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
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.
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Joe Brockmeierreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
@mattdm WordPress.com also disables features unless you pay for the $300 (and up) accounts. (e.g., you can't install plugins unless you are on the Business plan.)
But, even assuming that Automattic is in the right, I think turning off access to updates without any notice is not a good practice.
The potential victims there are people who've paid WPE for hosting in good faith who are having to scramble to react to this. It is not their fault that two corps are having a spat.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Joe Brockmeier last edited by
I will give you that that's not a great approach. I did say I had a hot take. But WPE should have had a risk mitigation plan in place, yeah?
The fact that so many people were under the misapprehension that they were paying for official WordPress and are now shocked kind of underscores the trademark problem.
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Matthew Millerreplied to Matthew Miller last edited by
Look at https://wpengine.com/blog/tag/press-this/ -- the podcast is actually called "Press This", but don't tell me those graphics aren't intended to make you think "WordPress Community Podcast" = "Official WordPress Podcast"