WP Engine is not WordPress

Fulcrum29

Fulcrum29

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WP Engine is not WordPress

It has to be said and repeated: WP Engine is not WordPress. My own mother was confused and thought WP Engine was an official thing. Their branding, marketing, advertising, and entire promise to cus…
wordpress.org wordpress.org

WP Engine is not WordPress​


It has to be said and repeated: WP Engine is not WordPress. My own mother was confused and thought WP Engine was an official thing. Their branding, marketing, advertising, and entire promise to customers is that they’re giving you WordPress, but they’re not. And they’re profiting off of the confusion. WP Engine needs a trademark license to continue their business.

I spoke yesterday at WordCamp about how Lee Wittlinger at Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102B assets under management, can hollow out an open source community. (To summarize, they do about half a billion in revenue on top of WordPress and contribute back 40 hours a week, Automattic is a similar size and contributes back 3,915 hours a week.) Today, I would like to offer a specific, technical example of how they break the trust and sanctity of our software’s promise to users to save themselves money so they can extract more profits from you.

WordPress is a content management system, and the content is sacred. Every change you make to every page, every post, is tracked in a revision system, just like the Wikipedia. This means if you make a mistake, you can always undo it. It also means if you’re trying to figure out why something is on a page, you can see precisely the history and edits that led to it. These revisions are stored in our database.

This is very important, it’s at the core of the user promise of protecting your data, and it’s why WordPress is architected and designed to never lose anything.

WP Engine turns this off. They disable revisions because it costs them more money to store the history of the changes in the database, and they don’t want to spend that to protect your content. It strikes to the very heart of what WordPress does, and they shatter it, the integrity of your content. If you make a mistake, you have no way to get your content back, breaking the core promise of what WordPress does, which is manage and protect your content.

Here is a screenshot of their support page saying they disable this across their 1.5 million WordPress installs.

Continued
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This impacts me to an extent, and to be honest, it is crazy, considering the values promoted by WordPress.(org)

The only area where I agree is that those who commercialise WordPress should contribute to the WordPress community.
 
wordpress.org

WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org

Pending their legal claims and litigation against WordPress.org, WP Engine no longer has free access to WordPress.org’s resources.
wordpress.org wordpress.org

WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org​

Any WP Engine customers having trouble with their sites should contact WP Engine support and ask them to fix it.

WP Engine needs a trademark license, they don’t have one. I won’t bore you with the story of how WP Engine broke thousands of customer sites yesterday in their haphazard attempt to block our attempts to inform the wider WordPress community regarding their disabling and locking down a WordPress core feature in order to extract profit.

What I will tell you is that, pending their legal claims and litigation against WordPress.org, WP Engine no longer has free access to WordPress.org’s resources.

WP Engine wants to control your WordPress experience, they need to run their own user login system, update servers, plugin directory, theme directory, pattern directory, block directory, translations, photo directory, job board, meetups, conferences, bug tracker, forums, Slack, Ping-o-matic, and showcase. Their servers can no longer access our servers for free.

The reason WordPress sites don’t get hacked as much anymore is we work with hosts to block vulnerabilities at the network layer, WP Engine will need to replicate that security research on their own.

Why should WordPress.org provide these services to WP Engine for free, given their attacks on us?

WP Engine is free to offer their hacked up, bastardized simulacra of WordPress’s GPL code to their customers, and they can experience WordPress as WP Engine envisions it, with them getting all of the profits and providing all of the services.

If you want to experience WordPress, use any other host in the world besides WP Engine. WP Engine is not WordPress.
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This was posted on Linkedin and may provide some background into the saga
 

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Fulcrum29 said:
There are two sides to this, and I have been watching it since Matt made the announcement. Both sides have merit, but it is now being pushed absurdly.
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Agreed, there are usually three sides to every story and its not nice to see this unfolding the way it is.
 
For those interested, this is Automattic's case against WP Engine:

automattic.com

Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine

For those just catching up: WP Engine needs a trademark license. Since being taken over by private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, WP Engine has built a half-a-billion a year business by confusing…
automattic.com automattic.com

Open Source, Trademarks, and WP Engine​


For those just catching up: WP Engine needs a trademark license. Since being taken over by private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, WP Engine has built a half-a-billion a year business by confusing consumers with their commercial use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks. Automattic has tried for years to get WP Engine to obtain a commercial license for trademark use and contribute to the core software they rely on, but WP Engine has repeatedly declined to partner or contribute. If you gave $1 to the WordPress Foundation, you’d be a bigger donor than WP Engine.

On September 23, Automattic sent the following cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine, outlining WP Engine’s pattern of unauthorized usage of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks and demanding that WP Engine stop such behavior.

WP Engine’s business model is based on extensive and unauthorized use of these trademarks in ways that mislead consumers into believing that WP Engine is synonymous with WordPress. It’s not.

This is trademark abuse, not fair competition.

Cease and desist letter: https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist.pdf (PDF)
Exhibits: https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist-exhibits.pdf (PDF)
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It would be sad to see this turn the 'WordPress Community' into a commercial product. A product which is in the current not commercial, but which can be commercialised.

Both WordPress.(org) and WordPress.(com) is moving on WP Engine, and it may, and possibly will impact other WordPress hosts. In particular hosts which provides 'managed' WordPress hosting.
 
To look at the WordPress trademark policy, dated now at the time I made this post,

wordpressfoundation.org

Trademark Policy

The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
wordpressfoundation.org wordpressfoundation.org

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.

If you would like to use the WordPress trademark commercially, please contact Automattic, they have the exclusive license. Their only sub-licensee is Newfold.

For non-commercial use, you can contact us here at the Foundation.
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and on the 24th:

web.archive.org

Trademark Policy

The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
web.archive.org web.archive.org

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.

When in doubt about your use of the WordPress or WordCamp name or logo, please contact the Foundation for clarification.
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The trademarks,

Trademarks owned by the WordPress Foundation​

Word Marks​

  • The “WordPress” word mark
  • The “WordCamp” word mark (owned by WordPress Community Support, PBC – a subsidiary of the WordPress Foundation)
  • The “BuddyPress” word mark
  • The “Openverse” word mark
  • The “WP-CLI” word mark
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and obviously the logos I am not going to post, noting that some belong to Automattic like WooCommerce/Woo, etc.
 
A valid claim by WordPress.(org), the WordPress Foundation and Automattic is that WP Engine did use WordPress trademarks. In the case WP Engine loses a potential case, pending on the decisions or settlement, all others using these trademarks should best remove it. Things like "WordPress Hosting", "Managed WordPress", "WooCommerce Hosting", "Managed WooCommerce", etc. could be no-no.

Use is not simple: trademark names can be used conditionally, but this is all commercial speak at the moment.

There is no case at this time, but where WP Engine could determine damages due to them being blocked it is boiling over into that direction.

All in all, there's a lot more to touch on, and I don't have that time. For now, it is up to the people to decide which side is right (or more right), which side is wrong (or more wrong), and which risks to accept.

This will continue to develop.
 
I have been reading the reports made by the tech media. This thing in regard to the cease and desist letters. It is worth nothing that both letters are dated to the same day, September 23rd.

To quote TechCrunch:

techcrunch.com

Automattic sends WP Engine its own cease-and-desist over WordPress trademark infringement | TechCrunch

The brouhaha in the WordPress community looks likely to escalate into a legal battle around trademarks.
techcrunch.com techcrunch.com

Just a day after WordPress hosting service WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist notice to Automattic asking its CEO to stop publicly trashing WP Engine, now Automattic has sent its own cease-and desist letter to WP Engine, saying the latter has infringed several trademarks like WordPress and WooCommerce.
...

In its letter dated Monday, Automattic alleged that WP Engine has built a business of over $400 million in revenue based on unauthorized use of its WordPress trademark, which Automattic claims it has the exclusive commercial rights for from the WordPress Foundation. Automattic also said WP Engine has misled consumers into believing that there is a direct affiliation between the two companies.

...

In the cease-and-desist letter WP Engine sent to Automattic on Monday, the company defended its right to use the “WordPress” trademark under fair use laws. The company added that Automattic has “a profound misunderstanding of both trademark law and WordPress Foundation’s trademark policy.”
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So which letter was in response to which letter, I mean it is in the language ;)

For those impacted, make with that what you will.
 
My short opinion.

WordPress began with a strong commitment to community values. The community saw an opportunity to monetise WordPress which was supported by WordPress. This commercialisation extended not only to building websites and content, developing and supporting WordPress themes and plugins, providing security, but also hosting. A product conglomeration ensued: people built WordPress enterprises, businesses and people branched into WordPress. WordPress wanted their share in this market, they started to commercialise. A "Foundation" with a commercial arm exercises control. WP Engine grew beyond that control.

The above is a mere observation. I could be wrong. My perspective does raise a question, is this about money, is Auttomatic losing ground to WP Engine?
 
This whole thing that Matt have against the revision limits set by WP Engine is intriguing. Does the post revision number matter?

I had a look at WordPress.com's VIP service which is a 'enterprise' product. All business products are technically enterprise products, but hey, marketing. So I looked at the revision policy:

docs.wpvip.com

Post revisions · WordPress VIP Documentation

The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. Here's how to control how many VIP saves, if any.
docs.wpvip.com docs.wpvip.com

Post revisions​

The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. By default, the WordPress VIP Platform sets revisions for a WordPress environment to unlimited (-1). This default can be overridden by defining WP_POST_REVISIONS with a custom integer value in vip-config.php of the branch that deploys to the environment.


Behavior of values set for WP_POST_REVISIONS:

  • -1: Store every revision (default).
  • (int) > 0: Store that many revisions (+1 autosave) per post; old revisions are automatically deleted.
  • 0: Do not store any revisions (except the one autosave per post).
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Ok, good, it is unlimited. No hypocrisy, no virtue signalling...

Except that looking back to September 22nd:

web.archive.org

Post revisions · WordPress VIP Documentation

The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. Here's how to control how many VIP saves, if any.
web.archive.org web.archive.org

Post revisions​

The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. By default, VIP environments store the last 100 revisions. The constant WP_POST_REVISIONS is defined in the vip-config.php file, where this value can be increased or decreased.
  • -1: Store every revision.
  • 0: Do not store any revisions (except the one autosave per post).
  • (int) > 0: Store that many revisions (+1 autosave) per post; old revisions are automatically deleted.
For sites that have migrated a database to VIP with more than 100 revisions per post, those revisions will be preserved. However, the next time one of these posts is edited, unless the above constant has been changed from the default, only the most recent 100 revisions will be saved.
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Oh. Was not as limited as WP Engine, but it is the principle. The same argument can be made that WordPress.(com) is not WordPress. When you lead a cause, do so through legitimacy.

People want to be taken seriously, be honest.

BTW, post revisions does matter.
 
For those wanting updates, some events are tracked here:

webhosting.today

WordPress Controversy 🔴Live Updates - webhosting.today

More and more information is coming to light. WP Engine has been asked to pay what seems to be a staggering 8% of their revenue for using the WordPress trademarks. This raises a host of questions, starting with: Why them? WP Engine is a major player in the managed WordPress hosting space, but...
webhosting.today webhosting.today

From my own gathering I am starting to lean towards this:

WP Engine Must Win - Pre-Thought Listen

On stage at WordCamp US last week, Matt Mullenweg gave a keynote presentation which made a wide range of points about contribution, the ethics of open source, and the commitments various companies make to contributing. In particular, he called out WP Engine in what was a fairly clear direction...
journal.rmccue.io journal.rmccue.io

It is not about WP Engine, it is about owning WordPress (and all its revenue).

This could end up being a similar scenario to Cpanel. Not the same, but a situation where hosts have to partner with WordPress or its investors will lead to price increases. The end-user will have to absorb it. Not the case now, but it is a potentiality.
 
This discussion is wild:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839347253305393304

White people like you love to explain what we don’t know without understanding the context.
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Good response though:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1839348383464780067

Your image is white. Your name is Kara. So no idea what you are talking about, but obviously it has nothing to do with being white what a weird thing to say. Seriously unhinged.
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Unhinged indeed. As I pointed out, Automattic is also doing what WP Engine is doing.

The bots and trolls are loose with this one. This is growing dirtier and uglier.
 
Odd voices...

This man is employed by Automattic.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838927856308752574

Fun fact: I *almost* joined WP Engine in 2018.

They've built a great offering, and have been good stewards of their developer tools.

But, WP Engine is majority-owned by Silver Lake. Private equity is a parasite on the economy, and focuses on extracting as much value as it can. It's the horrible side of capitalism.

Fortunately, you can vote with your dollars! There are plenty of great hosting companies that contribute to WordPress' sustainability and long-term success. WP Engine is not one of them.
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Matt's blog in the run-up to his keynote:

ma.tt

Are Investors Bad?

Some people have been interpreting my comments around private equity and investors as saying they’re all bad and you should never accept investment or trust a company that does… I don&…
ma.tt ma.tt

Are Investors Bad?​

Some people have been interpreting my comments around private equity and investors as saying they’re all bad and you should never accept investment or trust a company that does… I don’t agree with that at all. Investors are amazing, they’re the fuel of entrepreneurship and capitalism and responsible for most of what we enjoy today. I can look in the eye of another founder and wholeheartedly recommend Automattic’s investors—True Ventures, Addition, Tiger Global, Salesforce, GIC, ICONIQ, LVMH/Aglaé, Akkadian, Wellington, Sweetwater, BlackRock, Alta Park, Schonfield, Chris Sacca…—and say they’ve upheld open source values and allowed us to nourish the open source ecosystem and flourish as a business. (They’re not an investor, but there are new folks like OSS Capital which are totally open source aligned.)

So investors, even “private equity” ones can be okay, but just like with anything, there are good ones and bad ones, so it is worthwhile to look into their track record. After an investor joins a company, what happens next? Do they change away from an Open Source license? Does the community flourish or wither on the vine as a result of their actions? It can be complex because you can have, as we do in WordPress, some companies contributing and some companies just taking. Some investors, like ours, are minority investors, which means they don’t control the company. Some buy a majority share in companies and control them, and that’s where who ultimately owns things matters the most.

Can they change? Of course. Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future. I think everyone should be afforded that grace. But it can’t just be in words, it has to be in action.

I may make my keynote tomorrow a deep dive presentation into some specific examples of this going poorly, because I think it’s highly relevant to WordPress’ survival. Tune in! There will be a livestream here.
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Perhaps this Jackson person is on the right trail.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1838969646352896306

Automattic (A8C) raised $1B in capital
WP Engine (WPE) raised $300M

Both companies generate > $400M in revenue .Could the latest controversy be related to financial pressures on Automattic from its investors? (1/x)
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It is strange that Automattic is calling out Silver Lake by name. Is there some ill will?

I am going to give this a rest until something new develops. Just so much overexposure happening at the moment.
 
It has already started to happen back in July:

www.searchenginejournal.com

WordPress Files to Trademark 'Managed WordPress' & 'Hosted WordPress'

Web hosts and plugins could be impacted if trademark applications for "Managed WordPress" and "Hosted WordPress" granted to WordPress
www.searchenginejournal.com www.searchenginejournal.com

WordPress Files to Trademark ‘Managed WordPress’ & ‘Hosted WordPress’​

Web hosts and plugins could be impacted if trademark applications for "Managed WordPress" and "Hosted WordPress" granted to WordPress.

The WordPress Foundation applied to trademark ‘Managed WordPress’ and ‘Hosted WordPress’ for software and hosting services. If approved, this would limit commercial use of these terms by web hosts and even plugins without prior permission.

Trademark Applications Filed By WordPress​

The trademark applications for the two hosting related phrases are dated July 12, 2024 and lists the WordPress Foundation as the applicant of the trademarks on the phrases “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress”.

The WordPress Foundation is the non-profit organization that’s behind the open-source WordPress content management system.

The applications cover the use of the phrases in web hosting, servers for web hosting, downloadable software platforms for web hosting, cloud hosting services, SaaS services, software for managing website content (including downloadable software), web development software, downloadable software for design and managing websites, and plugin software.
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