4 ms·

This is getting embarrassing. I was a big fan of Matt's before this whole charade started but he's basically flushing 20 years of goodwill down the drain for no

This is getting embarrassing. I was a big fan of Matt's before this whole charade started but he's basically flushing 20 years of goodwill down the drain for not a whole lot in return. As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)?

m348e912 2y ago
>As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine I'm only slightly following the dispute between Automattic and WPEngine but it might have more to do with WPEngine rewriting the payment identifier on Automattic's open source Woo Commerce ecommerce plugin. WPEngine's payment identifier rewrite results in WPEngine getting a cut of ecommerce payments processed through their hosted sites and not Automattic. I don't know the details though and probably didn't even explain it right. Matt talked about it recently in a Youtube interview.
- kevinlangleyjr 2y ago
  If you read through the lawsuit, that's not even the case.
  - m348e912 2y ago
    I understand what's in the lawsuit, I am just speculating on what might have been the last straw that led to the lawsuit.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
klelatti 2y ago
As I understand it the claimed trademark infringement is WPE saying they ‘provide WordPress hosting’. If they are successful can anyone built an opens source hosting business?
- nickff 2y ago
  I am not sure which way this will go, but WPE's website was using the word "WordPress" in every possible way before they 'cleaned it up' a few days ago. I am not sure whether it was trademark infringement, but they did seem to be leaning heavily on the trademarked term. I compared WPE's website to Dreamhost's (as I am familiar with the latter as a provider of hosting for WordPress-based websites), and the latter used the term far more sparingly.
  - diggan 2y ago
    > but WPE's website was using the word "WordPress" in every possible way before they 'cleaned it up' a few days ago https://wpengine.com/ https://wpengine.com/ mentions "wordpress" 56 times today. And here is the website from a month ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20240903110405/https://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240903110405/https://wpengine...., still 56 times "wordpress" is mentioned. Looks mostly the same to me, at least compared to a month ago.
  - klelatti 2y ago
    Fair enough - I can see there are limits but the material in Automattic’s lawsuit didn’t seem that problematic. Not sure how the law can distinguish between ok and too much use of ‘WordPress’.
    - blackqueeriroh 2y ago
      This is exactly what trademark law is set up to do: https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement
  - joshbetz 2y ago
    I’m not a lawyer, but why would they remove uses of WordPress from their website right before suing Automattic if their position is that they weren’t violating the trademark?
    - 2y ago
FireBeyond 2y ago
> As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)? Not just a retroactive agreement, a retroactive rewriting of trademark usage. Up until a few days into this dispute, the appropriate text on WordPress's site explicitly permitted people to use "WP" as they saw fit (as much as they can, as I don't believe they have a trademark on WP, just WordPress). Matt hastily edited things to imply WPEngine was in violation.

m348e912 2y ago

>As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine I'm only slightly following the dispute between Automattic and WPEngine but it might have more to do with WPEngine rewriting the payment identifier on Automattic's open source Woo Commerce ecommerce plugin. WPEngine's payment identifier rewrite results in WPEngine getting a cut of ecommerce payments processed through their hosted sites and not Automattic. I don't know the details though and probably didn't even explain it right. Matt talked about it recently in a Youtube interview.

kevinlangleyjr 2y ago
If you read through the lawsuit, that's not even the case.
- m348e912 2y ago
  I understand what's in the lawsuit, I am just speculating on what might have been the last straw that led to the lawsuit.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]

klelatti 2y ago

As I understand it the claimed trademark infringement is WPE saying they ‘provide WordPress hosting’. If they are successful can anyone built an opens source hosting business?

nickff 2y ago
I am not sure which way this will go, but WPE's website was using the word "WordPress" in every possible way before they 'cleaned it up' a few days ago. I am not sure whether it was trademark infringement, but they did seem to be leaning heavily on the trademarked term. I compared WPE's website to Dreamhost's (as I am familiar with the latter as a provider of hosting for WordPress-based websites), and the latter used the term far more sparingly.
- diggan 2y ago
  > but WPE's website was using the word "WordPress" in every possible way before they 'cleaned it up' a few days ago https://wpengine.com/ https://wpengine.com/ mentions "wordpress" 56 times today. And here is the website from a month ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20240903110405/https://wpengine.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240903110405/https://wpengine...., still 56 times "wordpress" is mentioned. Looks mostly the same to me, at least compared to a month ago.
- klelatti 2y ago
  Fair enough - I can see there are limits but the material in Automattic’s lawsuit didn’t seem that problematic. Not sure how the law can distinguish between ok and too much use of ‘WordPress’.
  - blackqueeriroh 2y ago
    This is exactly what trademark law is set up to do: https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement https://www.uspto.gov/page/about-trademark-infringement
- joshbetz 2y ago
  I’m not a lawyer, but why would they remove uses of WordPress from their website right before suing Automattic if their position is that they weren’t violating the trademark?
  - 2y ago

FireBeyond 2y ago

> As best as I can tell this is all over a trademark dispute over the "WP" in WPEngine (and a hand-forcing by Automattic to implement a retroactive licensing agreement)? Not just a retroactive agreement, a retroactive rewriting of trademark usage. Up until a few days into this dispute, the appropriate text on WordPress's site explicitly permitted people to use "WP" as they saw fit (as much as they can, as I don't believe they have a trademark on WP, just WordPress). Matt hastily edited things to imply WPEngine was in violation.