3 ms·

If you sell my aspirin in your shop, you will have to accept what I put on the packaging or stop carrying my product.

chrisandchris 2y ago
That's true, but does not apply to this situation. Automattic is not the owner of WordPress, the WordPress Foundation is. Even though many employees of Automattic work (maybe full-time) on WordPress [1]. So I sell your aspirin in my shop, and a friend of yours helped you package your aspirins and while doing that put some stickers onto your aspirin. [1] https://www.df.eu/blog/wer-steckt-hinter-wordpress-ueber-die-wordpress-foundation-automattic-und-die-wordpress-community/ https://www.df.eu/blog/wer-steckt-hinter-wordpress-ueber-die... (German)
- Matticus_Rex 2y ago
  Does WPF take issue with this operational decision by Automattic? If so, they have the avenues to deal with it, and they're the party who can claim to be aggrieved, if it violates some duty Automattic has to WPF. I seems more like this, from my understanding: You sell a brand of aspirin in your shop. The brand has outsourced most of the production and decision-making to another company. That company puts messages on the bottle. If those messages bother me, I can bring it up with the brand and see if they'll address it, or stop carrying the brand, but the question of whether they've overstepped is for the brand owners rather than me.
  - mthoms 2y ago
    Here's the thing. Guess who is the head of the WordPress Foundation? Matt Mullenweg. CEO of Automattic. Now guess who The WordPress Foundation granted sole rights to sub-license their trademarks? You guessed it. Automattic. Yeah, it gets worse the more you look at it.
    - keane 2y ago
      Automattic originally registered the trademark WordPress. They donated it to the WordPress Foundation while retaining a commercial license to the marks. https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-foundation/ https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-foundation/
      - mthoms 2y ago
        Some important nuance is lost here. Matt Mullenweg transferred the trademark to the WordPress Foundation (which he is head of) and the foundation (again... Matt himself) in turn granted Automattic the exclusive ability to sub-license the name commercially. This is the important bit. What this means is that any "licensing fee" would be paid to Matt's private, for-profit, VC-backed company (and direct competitor to WPEngine) and there would be zero accountability for how it would be spent. In practice, the foundation doesn't enjoy any benefit to owning the marks. It's all smoke and mirrors.
        keane 2y ago
        The trademark policy sounds like it falls somewhere between the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation model and the Red Hat/Fedora Project model. This is how open source in practice works.
        mthoms 2y ago
        Not really. The Mozilla Corporation and Red Hat aren't direct 1:1 commercial competitors to the people they also license the trademarks to (as is the case with Automattic and WPEngine). It's an obvious conflict of interest and inherently problematic on so many levels. If there is a real-world open-source analogue to that situation, I'd be genuinely interested in hearing about it. To me the solution seems simple; The WP Foundation should own and license the trademark. Then use the proceeds for its mission in a way that is accountable to the community (Automattic should not have to pay of course).
    - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
  - FireBeyond 2y ago
    > and they're the party who can claim to be aggrieved, if it violates some duty Automattic has to WPF Tortious interference - where one party (Automattic) interferes with a contractual relationship between two parties (WPengine, their customers), in this case by means of disparagement pushed to the dashboard of WPengine instances.
    - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
      Tortious interference requires that the interfering party induce the party to the contract to a breach of the contract. Where's that element?
      - FireBeyond 2y ago
        Inducement? Like "We have blocked the ability to access plugin and other repositories for customers of WPEngine. We have not done so for this other, "independent", for-profit entity (that just so happens to be owned by the same person)"?
        Matticus_Rex 2y ago
        Inducement to what? Where's the breach of contract being encouraged?

That's true, but does not apply to this situation. Automattic is not the owner of WordPress, the WordPress Foundation is. Even though many employees of Automattic work (maybe full-time) on WordPress [1]. So I sell your aspirin in my shop, and a friend of yours helped you package your aspirins and while doing that put some stickers onto your aspirin. [1] https://www.df.eu/blog/wer-steckt-hinter-wordpress-ueber-die-wordpress-foundation-automattic-und-die-wordpress-community/ https://www.df.eu/blog/wer-steckt-hinter-wordpress-ueber-die... (German)

Matticus_Rex 2y ago
Does WPF take issue with this operational decision by Automattic? If so, they have the avenues to deal with it, and they're the party who can claim to be aggrieved, if it violates some duty Automattic has to WPF. I seems more like this, from my understanding: You sell a brand of aspirin in your shop. The brand has outsourced most of the production and decision-making to another company. That company puts messages on the bottle. If those messages bother me, I can bring it up with the brand and see if they'll address it, or stop carrying the brand, but the question of whether they've overstepped is for the brand owners rather than me.
- mthoms 2y ago
  Here's the thing. Guess who is the head of the WordPress Foundation? Matt Mullenweg. CEO of Automattic. Now guess who The WordPress Foundation granted sole rights to sub-license their trademarks? You guessed it. Automattic. Yeah, it gets worse the more you look at it.
  - keane 2y ago
    Automattic originally registered the trademark WordPress. They donated it to the WordPress Foundation while retaining a commercial license to the marks. https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-foundation/ https://wordpress.org/book/2015/11/the-wordpress-foundation/
    - mthoms 2y ago
      Some important nuance is lost here. Matt Mullenweg transferred the trademark to the WordPress Foundation (which he is head of) and the foundation (again... Matt himself) in turn granted Automattic the exclusive ability to sub-license the name commercially. This is the important bit. What this means is that any "licensing fee" would be paid to Matt's private, for-profit, VC-backed company (and direct competitor to WPEngine) and there would be zero accountability for how it would be spent. In practice, the foundation doesn't enjoy any benefit to owning the marks. It's all smoke and mirrors.
      - keane 2y ago
        The trademark policy sounds like it falls somewhere between the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation model and the Red Hat/Fedora Project model. This is how open source in practice works.
        mthoms 2y ago
        Not really. The Mozilla Corporation and Red Hat aren't direct 1:1 commercial competitors to the people they also license the trademarks to (as is the case with Automattic and WPEngine). It's an obvious conflict of interest and inherently problematic on so many levels. If there is a real-world open-source analogue to that situation, I'd be genuinely interested in hearing about it. To me the solution seems simple; The WP Foundation should own and license the trademark. Then use the proceeds for its mission in a way that is accountable to the community (Automattic should not have to pay of course).
  - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
- FireBeyond 2y ago
  > and they're the party who can claim to be aggrieved, if it violates some duty Automattic has to WPF Tortious interference - where one party (Automattic) interferes with a contractual relationship between two parties (WPengine, their customers), in this case by means of disparagement pushed to the dashboard of WPengine instances.
  - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
    Tortious interference requires that the interfering party induce the party to the contract to a breach of the contract. Where's that element?
    - FireBeyond 2y ago
      Inducement? Like "We have blocked the ability to access plugin and other repositories for customers of WPEngine. We have not done so for this other, "independent", for-profit entity (that just so happens to be owned by the same person)"?
      - Matticus_Rex 2y ago
        Inducement to what? Where's the breach of contract being encouraged?