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It looks like Matt is using the WordPress non-profit to attack a competitor. Additionally, he cut off services to that competitor with the clear intent of disru

It looks like Matt is using the WordPress non-profit to attack a competitor. Additionally, he cut off services to that competitor with the clear intent of disrupting their service and customers and talks about trademark infringement, despite their use of the trademark clearly being covered by their very own guidelines, and, to literally add insult to injury, he describes the situation in very emotional language. It's not like I don't see Matts side, but the way he is acting is extremely unprofessional and looks like a temper tantrum. WPEngine might be a large business, but so is Automattic and this kind of scorched earth-approach is hard to support.

consteval 2y ago
You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation. This could've easily been avoid by either not mooching off free resources, or by just playing nice. If I build my business on scraping X.com and then X bans my IPs, that's on me. They don't have to provide me free internet access to their content, that's a privilege. And this happens literally thousands of times every single day. Still, entitled business owners try it out and then want to turn around and cry when their free cash cow turns away.
- DannyBee 2y ago
  "You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation." If you choose to accept all comers, you get to accept all comers. If you decide to then boycott one specific group, particularly when it is a competitor of the person announcing the boycott, it may in fact be illegal. This is easily solved by having principles ahead of time and adhering to them (IE we only serve people/companies meeting the following criteria). This did not happen here - instead they have applied a boycott to a specific group after the person involved threatened them as competitor. Look up "concerted refusal to deal", etc.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > If you choose to accept all comers, you get to accept all comers Incorrect, you just made this up. I can individually ban people whenever I want, however I want, because I own the server and it's MY resources. If I setup a free lemonade stand and you request 5,000 cups of lemonade, yes I can turn you away. And I will. > instead they have applied a boycott Incorrect, because your thinking is backwards. A boycott is a refusal to buy, not sell. There's no boycott here. It's also not illegal, and that should be obvious. Not only is it not illegal, I don't even think its unethical.
    - DannyBee 2y ago
      Buddy, among other things, i'm licensed as an IP/antitrust lawyer, have actually worked on some of the most recent antitrust cases in tech, and am trying to help you understand what the law actually says. You don't want to know, that's fine. But to say "i just made it up" is beyond silly. I don't have an urge to make up anything to win internet points. If i did I'd be on reddit :) I'm not gonna continue this since it's clear you aren't interested in actually learning anything as much as winning an argument. That's not interesting at all, and not what HN is for.
      - consteval 2y ago
        You're 100% allowed to IP ban people individually. There's no law anywhere that says otherwise. This is even true in a general case. I bet you've been to a cafe with a sign that says "we're allowed to turn away any customer blah blah blah". Well, they are. There's some limitations like protected classes but it's true. You're not obligated to provide customers with a product if you don't have a contract stating that. This also applies to free services. I have a server, I can ban your IP if I want. Maybe I think you're using too many resources, or maybe I just think you're ugly. There's absolutely zero anti-trust shenanigans here. Yes, they are a direct competitor HOWEVER - you are not obligated to provide free resources to your competition. I'm guessing we're talking on the order of hundreds of thousands of requests a day, that costs money. They tried to come to an agreement but WPE seems to be under the impression they should get free server access without spending a dime. Wordpress said no, and here we are.
- Sebb767 2y ago
  > You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation. This could've easily been avoid by either not mooching off free resources, or by just playing nice. I'm not arguing that they are obligated to provide free services. What they did was suddenly pull the plug on a free, public service for one specific user, which just happens to be a competitor. Also, this was without any announcement and clearly intent on interrupting the service for mostly unrelated third parties (namely WPEngines customers), just to hurt WPEngine. As to them being hostile to negotiation, we don't know what happened behind close doors. But from the facts that were publicly presented, Matt wanted an amount of money, has (so far) not presented any reasonable legal basis for it and has overall been pretty emotional, so I do believe WPEngine when they claim that the demand was unreasonable and in bad faith on his side. If this would have been a calm announcement that WP will cede any free hosting services to for-profit WordPress resellers, with a reasonable timeline for migration, he would have my full support. Maybe I could even get behind singling out WPEngine, if the case was solid. But the way this happens, Matt just looks like the bad guy. > If I build my business on scraping X.com and then X bans my IPs, that's on me. They don't have to provide me free internet access to their content, that's a privilege. But someone allows free passage on a toll bridge for everyone and suddenly decides to just deny your transport business specifically and publicly insult you, it looks a bit different. Especially if the owner of the bridge just happens to run a competitor for your business, things do look a bit fishy. I mean, fair enough, but this move was clearly intended for maximum damage and someone doing that does not at all look like the reasonable party, sorry.
  - consteval 2y ago
    > What they did was suddenly pull the plug on a free, public service for one specific user, which just happens to be a competitor. Or, to rephrase: They pulled the plug on one user who happened to be hostile, and who was abusing their free resources by issuing hundreds of thousands of requests a day. Which, when you phrase it that way, not only sounds reasonable, it sounds obvious. What you, and other's, are missing is that WPE is not a typical user. They're a corporation with hundreds of thousands of customers. Using your free resources is expensive. Like, money expensive. This is like if you set up a free little API and then Amazon decided to use it. Would you let that fly? Would you foot the bill? What if Amazon is now your competitor? Surely then you'd happily pay the bill? Get real. You would 100% do the same thing in that situation.

consteval 2y ago

You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation. This could've easily been avoid by either not mooching off free resources, or by just playing nice. If I build my business on scraping X.com and then X bans my IPs, that's on me. They don't have to provide me free internet access to their content, that's a privilege. And this happens literally thousands of times every single day. Still, entitled business owners try it out and then want to turn around and cry when their free cash cow turns away.

DannyBee 2y ago
"You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation." If you choose to accept all comers, you get to accept all comers. If you decide to then boycott one specific group, particularly when it is a competitor of the person announcing the boycott, it may in fact be illegal. This is easily solved by having principles ahead of time and adhering to them (IE we only serve people/companies meeting the following criteria). This did not happen here - instead they have applied a boycott to a specific group after the person involved threatened them as competitor. Look up "concerted refusal to deal", etc.
- consteval 2y ago
  > If you choose to accept all comers, you get to accept all comers Incorrect, you just made this up. I can individually ban people whenever I want, however I want, because I own the server and it's MY resources. If I setup a free lemonade stand and you request 5,000 cups of lemonade, yes I can turn you away. And I will. > instead they have applied a boycott Incorrect, because your thinking is backwards. A boycott is a refusal to buy, not sell. There's no boycott here. It's also not illegal, and that should be obvious. Not only is it not illegal, I don't even think its unethical.
  - DannyBee 2y ago
    Buddy, among other things, i'm licensed as an IP/antitrust lawyer, have actually worked on some of the most recent antitrust cases in tech, and am trying to help you understand what the law actually says. You don't want to know, that's fine. But to say "i just made it up" is beyond silly. I don't have an urge to make up anything to win internet points. If i did I'd be on reddit :) I'm not gonna continue this since it's clear you aren't interested in actually learning anything as much as winning an argument. That's not interesting at all, and not what HN is for.
    - consteval 2y ago
      You're 100% allowed to IP ban people individually. There's no law anywhere that says otherwise. This is even true in a general case. I bet you've been to a cafe with a sign that says "we're allowed to turn away any customer blah blah blah". Well, they are. There's some limitations like protected classes but it's true. You're not obligated to provide customers with a product if you don't have a contract stating that. This also applies to free services. I have a server, I can ban your IP if I want. Maybe I think you're using too many resources, or maybe I just think you're ugly. There's absolutely zero anti-trust shenanigans here. Yes, they are a direct competitor HOWEVER - you are not obligated to provide free resources to your competition. I'm guessing we're talking on the order of hundreds of thousands of requests a day, that costs money. They tried to come to an agreement but WPE seems to be under the impression they should get free server access without spending a dime. Wordpress said no, and here we are.
Sebb767 2y ago
> You're not obligated to provide free services to people you don't have a contract with, and who are openly hostile to negotiation. This could've easily been avoid by either not mooching off free resources, or by just playing nice. I'm not arguing that they are obligated to provide free services. What they did was suddenly pull the plug on a free, public service for one specific user, which just happens to be a competitor. Also, this was without any announcement and clearly intent on interrupting the service for mostly unrelated third parties (namely WPEngines customers), just to hurt WPEngine. As to them being hostile to negotiation, we don't know what happened behind close doors. But from the facts that were publicly presented, Matt wanted an amount of money, has (so far) not presented any reasonable legal basis for it and has overall been pretty emotional, so I do believe WPEngine when they claim that the demand was unreasonable and in bad faith on his side. If this would have been a calm announcement that WP will cede any free hosting services to for-profit WordPress resellers, with a reasonable timeline for migration, he would have my full support. Maybe I could even get behind singling out WPEngine, if the case was solid. But the way this happens, Matt just looks like the bad guy. > If I build my business on scraping X.com and then X bans my IPs, that's on me. They don't have to provide me free internet access to their content, that's a privilege. But someone allows free passage on a toll bridge for everyone and suddenly decides to just deny your transport business specifically and publicly insult you, it looks a bit different. Especially if the owner of the bridge just happens to run a competitor for your business, things do look a bit fishy. I mean, fair enough, but this move was clearly intended for maximum damage and someone doing that does not at all look like the reasonable party, sorry.
- consteval 2y ago
  > What they did was suddenly pull the plug on a free, public service for one specific user, which just happens to be a competitor. Or, to rephrase: They pulled the plug on one user who happened to be hostile, and who was abusing their free resources by issuing hundreds of thousands of requests a day. Which, when you phrase it that way, not only sounds reasonable, it sounds obvious. What you, and other's, are missing is that WPE is not a typical user. They're a corporation with hundreds of thousands of customers. Using your free resources is expensive. Like, money expensive. This is like if you set up a free little API and then Amazon decided to use it. Would you let that fly? Would you foot the bill? What if Amazon is now your competitor? Surely then you'd happily pay the bill? Get real. You would 100% do the same thing in that situation.