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A million people trusted WPE’s resources. WPE, in turn, relied on someone else’s. The real issue here is that WPE completely overlooked the fact that they haven

A million people trusted WPE’s resources. WPE, in turn, relied on someone else’s. The real issue here is that WPE completely overlooked the fact that they haven’t done the work to maintain the availability of their apps. It’s like buying a fridge, stocking it with $200 worth of food, and forgetting to plug it in.

None4U 2y ago
More like buying a fridge and then the landlord stops paying for electricity suddenly
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- austhrow743 2y ago
  This is accurate if by landlord you mean "the person in whose house you have been squatting without paying rent or signing a lease."
  - immibis 2y ago
    Actually, it's the person who signed a contract with me to give me a free house.
    - austhrow743 2y ago
      What is the contract that gives WP Engine the free house?
      - ceejayoz 2y ago
        The GPL, and WordPress's trademark policy, which up to a week ago stated " The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."
        commoner 2y ago
        On the other hand, the use of WordPress servers is in no way covered by the GPL. WP Engine can pay for their own servers the same way Bluehost used to.
        austhrow743 2y ago
        That someone gives you the right to use their code doesn't mean they're required to be a free hosting provider for you.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        Using the resources of the non-profit you control to kneecap a competitor to the for-profit you control makes that a bit more complicated. I think it's obvious WPE wouldn't be in the clear with Matt even if they went and hosted a mirror/cache of the WP.org packages.
        phonon 2y ago
        wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name. The actual non-profit [1] had expenses of $41k in 2022, which wouldn't come anywhere near paying for wordpress.org infrastructure and personnel. I guess Wordpress is going the RHEL route. You can clone it, but can't use their trademarks or infrastructure. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205498932 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...
        ValentineC 2y ago
        > wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name. Automattic's associate legal counsel begs to differ [1]: > Let’s apply this to the WordPress trademarks (also called simply “marks”). The WordPress Foundation owns the right to use the WordPress marks for non-commercial purposes. It can also sublicense out this right for particular events (e.g., WordCamps) and to people supporting the WordPress project and community. The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software. (Take it up with them, not me.) [1] https://automattic.com/2024/10/02/wordpress-trademarks-a-legal-perspective/ https://automattic.com/2024/10/02/wordpress-trademarks-a-leg...
    - fastball 2y ago
      WordPress definitely did not sign a contract with WPE to provide free electricity.
    - recursive 2y ago
      Not a lawyer, but I think contracts require consideration to be enforceable.
- safety1st 2y ago
  With the wrinkle that your landlord enthusiastically invited you to move in, and never made you sign a contract, but after your dog shed all over the place he started making ominous noises about how you'd better sign one equal to eight percent of your gross revenue, and every conversation with him is now very strained
- bsbsjsusj 2y ago
  Buying a fridge. Plugging it into the neigbours outbouse, who also gives you free food, and you use both to run your cafe. Which is fair because the neighbour gives free food away to look the most christian and you pay for the fridge and most people don't want to run a fridge so they rely on your cafe.
- wattwullenberg 2y ago
  [dead]
safety1st 2y ago
This is 100% correct as a position of principle, but it's not a foregone conclusion that WPE was able to take the necessary steps here. To be very specific about at least one of the issues: * The URLs pointing to the WP plugin directory on wordpress.org are hardcoded into WordPress * If WPE forks WordPress to fix that, and continues to say they host WordPress, IANAL but they probably have a trademark violation problem on their hands. There are certainly workarounds which exist, but it's hard for us to conclude casually on Hacker News whether they can be deployed at WP Engine scale and in compliance with whatever agreements WP Engine is bound to. So yeah you're right about what the right thing to do is. But frequently reality is not that simple. They needed time and maybe even assistance from wporg (in helping them to be free of wporg. errrr)
- luckylion 2y ago
  > * The URLs pointing to the WP plugin directory on wordpress.org are hardcoded into WordPress But they can be changed via filters. I do that all the time to manage when certain request are being made (and making sure it's in a cron job and not a user-request). WP Engine does run their own plugin in the instances they host, though I assume it's not obligatory. Still, every site I ever had to look at that was on WPE had it installed and enabled. WP does come with its own CA certs, but that file could be appended (or replaced, again via filter) as well. Since they're comfortable changing things like the revision settings, I doubt this would be something they wouldn't do. I'm not saying Matt is reasonable, but "it's not an easy thing to do" isn't true.
  - chuckadams 2y ago
    It's academic now, the mirroring has been a done deal since Oct 1. WPE operates their own mirror and API server now. Matt of course did not help at all in this effort.

None4U 2y ago

More like buying a fridge and then the landlord stops paying for electricity suddenly

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
austhrow743 2y ago
This is accurate if by landlord you mean "the person in whose house you have been squatting without paying rent or signing a lease."
- immibis 2y ago
  Actually, it's the person who signed a contract with me to give me a free house.
  - austhrow743 2y ago
    What is the contract that gives WP Engine the free house?
    - ceejayoz 2y ago
      The GPL, and WordPress's trademark policy, which up to a week ago stated " The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."
      - commoner 2y ago
        On the other hand, the use of WordPress servers is in no way covered by the GPL. WP Engine can pay for their own servers the same way Bluehost used to.
      - austhrow743 2y ago
        That someone gives you the right to use their code doesn't mean they're required to be a free hosting provider for you.
        ceejayoz 2y ago
        Using the resources of the non-profit you control to kneecap a competitor to the for-profit you control makes that a bit more complicated. I think it's obvious WPE wouldn't be in the clear with Matt even if they went and hosted a mirror/cache of the WP.org packages.
        phonon 2y ago
        wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name. The actual non-profit [1] had expenses of $41k in 2022, which wouldn't come anywhere near paying for wordpress.org infrastructure and personnel. I guess Wordpress is going the RHEL route. You can clone it, but can't use their trademarks or infrastructure. [1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205498932 https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...
        ValentineC 2y ago
        > wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name. Automattic's associate legal counsel begs to differ [1]: > Let’s apply this to the WordPress trademarks (also called simply “marks”). The WordPress Foundation owns the right to use the WordPress marks for non-commercial purposes. It can also sublicense out this right for particular events (e.g., WordCamps) and to people supporting the WordPress project and community. The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software. (Take it up with them, not me.) [1] https://automattic.com/2024/10/02/wordpress-trademarks-a-legal-perspective/ https://automattic.com/2024/10/02/wordpress-trademarks-a-leg...
  - fastball 2y ago
    WordPress definitely did not sign a contract with WPE to provide free electricity.
  - recursive 2y ago
    Not a lawyer, but I think contracts require consideration to be enforceable.
safety1st 2y ago
With the wrinkle that your landlord enthusiastically invited you to move in, and never made you sign a contract, but after your dog shed all over the place he started making ominous noises about how you'd better sign one equal to eight percent of your gross revenue, and every conversation with him is now very strained
bsbsjsusj 2y ago
Buying a fridge. Plugging it into the neigbours outbouse, who also gives you free food, and you use both to run your cafe. Which is fair because the neighbour gives free food away to look the most christian and you pay for the fridge and most people don't want to run a fridge so they rely on your cafe.
wattwullenberg 2y ago
[dead]

safety1st 2y ago

This is 100% correct as a position of principle, but it's not a foregone conclusion that WPE was able to take the necessary steps here. To be very specific about at least one of the issues: * The URLs pointing to the WP plugin directory on wordpress.org are hardcoded into WordPress * If WPE forks WordPress to fix that, and continues to say they host WordPress, IANAL but they probably have a trademark violation problem on their hands. There are certainly workarounds which exist, but it's hard for us to conclude casually on Hacker News whether they can be deployed at WP Engine scale and in compliance with whatever agreements WP Engine is bound to. So yeah you're right about what the right thing to do is. But frequently reality is not that simple. They needed time and maybe even assistance from wporg (in helping them to be free of wporg. errrr)

luckylion 2y ago
> * The URLs pointing to the WP plugin directory on wordpress.org are hardcoded into WordPress But they can be changed via filters. I do that all the time to manage when certain request are being made (and making sure it's in a cron job and not a user-request). WP Engine does run their own plugin in the instances they host, though I assume it's not obligatory. Still, every site I ever had to look at that was on WPE had it installed and enabled. WP does come with its own CA certs, but that file could be appended (or replaced, again via filter) as well. Since they're comfortable changing things like the revision settings, I doubt this would be something they wouldn't do. I'm not saying Matt is reasonable, but "it's not an easy thing to do" isn't true.
- chuckadams 2y ago
  It's academic now, the mirroring has been a done deal since Oct 1. WPE operates their own mirror and API server now. Matt of course did not help at all in this effort.