17 ms·

WP Engine sent “cease and desist” letter to Automattic

317 points by kevmarsden 2y ago

Direct link to letter: https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-De... Related article on TechCrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/22/matt-mullenweg-calls-wp-engine-a-cancer-to-wordpress-and-urges-community-to-switch-providers/ https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/22/matt-mullenweg-calls-wp-en...

supermatt 2y ago
WP Engine calls itself the worlds #1 wordpress hosting (with over 1.5m clients), but they aren't even in the top 10 material contributors to wordpress. Although they have pledged to support wordpress development, is is only to the tune of 40 hours a week. Their pledge is miniscule given their usage of wordpress and isn't even in the top 25 pledges made. It seems they were called out on this, and told to resolve it or it would get highlighted, and highlighted it was. Sure, the license allows them to do whatever they want, but there's nothing wrong with publicizing that they don't give much in return. With over $400M ARR, thats something they could easily resolve.
- FlamingMoe 2y ago
  100%. WP is GPL and they can use it how they like. And others are also allowed to call them out if they want to.
  - __m 2y ago
    Yeah but people don't like to be manipulated. He didn't want to call them out, he wanted them to pay his company millions for licensing and used the community as leverage.
    - supermatt 2y ago
      Did you not read the post? He wanted them to stop calling their fork of wordpress "Wordpress". They either continue to use their fork and call it something other than wordpress, or they use an unmodified version of wordpress and are permitted to call it "wordpress", or they pay for rights to use the mark for their modified version. No doubt this has all stemmed from the issue of them taking and not giving back. If they aren't going to play nicely and pay proportionally for development as per the pledges, then they can pay for the right to use the mark for their fork. Why should automattic and dozens of others pledge thousands of hours of dev time per week when one of the biggest users pledges 40 hours? It may be permitted as per the GPL, but use of the mark is subject to fair use - and fair use doesn't cover them passing off a fork of wordpress as wordpress. Clearly that technicality is being used to force them to pay their share through licensing of the mark.
- imiric 2y ago
  Nice try, Matt. In all seriousness, if this whole thing is about some false marketing claim from WPE, then call them out specifically on that in a tweet or something. Why does it deserve the "scorched earth nuclear approach", which equates to blackmailing them into giving you millions to prevent you from disparaging them in all media outlets? The claims Matt made go far beyond WPE not contributing to WP development as much as they say they do. This corporate mudslinging paints WP.com in a much worse light than WPE. IANAL but I think there's a case here for a defamation lawsuit at the very least, if not for outright blackmailing.
  - philosopher1234 2y ago
    Publishing a blog on Wordpress.com is scorched earth nuclear and a tweet is fine? Why shouldn’t this get some actual publicity? What’s defamatory about it? Your response seems to be a better example of mudslinging than OP. At least OP pointed out some data to back their argument.
    - imiric 2y ago
      It wasn't just the blog post. Did you miss the keynote, numerous posts on Reddit and other outlets, as well as the threatening calls and text messages? I'm using his own definition of "scorched earth nuclear". This goes far beyond a single tweet. > What's defamatory about it? Oh, I don't know. Calling your competitors "cancer", their product a "cheap knock-off", and urging people to stop using them? If my competitors are selling an inferior product, I would let that speak for itself, which should make my alternative shine in comparison. Going on a mudslinging crusade just reeks of desperation and immaturity, and the defamation and blackmailing could be illegal. If he really had a case against them, it would be resolved in court. I'm not the target audience of either, but if I had to choose which one to use today, I would go with WP Engine based on this alone.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ChoHag 2y ago
  Is supporting wordpress development part of the license offered by wordpress that WP Engine agreed to? No? If you don't want people to use your stuff, don't give it away for free. > there's nothing wrong with publicizing that they don't give much in return That would be the case IF giving back was part of the deal which they are therefore reneging on. It was not. You are in the wrong.
bdzr 2y ago
Does anyone know why WP engine doesn't actually support multiple post revisions by default? I worked with WordPress significantly quite a while ago and found it to be an absolute dumpster fire of a codebase. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if running a scalable WP host required tamping down on some things.
- etchalon 2y ago
  Revisions significantly bloat the size of the primary table (wp_posts) and secondary meta tables. Because WordPress's database architecture is hilariously simple and under-engineered, that bloat ends up slowing down every query. So, to keep WordPress performant, you either need to regular prune wp_posts, or you need a continually beefier database instance to handle the installation. Sane DevOps teams just limit revisions to something like "last 5" to keep things under control.
namedia 2y ago
As a software developer, I can understand the point Matt is making but it's sad to see him calling another competitor a "cancer" to the web. I like Wordpress and was inspired by it a lot but with many years hosting Wordpress sites for our customers, I find its plugin and theme architecture very vulnerable and often be the backdoors for hackers/scammers to launch attacks on servers hosting Wordpress sites. Whoever hosting Wordpress sites must do a good jobs securing their servers to prevent exploits through the Wordpress plugins and theming system. I dont know much about WP Engine but they should be credited for securing their massive Wordpress installations. In my opinion, Matt should focus more on fixing the weaknesses of Wordpress architecture than bashing his competitor, Wordpress is really a pain point to those providing hosting for it. We used to provide Wordpress hosting and did customize it as a website builder but due to its fragile architecture, we have decided to develop our own CMS system, with 3rd party plugin and theming system inspired by Wordpress but have built-in protection mechanism to prevent backdoors potentially exist in 3rd party code.
aussieguy1234 2y ago
As a former WordPress engineer that built one of the worlds largest commercial WordPress deployments, I have a secret to tell you. WordPress, out of the box, if you throw even a portion of traffic that you would expect form a large media site at it, will fall over. We modified WordPress, took advantage of all the hooks, basically rewrote the post authoring and search system and introduced caching and databases on top of the default MySQL, such as ElasticSearch for content storage and searching content. We also had a network level CDN in front of it at all times. By the end of it all, what we had was not fully WordPress anymore. You'll find that alot of organisations doing WordPress are doing similar things.
kevmarsden 2y ago
In response, here's the cease and desist Automattic sent to WP Engine: https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-engine/ https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-...
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
Pet_Ant 2y ago
This seems like it will be relevant... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
firecall 2y ago
> Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” In my experience, WordPress itself could be called a Cancer to the Web. The amount of new clients I've picked up who needed help rescuing broken and malware ridden WordPress sites is... well, it's more than I'd like as I really do not enjoy WordPress LOL
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- arp242 2y ago
  WordPress isn't that bad. Okay, the code is kinda messy in some places, but which 25 year old project isn't? And yes, in the early days it was cowboy coding, but those days have been over for more than 15 years. What "broken and malware ridden WordPress site" typically means is "customer installed a bunch of random plugins from random sites written by teenagers or bozos who don't know what they're doing". And yes, that can screw things up, but that's not really WordPress's fault IMHO. Maybe it can do more to protect users from this; I don't know. But obviously the plugin ecosystem is a hugely important part of the WordPress platform and you can't just lock that down technically. Just make sure you only install plugins from authors who aren't teenagers or bozos. I'll add that personally I don't especially like WordPress for various reasons. But at the same time I don't think this is really a fair criticism.
  - chiefalchemist 2y ago
    The WP Community - as led by leadership (i.e., MM, Automattic, etc) is fond of bragging about the plugin and theme ecosystem. What they conveniently neglect to mention is how many are shite, many are ok but poorly coded, and only a very few are worth their weight. Even plenty of the premium plugins have performance issue, are sloppy, lack hooks, etc.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  And yet, reality is that for many companies, an off-the-shelf CMS is all they need, and all they can afford, and all they can figure out without hiring IT. Which means, if we want to kill WordPress, we need to offer a better solution. Not just for WordPress, but a coherent system that also reimplements the top hundred or so plugins. If anyone wants to join me rewriting it in Laravel so we could add a WSL-like layer for WordPress cancer plugins… I don’t know. I wish someone would have the conversation. I don’t even care whether it’s Rust.
Kye 2y ago
My slightly earlier submission with a direct PDF link for people who aren't able to view Twitter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41631920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41631920
CPLX 2y ago
Without additional context the letter does read as persuasive. Is there significant additional context? Having looked at Matt's comments in the speech I'm not seeing any actual substance of what's wrong with WP Engine.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  It’s kind of perverse of Matt considering: A. He accuses “WP Engine” for being confusing branding. He literally owns WordPress.com; which confuses tens of thousands of people on a daily basis. (“Are you on the WordPress login page?” “I swear that I am!”) B. He complains about the post revisions not being limitless. But until recently, WordPress.com had a limit of 25. C. If post revisions matter, surely plugins matter, right? WordPress.com requires going up two tiers to use any unapproved plugins. D. Matt was an investor in WP Engine, and even appeared on their podcast last year, even though this revisions system limitation has been in place for a decade? E. This is the same Matt who wrote the WordPress Bill of Rights, complete with specifically saying “The freedom to run the program, for any purpose” and “The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.” F. The same Matt who wrote in the WordPress trademark policy that “WP” is not a WordPress trademark and anyone may use it however they wish? G. The same Matt who forked B2, and if B2 was still around, would be quite vulnerable to B2 potentially complaining about Matt’s lack of contribution to them? It goes on. I hate to say it, but every sign points to Matt being a hypocrite. Even an extortionist.
  - yard2010 2y ago
    The one who threatened to start a nuclear war when he didn't get what he wanted? He seems chill
  - johng 2y ago
    Not to mention his text messages. It's clear that if they were willing to pay, he was willing to not even mention them in his keynote. It looks quite clear that he wanted money and was willing to let everything slide if they got it.
    - 2y ago
Aloha 2y ago
Disclaimer WP Engine Customer - I read the comments from Matt M yesterday, and it felt like a hit piece. I run a website for a couple scifi like conventions, we need cheap reliable hosting without me having to deal with the vagaries of running wordpress myself. I would have bought a product like WP Engine directly from Automattic, but AFAIK they dont offer one, this feels like lashing out at a competitor because they failed to enter a market segment, and now feel their lunch is being ate. I ran websites for a long time without any version control, and would have no problem doing it again, the benefit of WordPress is the semi-WYSIWYG editor and the plugin ecosystem.
- terrycody 2y ago
  Wp engine is not cheap at all, instead its expensive, my websites hosted on Namecheap for years, and never touched even 1 second, and everything is stable, the price? I would tell you, around $45 per year hosting price for 3 sites... You definitely were ripped off.
- philistine 2y ago
  Could you enlighten me as to what WP Engine does differently from Automattic that you can't buy from them? Looking at the WP Engine, it's the exact same thing, with the numbers filed off, as Automattic offers.
  - Aloha 2y ago
    Which particular service of Automattic? Like Wordpress.com in hindsight seems to offer it, but its not clear to me that I'm their customer target.
    - x3sphere 2y ago
      Wordpress.com would be the equivalent. That said, they don't exactly offer an unmodified WP experience either at least not without upgrading to the higher tier plans. The base plan has plugins disabled for example. Not even sure how it's different from what Matt is accusing WP Engine of.
  - 2y ago
muglug 2y ago
Sad to see Matt M behaving in such a childish manner. The initial wordpress.org blogpost looked pretty bad, but the quoted text messages are so much worse.
- keane 2y ago
  It's not uncommon for a license being required to use a registered trademark. WPE denies they need one. Matt apparently disagrees.
  - bastawhiz 2y ago
    If this is indeed true, that ship has sailed. WP Engine was founded nearly fifteen years ago. You need to enforce your trademark for it to be valid: you don't get to decide fourteen years later that you're actually not happy about it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
oldstrangers 2y ago
This is funny considering WP Engine has been the only thing that kept me developing wordpress sites for years.
throwaway984393 2y ago
[dead]
mdotk 2y ago
I'm no fan of WP Engine and their outrageous prices for very average performance, but this is a terrible look for Matt M if true. reply
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: WP Engine is not WordPress https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41613628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41613628
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
tptacek 2y ago
I'm not a lawyer, as you will soon realize. This is just water cooler talk, which is what HN is for. I sort of directionally think that if WPE had a strong case here, their opening bid wouldn't be a C&D (I've noticed C&Ds frequently include a "preserve documents" section, presumably as punctuation, but for what it's worth that's an implicit threat they might sue). The meat of this C&D seems to be a section towards the middle where they describe Mullenweg's keynote speech. It makes, according to WPE, these claims (numbers mine): 1. Claiming that WP Engine is a company that just wants to “feed off” of the WordPress ecosystem without giving anything back. 2. Suggesting that WP Engine employees may be fired for speaking up, supporting Mr. Mullenweg, or supporting WordPress, and offering to provide support in finding them new jobs if that were to occur. 3. Stating that every WP Engine customer should watch his speech and then not renew their contracts with WP Engine when those contracts are up for renewal. 4. Claiming that if current WP Engine customers switch to a different host they “might get faster performance.” 5. Alleging that WP Engine is “misus[ing] the trademark” including by using “WP” in its name. 6. Claiming that WP Engine’s investor doesn’t “give a dang” about Open Source ideals. Under a US defamation analysis, claims (1), (3), and (6) appear to be statements of opinion. Statements of opinion, even when persuasively worded and authoritative, are generally not actionable as defamation. It might depend on the wording; in corner cases, an opinion can be actionable if it directly implies a conclusion made from facts known to the speaker and not disclosed to the audience --- but the facts involved have to be specific, you can't just imagine that I've implied I have secret facts (or my audience expects me to) because I'm Matt Mullenweg. Claim (4) seems like it's probably just a fact? Is WPE assuredly the fastest possible provider at any given price point? The "might" also seems pretty important there. That leaves (5) the allegation about the trademark dispute, which doesn't sound like an especially promising avenue for a lawsuit, but who knows? and (2) the bit about employee and former employee reprisals. The thing about (2) is if there's a single example of a disgruntled WPE employee who thinks they missed a promotion because they stuck up for the WordPress Foundation or whatever, WPE might have a hard time using that claim. You'd think that before WordPress/Automattic started directly demanding funds from the board of WPE, they probably had some kind of counsel review this stuff and figure out what they could and couldn't safely say? Maybe there's tortious interference stuff here that gives these claims more teeth than a typical defamation suit (I've come to roll my eyes at tortious interference, too; unless you're alleging really specific fact patterns I've come to assume these interference claims are also a sort of C&D "punctuation"). This is one of those times where I'm saying a lot of stuff in the hopes that someone much more knowledgeable will set me straight. :)
pluc 2y ago
Well, there's that context we were all asking for.
partiallypro 2y ago
I know it's not considered "contribution" in the sense that Matt was talking about, but WPEngine owns and maintains some of the most popular and powerful Wordpress plugins on the planet. I'm not sure why he chose to pick a fight with them. My best guess is that he wants Wordpress.com (hosting) to be what WPEngine became.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mrwyz 2y ago
I'm hopeful Automattic will win this one; WP Engine repackages WordPress and delivers it as a service. Fine. Software license allows for that. That does not give them the right to describe their service as "[the] Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond". They clearly say so in their policy: https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- anomaly_ 2y ago
  Eh, sounds like mere puffery to me.
- jmull 2y ago
  The policy says, ...a business related to WordPress themes can describe itself as “XYZ Themes, the world’s best WordPress themes,” but cannot call itself “The WordPress Theme Portal.” It sounds like "[the] Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond" would be allowed.
  - mrwyz 2y ago
    To me, it seems they have been using the mark to describe a product and the policy says clearly: > but they cannot use them as part of a product I mean, just go to wpengine.com and look at the first menu item: Products --> WordPress Hosting.
    - patmcc 2y ago
      >>All other WordPress-related businesses or projects can use the WordPress name and logo to refer to and explain their services I think the policy is somewhat vague on this; does 'Wordpress Hosting' refer to and explain the offered service? Clearly. Is 'Wordpress Hosting' a "product" WP Engine is selling? Kind of, yah? My understanding of trademark is also that "we've been doing this for ages and you didn't say anything" is a pretty solid defense, and "Wordpress Hosting" is about the most generic hosting service offered on the internet at this point, everyone and their dog offers it.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
riffic 2y ago
in the court of public opinion I think I know who I'm going to side with.
- manuelmoreale 2y ago
  I'm going to side with chaos: let both fail, let new products come up.
  - _smfg 2y ago
    same tbh I'm so sick of Wordpress and I don't like how complex SSGs can be
seydor 2y ago
This reads more like a blog post than a cease and desist. Why do they take so long to get to the point of their demands. Matt is entitled to have opinions , and they should stick to the opinions they find unlawful instead of rambling on about everything he said
Spivak 2y ago
This is a pretty bad look for Matt, it comes off as yet another CEO who's mad that there's no first-party advantage to hosting OSS. Thanks to the GPL and no CLA he can't take it proprietary like others before him. When you're mad at someone for using their freedom-to-run and freedom-to-modify it doesn't come off as pro-OSS as you think. Weaponizing the trademark that's more strongly associated with the software itself than the company Wordpress is a pretty low blow. WP Engine is hosting Wordpress, full-stop. There's maybe a discussion to have about when modifications constitute a fork that warrants a different name but we're about as far away from that as you can be. I honestly don't know why Matt cares. His competitor is owned by PE, just wait for them to eat the business and offer a one-click migration. Play the long game.
etchalon 2y ago
It sounds like Automattic was desperate for money and played a desperate hand badly. The receipts in the C&D don't leave one with a positive impression of Matt. I'll wait for Matt's response, but I can't imagine it's anything more than "well, we deserve the money I was demanding!"
keane 2y ago
Just as an observation this reminds me of the dynamic that other open-source software distributors are tasked with defending. Let's say you were distributing a browser, let's call it Firefox. You might have a corporation and a nonprofit and call them the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation. Maybe in this scenario you would allow certain commercial uses of your registered trademarks so that the software could be distributed by others. Parameters in this policy might only allow the commercial use of the trademarks in certain ways, enabling others to advertise their product like "Grammarly for Firefox" or even their service "Download Firefox from CNET" without infringement. But these parameters would go on to disallow one from using the terms in a way that implied a direct connection to the Mozilla Foundation or caused confusion with regards to the root product such as advertising your site, CNET, as "The Firefox Store". Then let's say someone renamed their CNET site FFXSource. And then advertised themselves as "The Most Trusted Firefox Tech Company" and that their download was "The most trusted Firefox build". They might be told this violated the terms that don't allow implying official connection to the wider project. (And then let's say the download they were offering had the browser History pane feature stripped out.) In this scenario, it seems it would be the duty of the trademark owner, the Foundation, to seek that FFXSource either come into compliance or, to continue use that exceeded the blanket guidelines, to acquire a dedicated, more-expansive commercial license. (Of course none of my thoughts on this are legal advice.)
- ipaddr 2y ago
  I don't think any of those issues you raised passes the bar. ffxsource.. no. The most trusted build. no many people build their own and it could be trusted more because someone is testing the official build and making changes and ensuring it works. The most trust Firefox Tech company is accurate. It implies many firefox tech companies exist and they are the best one.
  - keane 2y ago
    Take a look at Red Hat's guidelines, based on the open-source Model Trademark Guidelines (CC-BY-4.0), for comparison. They advise they consider it acceptable for you to claim "[Your brand] software is built from modified source code derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux." However, without additional permission you cannot "Use the Red Hat Marks in a way that expresses or implies sponsorship or endorsement by, or affiliation or a relationship with Red Hat when one does not exist." [0] https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-policies https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-pol... [1] http://modeltrademarkguidelines.org/index.php/Model_Trademark_Guidelines http://modeltrademarkguidelines.org/index.php/Model_Trademar...
jeanlucas 2y ago
semi-off-topic: Does anyone have alternative links to twitter? I'm in Brazil and don't wanna go around and risk a fine just for a tweet...
- urban_alien 2y ago
  nitter
  - jeanlucas 2y ago
    thank you very much
malthaus 2y ago
some of the comments here are exceptionally biased towards the party that does the "open source washing". just look at the childish way automattic acted. that's not a way to lead an organization or deal with your competition. you compete by building a better product, take legal action in an adult way if you think they are warranted and in general take the high road - not display your immaturity. the conflict of interest around the governance of wordpress is icky on top. so he just puts on his "open source" hat to gain favour for his for-profit company?
820jf98ajow 2y ago
"I'm literally waiting for them to finish the raffle so my talk can start, I can make it just a Q&A about WP very easily" If I were attending a conference I'd hope that the keynote speaker would put more thought into his talk than this. Not only is it childish, it's disrespectful to his audience.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mrkramer 2y ago
Automattic invested in WP Engine in the early days, why didn't they acquire it, or WP Engine didn't want to sell. But why did Matt choose the open source license that he chose, it seems like that at the end of the day he only cares for money and not the WordPress community.
- markx2 2y ago
  The fact that he wants money for Automattic suggests that Automattic are now hurting financially in some way.
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    They are both "hurt" financially but that's the competition which is normal and which should drive more innovation and lower the prices for customers.
  - trvr 2y ago
    Where does it say that the money he is asking them to contribute would go to Automattic?
    - mrkramer 2y ago
      He is throwing things around like: "it's tragedy of the commons", "they are evil capitalists" etc. etc. In another words he wants to "hijack" their market share as they supposedly "hijacked" WordPress' brand, logo or whatever.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
torginus 2y ago
I'm just confused about the whole thing. Aren't WP hosts a dime a dozen? And if you don't like how they conduct their business, just set up one yourself. I set up one for a friend on AWS, and while it requires some tech savvy, it's not exactly hard for someone with basic tech literacy and ability to follow instructions.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
mk89 2y ago
When I read the title I was wondering "strange, wasn't Automattic the company behind wordpress? Who knows maybe they split and now they sued them for XYZ". Crazy. Instead of going through all this, can't Automattic do like what most companies are doing now? Dual License (e.g., Redis, etc).
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
nikolay 2y ago
I love it! WP Engine showed its true colors. I also agree with Automattic, and I know customers who got tricked into using WP Engine and were later sorry for doing so! Sending C&D over this stuff is something that bans them for life in my book!
markx2 2y ago
WP Tavern Articles That Recently Went Missing Following WCUS Keynote https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1fofdpy/wp_tavern_articles_that_recently_went_missing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1fofdpy/wp_taver...
- ncr100 2y ago
  Wow https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-... .. interesting how the phrasing is repeating ("cancer" today) -- calling a competitor a "parasitic company" in 2022. There has to be a more intelligent descriptor for competitors to WordPress.com ?

317 points by kevmarsden 2y ago

supermatt 2y ago

WP Engine calls itself the worlds #1 wordpress hosting (with over 1.5m clients), but they aren't even in the top 10 material contributors to wordpress. Although they have pledged to support wordpress development, is is only to the tune of 40 hours a week. Their pledge is miniscule given their usage of wordpress and isn't even in the top 25 pledges made. It seems they were called out on this, and told to resolve it or it would get highlighted, and highlighted it was. Sure, the license allows them to do whatever they want, but there's nothing wrong with publicizing that they don't give much in return. With over $400M ARR, thats something they could easily resolve.

FlamingMoe 2y ago
100%. WP is GPL and they can use it how they like. And others are also allowed to call them out if they want to.
- __m 2y ago
  Yeah but people don't like to be manipulated. He didn't want to call them out, he wanted them to pay his company millions for licensing and used the community as leverage.
  - supermatt 2y ago
    Did you not read the post? He wanted them to stop calling their fork of wordpress "Wordpress". They either continue to use their fork and call it something other than wordpress, or they use an unmodified version of wordpress and are permitted to call it "wordpress", or they pay for rights to use the mark for their modified version. No doubt this has all stemmed from the issue of them taking and not giving back. If they aren't going to play nicely and pay proportionally for development as per the pledges, then they can pay for the right to use the mark for their fork. Why should automattic and dozens of others pledge thousands of hours of dev time per week when one of the biggest users pledges 40 hours? It may be permitted as per the GPL, but use of the mark is subject to fair use - and fair use doesn't cover them passing off a fork of wordpress as wordpress. Clearly that technicality is being used to force them to pay their share through licensing of the mark.
imiric 2y ago
Nice try, Matt. In all seriousness, if this whole thing is about some false marketing claim from WPE, then call them out specifically on that in a tweet or something. Why does it deserve the "scorched earth nuclear approach", which equates to blackmailing them into giving you millions to prevent you from disparaging them in all media outlets? The claims Matt made go far beyond WPE not contributing to WP development as much as they say they do. This corporate mudslinging paints WP.com in a much worse light than WPE. IANAL but I think there's a case here for a defamation lawsuit at the very least, if not for outright blackmailing.
- philosopher1234 2y ago
  Publishing a blog on Wordpress.com is scorched earth nuclear and a tweet is fine? Why shouldn’t this get some actual publicity? What’s defamatory about it? Your response seems to be a better example of mudslinging than OP. At least OP pointed out some data to back their argument.
  - imiric 2y ago
    It wasn't just the blog post. Did you miss the keynote, numerous posts on Reddit and other outlets, as well as the threatening calls and text messages? I'm using his own definition of "scorched earth nuclear". This goes far beyond a single tweet. > What's defamatory about it? Oh, I don't know. Calling your competitors "cancer", their product a "cheap knock-off", and urging people to stop using them? If my competitors are selling an inferior product, I would let that speak for itself, which should make my alternative shine in comparison. Going on a mudslinging crusade just reeks of desperation and immaturity, and the defamation and blackmailing could be illegal. If he really had a case against them, it would be resolved in court. I'm not the target audience of either, but if I had to choose which one to use today, I would go with WP Engine based on this alone.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ChoHag 2y ago
Is supporting wordpress development part of the license offered by wordpress that WP Engine agreed to? No? If you don't want people to use your stuff, don't give it away for free. > there's nothing wrong with publicizing that they don't give much in return That would be the case IF giving back was part of the deal which they are therefore reneging on. It was not. You are in the wrong.

bdzr 2y ago

Does anyone know why WP engine doesn't actually support multiple post revisions by default? I worked with WordPress significantly quite a while ago and found it to be an absolute dumpster fire of a codebase. It wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if running a scalable WP host required tamping down on some things.

etchalon 2y ago
Revisions significantly bloat the size of the primary table (wp_posts) and secondary meta tables. Because WordPress's database architecture is hilariously simple and under-engineered, that bloat ends up slowing down every query. So, to keep WordPress performant, you either need to regular prune wp_posts, or you need a continually beefier database instance to handle the installation. Sane DevOps teams just limit revisions to something like "last 5" to keep things under control.

namedia 2y ago

As a software developer, I can understand the point Matt is making but it's sad to see him calling another competitor a "cancer" to the web. I like Wordpress and was inspired by it a lot but with many years hosting Wordpress sites for our customers, I find its plugin and theme architecture very vulnerable and often be the backdoors for hackers/scammers to launch attacks on servers hosting Wordpress sites. Whoever hosting Wordpress sites must do a good jobs securing their servers to prevent exploits through the Wordpress plugins and theming system. I dont know much about WP Engine but they should be credited for securing their massive Wordpress installations. In my opinion, Matt should focus more on fixing the weaknesses of Wordpress architecture than bashing his competitor, Wordpress is really a pain point to those providing hosting for it. We used to provide Wordpress hosting and did customize it as a website builder but due to its fragile architecture, we have decided to develop our own CMS system, with 3rd party plugin and theming system inspired by Wordpress but have built-in protection mechanism to prevent backdoors potentially exist in 3rd party code.

aussieguy1234 2y ago

As a former WordPress engineer that built one of the worlds largest commercial WordPress deployments, I have a secret to tell you. WordPress, out of the box, if you throw even a portion of traffic that you would expect form a large media site at it, will fall over. We modified WordPress, took advantage of all the hooks, basically rewrote the post authoring and search system and introduced caching and databases on top of the default MySQL, such as ElasticSearch for content storage and searching content. We also had a network level CDN in front of it at all times. By the end of it all, what we had was not fully WordPress anymore. You'll find that alot of organisations doing WordPress are doing similar things.

kevmarsden 2y ago

In response, here's the cease and desist Automattic sent to WP Engine: https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-engine/ https://automattic.com/2024/09/25/open-source-trademarks-wp-...

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

Pet_Ant 2y ago

This seems like it will be relevant... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect

firecall 2y ago

> Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” In my experience, WordPress itself could be called a Cancer to the Web. The amount of new clients I've picked up who needed help rescuing broken and malware ridden WordPress sites is... well, it's more than I'd like as I really do not enjoy WordPress LOL

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
arp242 2y ago
WordPress isn't that bad. Okay, the code is kinda messy in some places, but which 25 year old project isn't? And yes, in the early days it was cowboy coding, but those days have been over for more than 15 years. What "broken and malware ridden WordPress site" typically means is "customer installed a bunch of random plugins from random sites written by teenagers or bozos who don't know what they're doing". And yes, that can screw things up, but that's not really WordPress's fault IMHO. Maybe it can do more to protect users from this; I don't know. But obviously the plugin ecosystem is a hugely important part of the WordPress platform and you can't just lock that down technically. Just make sure you only install plugins from authors who aren't teenagers or bozos. I'll add that personally I don't especially like WordPress for various reasons. But at the same time I don't think this is really a fair criticism.
- chiefalchemist 2y ago
  The WP Community - as led by leadership (i.e., MM, Automattic, etc) is fond of bragging about the plugin and theme ecosystem. What they conveniently neglect to mention is how many are shite, many are ok but poorly coded, and only a very few are worth their weight. Even plenty of the premium plugins have performance issue, are sloppy, lack hooks, etc.
gjsman-1000 2y ago
And yet, reality is that for many companies, an off-the-shelf CMS is all they need, and all they can afford, and all they can figure out without hiring IT. Which means, if we want to kill WordPress, we need to offer a better solution. Not just for WordPress, but a coherent system that also reimplements the top hundred or so plugins. If anyone wants to join me rewriting it in Laravel so we could add a WSL-like layer for WordPress cancer plugins… I don’t know. I wish someone would have the conversation. I don’t even care whether it’s Rust.

Kye 2y ago

My slightly earlier submission with a direct PDF link for people who aren't able to view Twitter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41631920 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41631920

CPLX 2y ago

Without additional context the letter does read as persuasive. Is there significant additional context? Having looked at Matt's comments in the speech I'm not seeing any actual substance of what's wrong with WP Engine.

gjsman-1000 2y ago
It’s kind of perverse of Matt considering: A. He accuses “WP Engine” for being confusing branding. He literally owns WordPress.com; which confuses tens of thousands of people on a daily basis. (“Are you on the WordPress login page?” “I swear that I am!”) B. He complains about the post revisions not being limitless. But until recently, WordPress.com had a limit of 25. C. If post revisions matter, surely plugins matter, right? WordPress.com requires going up two tiers to use any unapproved plugins. D. Matt was an investor in WP Engine, and even appeared on their podcast last year, even though this revisions system limitation has been in place for a decade? E. This is the same Matt who wrote the WordPress Bill of Rights, complete with specifically saying “The freedom to run the program, for any purpose” and “The freedom to study how the program works, and change it to make it do what you wish.” F. The same Matt who wrote in the WordPress trademark policy that “WP” is not a WordPress trademark and anyone may use it however they wish? G. The same Matt who forked B2, and if B2 was still around, would be quite vulnerable to B2 potentially complaining about Matt’s lack of contribution to them? It goes on. I hate to say it, but every sign points to Matt being a hypocrite. Even an extortionist.
- yard2010 2y ago
  The one who threatened to start a nuclear war when he didn't get what he wanted? He seems chill
- johng 2y ago
  Not to mention his text messages. It's clear that if they were willing to pay, he was willing to not even mention them in his keynote. It looks quite clear that he wanted money and was willing to let everything slide if they got it.
  - 2y ago

Aloha 2y ago

Disclaimer WP Engine Customer - I read the comments from Matt M yesterday, and it felt like a hit piece. I run a website for a couple scifi like conventions, we need cheap reliable hosting without me having to deal with the vagaries of running wordpress myself. I would have bought a product like WP Engine directly from Automattic, but AFAIK they dont offer one, this feels like lashing out at a competitor because they failed to enter a market segment, and now feel their lunch is being ate. I ran websites for a long time without any version control, and would have no problem doing it again, the benefit of WordPress is the semi-WYSIWYG editor and the plugin ecosystem.

terrycody 2y ago
Wp engine is not cheap at all, instead its expensive, my websites hosted on Namecheap for years, and never touched even 1 second, and everything is stable, the price? I would tell you, around $45 per year hosting price for 3 sites... You definitely were ripped off.
philistine 2y ago
Could you enlighten me as to what WP Engine does differently from Automattic that you can't buy from them? Looking at the WP Engine, it's the exact same thing, with the numbers filed off, as Automattic offers.
- Aloha 2y ago
  Which particular service of Automattic? Like Wordpress.com in hindsight seems to offer it, but its not clear to me that I'm their customer target.
  - x3sphere 2y ago
    Wordpress.com would be the equivalent. That said, they don't exactly offer an unmodified WP experience either at least not without upgrading to the higher tier plans. The base plan has plugins disabled for example. Not even sure how it's different from what Matt is accusing WP Engine of.
- 2y ago

muglug 2y ago

Sad to see Matt M behaving in such a childish manner. The initial wordpress.org blogpost looked pretty bad, but the quoted text messages are so much worse.

keane 2y ago
It's not uncommon for a license being required to use a registered trademark. WPE denies they need one. Matt apparently disagrees.
- bastawhiz 2y ago
  If this is indeed true, that ship has sailed. WP Engine was founded nearly fifteen years ago. You need to enforce your trademark for it to be valid: you don't get to decide fourteen years later that you're actually not happy about it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

oldstrangers 2y ago

This is funny considering WP Engine has been the only thing that kept me developing wordpress sites for years.

throwaway984393 2y ago

[dead]

mdotk 2y ago

I'm no fan of WP Engine and their outrageous prices for very average performance, but this is a terrible look for Matt M if true. reply

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: WP Engine is not WordPress https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41613628 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41613628

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

tptacek 2y ago

I'm not a lawyer, as you will soon realize. This is just water cooler talk, which is what HN is for. I sort of directionally think that if WPE had a strong case here, their opening bid wouldn't be a C&D (I've noticed C&Ds frequently include a "preserve documents" section, presumably as punctuation, but for what it's worth that's an implicit threat they might sue). The meat of this C&D seems to be a section towards the middle where they describe Mullenweg's keynote speech. It makes, according to WPE, these claims (numbers mine): 1. Claiming that WP Engine is a company that just wants to “feed off” of the WordPress ecosystem without giving anything back. 2. Suggesting that WP Engine employees may be fired for speaking up, supporting Mr. Mullenweg, or supporting WordPress, and offering to provide support in finding them new jobs if that were to occur. 3. Stating that every WP Engine customer should watch his speech and then not renew their contracts with WP Engine when those contracts are up for renewal. 4. Claiming that if current WP Engine customers switch to a different host they “might get faster performance.” 5. Alleging that WP Engine is “misus[ing] the trademark” including by using “WP” in its name. 6. Claiming that WP Engine’s investor doesn’t “give a dang” about Open Source ideals. Under a US defamation analysis, claims (1), (3), and (6) appear to be statements of opinion. Statements of opinion, even when persuasively worded and authoritative, are generally not actionable as defamation. It might depend on the wording; in corner cases, an opinion can be actionable if it directly implies a conclusion made from facts known to the speaker and not disclosed to the audience --- but the facts involved have to be specific, you can't just imagine that I've implied I have secret facts (or my audience expects me to) because I'm Matt Mullenweg. Claim (4) seems like it's probably just a fact? Is WPE assuredly the fastest possible provider at any given price point? The "might" also seems pretty important there. That leaves (5) the allegation about the trademark dispute, which doesn't sound like an especially promising avenue for a lawsuit, but who knows? and (2) the bit about employee and former employee reprisals. The thing about (2) is if there's a single example of a disgruntled WPE employee who thinks they missed a promotion because they stuck up for the WordPress Foundation or whatever, WPE might have a hard time using that claim. You'd think that before WordPress/Automattic started directly demanding funds from the board of WPE, they probably had some kind of counsel review this stuff and figure out what they could and couldn't safely say? Maybe there's tortious interference stuff here that gives these claims more teeth than a typical defamation suit (I've come to roll my eyes at tortious interference, too; unless you're alleging really specific fact patterns I've come to assume these interference claims are also a sort of C&D "punctuation"). This is one of those times where I'm saying a lot of stuff in the hopes that someone much more knowledgeable will set me straight. :)

pluc 2y ago

Well, there's that context we were all asking for.

partiallypro 2y ago

I know it's not considered "contribution" in the sense that Matt was talking about, but WPEngine owns and maintains some of the most popular and powerful Wordpress plugins on the planet. I'm not sure why he chose to pick a fight with them. My best guess is that he wants Wordpress.com (hosting) to be what WPEngine became.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mrwyz 2y ago

I'm hopeful Automattic will win this one; WP Engine repackages WordPress and delivers it as a service. Fine. Software license allows for that. That does not give them the right to describe their service as "[the] Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond". They clearly say so in their policy: https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/ https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
anomaly_ 2y ago
Eh, sounds like mere puffery to me.
jmull 2y ago
The policy says, ...a business related to WordPress themes can describe itself as “XYZ Themes, the world’s best WordPress themes,” but cannot call itself “The WordPress Theme Portal.” It sounds like "[the] Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond" would be allowed.
- mrwyz 2y ago
  To me, it seems they have been using the mark to describe a product and the policy says clearly: > but they cannot use them as part of a product I mean, just go to wpengine.com and look at the first menu item: Products --> WordPress Hosting.
  - patmcc 2y ago
    >>All other WordPress-related businesses or projects can use the WordPress name and logo to refer to and explain their services I think the policy is somewhat vague on this; does 'Wordpress Hosting' refer to and explain the offered service? Clearly. Is 'Wordpress Hosting' a "product" WP Engine is selling? Kind of, yah? My understanding of trademark is also that "we've been doing this for ages and you didn't say anything" is a pretty solid defense, and "Wordpress Hosting" is about the most generic hosting service offered on the internet at this point, everyone and their dog offers it.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

riffic 2y ago

in the court of public opinion I think I know who I'm going to side with.

manuelmoreale 2y ago
I'm going to side with chaos: let both fail, let new products come up.
- _smfg 2y ago
  same tbh I'm so sick of Wordpress and I don't like how complex SSGs can be

seydor 2y ago

This reads more like a blog post than a cease and desist. Why do they take so long to get to the point of their demands. Matt is entitled to have opinions , and they should stick to the opinions they find unlawful instead of rambling on about everything he said

Spivak 2y ago

This is a pretty bad look for Matt, it comes off as yet another CEO who's mad that there's no first-party advantage to hosting OSS. Thanks to the GPL and no CLA he can't take it proprietary like others before him. When you're mad at someone for using their freedom-to-run and freedom-to-modify it doesn't come off as pro-OSS as you think. Weaponizing the trademark that's more strongly associated with the software itself than the company Wordpress is a pretty low blow. WP Engine is hosting Wordpress, full-stop. There's maybe a discussion to have about when modifications constitute a fork that warrants a different name but we're about as far away from that as you can be. I honestly don't know why Matt cares. His competitor is owned by PE, just wait for them to eat the business and offer a one-click migration. Play the long game.

etchalon 2y ago

It sounds like Automattic was desperate for money and played a desperate hand badly. The receipts in the C&D don't leave one with a positive impression of Matt. I'll wait for Matt's response, but I can't imagine it's anything more than "well, we deserve the money I was demanding!"

keane 2y ago

Just as an observation this reminds me of the dynamic that other open-source software distributors are tasked with defending. Let's say you were distributing a browser, let's call it Firefox. You might have a corporation and a nonprofit and call them the Mozilla Corporation and the Mozilla Foundation. Maybe in this scenario you would allow certain commercial uses of your registered trademarks so that the software could be distributed by others. Parameters in this policy might only allow the commercial use of the trademarks in certain ways, enabling others to advertise their product like "Grammarly for Firefox" or even their service "Download Firefox from CNET" without infringement. But these parameters would go on to disallow one from using the terms in a way that implied a direct connection to the Mozilla Foundation or caused confusion with regards to the root product such as advertising your site, CNET, as "The Firefox Store". Then let's say someone renamed their CNET site FFXSource. And then advertised themselves as "The Most Trusted Firefox Tech Company" and that their download was "The most trusted Firefox build". They might be told this violated the terms that don't allow implying official connection to the wider project. (And then let's say the download they were offering had the browser History pane feature stripped out.) In this scenario, it seems it would be the duty of the trademark owner, the Foundation, to seek that FFXSource either come into compliance or, to continue use that exceeded the blanket guidelines, to acquire a dedicated, more-expansive commercial license. (Of course none of my thoughts on this are legal advice.)

ipaddr 2y ago
I don't think any of those issues you raised passes the bar. ffxsource.. no. The most trusted build. no many people build their own and it could be trusted more because someone is testing the official build and making changes and ensuring it works. The most trust Firefox Tech company is accurate. It implies many firefox tech companies exist and they are the best one.
- keane 2y ago
  Take a look at Red Hat's guidelines, based on the open-source Model Trademark Guidelines (CC-BY-4.0), for comparison. They advise they consider it acceptable for you to claim "[Your brand] software is built from modified source code derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux." However, without additional permission you cannot "Use the Red Hat Marks in a way that expresses or implies sponsorship or endorsement by, or affiliation or a relationship with Red Hat when one does not exist." [0] https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-policies https://www.redhat.com/en/about/trademark-guidelines-and-pol... [1] http://modeltrademarkguidelines.org/index.php/Model_Trademark_Guidelines http://modeltrademarkguidelines.org/index.php/Model_Trademar...

jeanlucas 2y ago

semi-off-topic: Does anyone have alternative links to twitter? I'm in Brazil and don't wanna go around and risk a fine just for a tweet...

urban_alien 2y ago
nitter
- jeanlucas 2y ago
  thank you very much

malthaus 2y ago

some of the comments here are exceptionally biased towards the party that does the "open source washing". just look at the childish way automattic acted. that's not a way to lead an organization or deal with your competition. you compete by building a better product, take legal action in an adult way if you think they are warranted and in general take the high road - not display your immaturity. the conflict of interest around the governance of wordpress is icky on top. so he just puts on his "open source" hat to gain favour for his for-profit company?

820jf98ajow 2y ago

"I'm literally waiting for them to finish the raffle so my talk can start, I can make it just a Q&A about WP very easily" If I were attending a conference I'd hope that the keynote speaker would put more thought into his talk than this. Not only is it childish, it's disrespectful to his audience.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mrkramer 2y ago

Automattic invested in WP Engine in the early days, why didn't they acquire it, or WP Engine didn't want to sell. But why did Matt choose the open source license that he chose, it seems like that at the end of the day he only cares for money and not the WordPress community.

markx2 2y ago
The fact that he wants money for Automattic suggests that Automattic are now hurting financially in some way.
- mrkramer 2y ago
  They are both "hurt" financially but that's the competition which is normal and which should drive more innovation and lower the prices for customers.
- trvr 2y ago
  Where does it say that the money he is asking them to contribute would go to Automattic?
  - mrkramer 2y ago
    He is throwing things around like: "it's tragedy of the commons", "they are evil capitalists" etc. etc. In another words he wants to "hijack" their market share as they supposedly "hijacked" WordPress' brand, logo or whatever.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

torginus 2y ago

I'm just confused about the whole thing. Aren't WP hosts a dime a dozen? And if you don't like how they conduct their business, just set up one yourself. I set up one for a friend on AWS, and while it requires some tech savvy, it's not exactly hard for someone with basic tech literacy and ability to follow instructions.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

mk89 2y ago

When I read the title I was wondering "strange, wasn't Automattic the company behind wordpress? Who knows maybe they split and now they sued them for XYZ". Crazy. Instead of going through all this, can't Automattic do like what most companies are doing now? Dual License (e.g., Redis, etc).

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

nikolay 2y ago

I love it! WP Engine showed its true colors. I also agree with Automattic, and I know customers who got tricked into using WP Engine and were later sorry for doing so! Sending C&D over this stuff is something that bans them for life in my book!

markx2 2y ago

WP Tavern Articles That Recently Went Missing Following WCUS Keynote https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1fofdpy/wp_tavern_articles_that_recently_went_missing/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Wordpress/comments/1fofdpy/wp_taver...

ncr100 2y ago
Wow https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-parasitic-company-and-an-existential-threat-to-wordpress-future https://wptavern.com/matt-mullenweg-identifies-godaddy-as-a-... .. interesting how the phrasing is repeating ("cancer" today) -- calling a competitor a "parasitic company" in 2022. There has to be a more intelligent descriptor for competitors to WordPress.com ?