Hot take — it's *much* better for Automattic to stop providing free hosted services to a commercial competitor than to do the whole "we need a new license we claim is open but which really isn't" thing.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
Doesn't sound like they're partnering at all.
WordPress is already free software — where's this obligation to provide _free services_ coming from?
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm it’s similar to Red Hat blocking access to source code to hurt Rocky/Alma, but in this case it is directly targeted.
Plugins are all GPLv2 distributed by wordpress.org, and Mullenweg is blocking a specific company from accessing GPL code.
IANAL, I just find it bad to blanket ban a specific cohort when they aren’t causing any direct damage. It would be different if WP Engine would be DDOSing the service.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Joe Brockmeier last edited by
Actually, I misspoke — I shouldn't have said Automattic. It _is_ WordPress Foundation that WP Engine should have gotten a trademark license from (or stopped using the name). I think this is a legitimate complaint https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine/
It's not much different from people adding "toolbars" to Firefox and selling that — the code license lets you do it, but you don't get the name.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
The idea that RHEL source code is "blocked" is far overblown. The only thing that isn't public is temporary patches provided to customers. ALL long-term fixes and improvements to RHEL are freely available in easily consumable form in CentOS Stream — a _far_ more open and transparent development process than ever before.
There's no benefit to the _exact_ temporary fixes other than to extend the value of a RHEL subscription to 3rd parties at a lower cost, without putting in the work.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
I am not on the business side, but last week I asked someone who is point blank about Alma Linux. I expected something like "eh, that's part of the challenge of building a business around pure open source", but instead they said (paraphrased) "I love it. They're doing exactly what we wanted. I'm looking forward to the day that we can merge some whole new feature from Alma back into RHEL."
Rocky could do the same. So can anyone else.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
Do you see an alternative in either situation that plays out better for open source and free software in the long game? Like, if Red Hat collapses, who is going to take up that slack? Or for Wordpress.org / Automatic, whatever?
Of course something will fill the void — but I bet you a handful of ashes that it won't be with an all-free-and-open-source model. "Open Core" at best, and likely Android-style "keep the kernel, replace all copyleft code" and asymmetrical CLAs (if we're lucky).
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
I think they Matt makes a good argument that WP Engine is selling something they claim to be WordPress but which is actually a crippled variant. That's real damage.
Also, while WP Engine has no legal obligation to give back... it's pretty lame to not to.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
The GPL very carefully and intentionally does not obligate you to provide hosting services for the universe, just as it does not require maintainer and developers to provide free tech support to everyone.
That would be unsustainable.
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
> WP Engine is selling something they claim to be WordPress but which is actually a crippled variant
That’s utterly bullshit. They are shipping WordPress with different defaults. That’s the same as claiming Debian isn’t Linux because it has different kernel flags.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
If you take Fedora Linux and change kernel flags and sell or redistribute that, you ABSOLUTELY cannot call it "Fedora" without special permission.
(It happens we _do_ provide a special permission for people to use "Fedora Remix" in many cases, but that's because we want to, not because we have to.)
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm it happens that the WordPress foundation does/did give permission. The new trademark fillings for “Hosted WordPress” are trying to change that.
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
@mattdm it’s becoming more and more clear that Automattic is in the “extinguish” phase, as lots of things that were OK for years, even when Mullenweg was WP Engine’s investor, are not fine anymore.
He’s trying to collect a coin, and the community is the one that is ultimately paying for it.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
I'll let the lawyers settle it, but looking in the Wayback machine there do not appear to be significant changes in at least the last decade to https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/.
WP Engine seems to be in violation of both the letter and spirit of that policy, with material like this:
"WP Engine is the world’s most trusted WordPress Technology company as the market leader in WordPress Managed Hosting, Headless, and eCommerce."
Will they win in court? Unpredictable. But definitely not cool.
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm previous text:
> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.
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I can agree that WP Engine’s wording is murky at best, and I can see the case around the “WordPress” term, but this policy change around “WP” is really to come after them, with the side effect that everyone else now could be in trouble if Mullenweg wakes up in the wrong foot one day.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
I honestly don't see that as a change. It's just a clarification and a polite request.
Is that clarification prompted by the dispute with WP Engine? Probably, because that's the problem they're facing right now.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
I think "Oh no Matt Mullenweg is changing things on a whim what will he think of next" is pure FUD.
Like my own dear employer, he may not always get comms right, but none of this seems inconsistent with what the policy said a decade ago.
If you're not a business trying to skirt that, you're fine.
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Rafael Kassnerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm going from “use however you see fit” to any restriction is a significant change. Thousands of businesses with the “WP” in the name would have chosen another name if they had that restriction in from the beginning.
It’s unlikely that this holds in court, though. Still hurts a lot of the community.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
We may have to just disagree on this point, but I do not think "please don’t use [the abbreviation] in a way that confuses people" is _at all_ unreasonable.
If you are not, actually, trying to confuse people, there's no problem and won't be.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Rafael Kassner last edited by
Like I said at the start — would you _really_ rather they switch to a proprietary license?
If "the community" is on that side, well... I am not.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
If you want to blame someone here, blame WP Engine for making things difficult for all of the good actors in the space.