159 people took the offer, 8.4% of the company, the other 91.6% gave up $126M of potential severance to stay! 63.5% were male. 53% were in the US. By division it impacted our Ecosystem / WordPress areas the most: 79.2% of the people who took it were in our Ecosystem businesses, compared to 18.2% from Cosmos (our apps like Pocket Casts, Day One, Tumblr, Cloudup). 18 people made over 200k/yr! 1 person started two days before the deadline. 4 people took it then changed their minds.

It was an emotional roller coaster of a week. The day you hire someone you aren’t expecting them to resign or be fired, you’re hoping for a long and mutually beneficial relationship. Every resignation stings a bit.

However now, I feel much lighter. I’m grateful and thankful for all the people who took the offer, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126M to stay. As the kids say, LFG!
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It seems that WordPress's Josepha Haden is also out :(

I don't know whether it is related to the Automattic Alignment thing, but Josepha (and also Matt) said that she will be writing a public statement to the WordPress community on the decision.
 
At least Matt admits it:

www.theverge.com

Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’

WordPress’s WP Engine battle is dividing the community.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com

Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’​

The lines between the WordPress open-source project, the nonprofit backing it, and the commercial arm owned by Automattic are blurring.​

Over the past several weeks, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has made one thing exceedingly clear: he’s in charge of WordPress’ future.

Mullenweg heads up WordPress.com and its parent company, Automattic. He owns the WordPress.org project, and he even leads the nonprofit foundation that controls the WordPress trademark. To the outside observer, these might appear to be independent organizations, all separately designed around the WordPress open-source project. But as he wages a battle against WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, Mullenweg has muddied the boundaries between three essential entities that lead a sprawling ecosystem powering almost half of the web.

To Mullenweg, that’s all fine — as long as it supports the health of WordPress long-term.

“WordPress.org just belongs to me personally,” Mullenweg said during an interview with The Verge. WordPress.org exists outside the commercial realm of Automattic, as a standalone publishing platform that offers free access to its open-source code that people can use to create their own websites. But it’s not a neutral, independent arbiter of the ecosystem. “In my role as owning WordPress.org, I don’t want to promote a company, which is A: legally threatening me and B: using the WordPress trademark. That’s part of why we cut off access from the servers.”
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Though he has said so in the past too. It is like, "all your community are belong to Matt". It is however a strange approach to take now. Everyone goes back to Automattic.

As I have already said, as long as the WordPress users (and its broad community) don't get burned in the process.
 
WordPress's Executive Director, who have now parted, parted on good terms without getting drawn into the controversy. It is unknown whether she disagreed with the Automattic Alignment, and on what terms and conditions those who took the buy-out package were accepted. She will be missed, Josepha was a known net positive to WordPress/Automattic.

josepha.blog

Thank you, WordPress- Shedding Light not heat

This week marks my last as the Executive Director of the WordPress project. My time with WordPress has transformed me, both as a leader and an advocate. There’s still more to do in our shared quest…
josepha.blog josepha.blog

Thank you, WordPress​


This week marks my last as the Executive Director of the WordPress project. My time with WordPress has transformed me, both as a leader and an advocate. There’s still more to do in our shared quest to secure a self-sustaining future of the open source project that we all love, and my belief in our global community of contributors remains unchanged. I have spent nine years working shoulder to shoulder with you, and I didn’t want to leave without saying goodbye.

Together, we’ve built software that changes lives, and working this deeply in open source changes you. You spend every day working on consequential problems with brilliant people, in hopes that what you do today will help people far into the future.

For everyone who was ever led by me – thank you all so much for the trust you’ve given me, and for fighting through the tiniest details to make sure that we always did what was best.

For everyone who has ever led me – thank you all for helping me become the insightful and resilient leader that I am.

Moving Forward

I still believe that open source is an idea that can transform generations. I believe in the power of a good-hearted group of people. I believe in the importance of strong opinions, loosely held. And I believe the world will always need the more equitable opportunities that well-maintained open source can provide: access to knowledge and learning, easy-to-join peer and business networks, the amplification of unheard voices, and a chance to tap into economic opportunity for those who weren’t born into it.

While my next steps aren’t yet clear, I hope to never be too far from this community that taught me so much. And whatever the future holds, remember that you are kind, intrepid keepers of the open source ethos and always honor what brought you here.
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Matt shared this post on X:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1842227042256920691

This is insanely smart, Matt Mullenwerg. There is no greater drag on a company than low grade toxicity and misalignment.
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Some say that reposts aren't endorsements, but yoh, to think about those who accepted the package as being toxic and misaligned is not looking good.

I remain in the view that WordPress.(org) is being commercialised. The group wins their war against WP Engine, the rest who aren't under the canopy, will be in their sights.

Yes, do abide by the trademarks, and yes, do contribute. Contribution though, what needs and who needs to contribute needs to be transparent, and who will be receiving those contributions and enabling the community with those contributions. From how it looks to me, Automattic is running WordPress, and they want to turn the community into a product.
 
A curious read:

wpandlegalstuff.com

Automattic’s trademarks post vs other 'WordPress hosting' providers - WP AND LEGAL STUFF

Introduction On 3 October 2024, an Associate General Counsel at Automattic published a useful post on “WordPress Trademarks: A Legal Perspective”. The post is useful for a few reasons, including because it acknowledges, I believe for the first time during the current controversy, the role of...
wpandlegalstuff.com

Automattic’s trademarks post vs other ‘WordPress hosting’ providers​


Introduction​

On 3 October 2024, an Associate General Counsel at Automattic published a useful post on “WordPress Trademarks: A Legal Perspective”.

The post is useful for a few reasons, including because it acknowledges, I believe for the first time during the current controversy, the role of nominative fair use. And so, in that sense, it contributes to the community’s understanding of Automattic’s take on the trademark issues. I have been saying for a while now that nominative fair use would likely be a central issue in any trademark litigation between Automattic and WP Engine. WP Engine’s court filing confirms that.

Continued
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An odd behaviour by WordPress is blocking people on social media who are not in the same mind as the "Automattic's Alignment". I guess it is in protest against 'community' criticism. This includes old and current contributors to WordPress.

The WordPress Community though, who is it? I mean, Matt said he is WordPress.

Matthew Prince, who reached out to WordPress in public to support them with scaling (and capacity), also added:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1841258859853160906

It’s Matt’s project, he can do what he wants with it.
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This entire thing has put open source, and open sourcing licensing, in a strange space.

It seems that WordPress/Automattic employees who took the deal aren't talking, so there must be agreements in place. All are seemingly in good hearts. Ignoring the Slack thing...

Ryan McCue has also been blocked on X.

I guess what was once known as open-source is about to be tested. This thing is bigger than mere trademarks.
 
https://twitter.com/x/status/1844113352806760756

WordPress deliberately designed that checkbox to be ambiguous and vague. They add it, then put it to the users to interpret, and then pose questions themselves. Those who demand answers, and are being constructive, get blocked.

What WordPress/Automattic should do is provide clarity in a policy. Why the checkbox exists and to whom exactly it is applicable, and whether participation therein makes you party to the lawsuit. It is all odd to think that their one stance is that WP Engine does not contribute.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1844188190061756918
 
WordPress approved:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1844490314637246576
The right to fork the software is at the heart of open source. WordPress itself started as a fork of the b2/cafelog project. WordPress was one of several forks from b2, which included b2++ (which eventually became WordPress Multisite) and some like b2evolution CMS which still continue today.

The last decent fork attempt for WordPress was ClassicPress in 2018, over disagreements about Gutenberg being integrated into core.

We’re very proud to announce that Vinny Green, a former WordPress community member, has started his fork, FreeWP. We strongly encourage anyone who disagrees with the direction WordPress is headed in to join up with Vinny and create an amazing fork of WordPress. Viva FreeWP!
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More here: https://freewp.com/

Now... I am not interested in this. I have to stay within the WordPress ecosystem, since I am too invested in it. I can't 'cash' out without losses. FreeWP is also aimed at news organisations/publishers.

ClassicPress is, uhm, pressed? WordPress knows that they squashed ClassicPress. There are plugins within the WordPress repository making it 'classic' WordPress.

What did catch my attention by WordPress is that they themselves said that they are changing direction. Where is this direction headed in?
 
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