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Reading WPEngine's legal complaint https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al-with-Exhibit.pdf https://wpengine.com/

by jart 2y ago

Reading WPEngine's legal complaint https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP-Engine-v-Automattic-et-al-with-Exhibit.pdf https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP... they sound like cuckoos. My best guess is WPE's WordPress hosting business grew larger than Automattic and they're lashing out to survive. For example, WPE has 1000 employees and Automattic has 1700, but Automattic has their attention divided on 20 other products too, which left them blindsided when WPE forked their product, made it their core focus, outcompeted them on rizz alone, and cut them out of the profits without contributing to the costs. At that point Automattic is de facto unpaid employees of WPE and they're probably not happy about that. Their WordPress division is either going to be destroyed or have to use its guns. They chose the latter and many of their employees were angry because they signed up to be benevolent open source people. Unfortunately that's only really practical for a business when it possesses great advantage i.e. not being laid low by private equity. We should worry about Automattic's because if WordPress crumbles, Tumblr and a lot of other stuff may too.

auggierose 2y ago
Oh, finally a summary of the whole thing I understand.
- chx 2y ago
  Someone posts literal garbage filled with nonsense words and that's what you understand? What's going on here?
  - jart 2y ago
    Wow I don't think I've ever made someone on Hacker News this upset before. If it makes you feel better, I chose to reply to your comment because you put the most effort into your analysis, and your comment contributed actual information, unlike a lot of the other low effort stuff.
    - chx 2y ago
      Well you didn't reply to mine. You replied to meaningless word salad.
      - jart 2y ago
        Word salad. Detailed post. Which is it boykie?
        chx 2y ago
        boykie? cookoo, rizz so you are answering to yourself as a sock puppet. People don't talk like this especially not here. And once again which one it is: you didn't answer me. If you think you did that's because you forgot to switch accounts. https://i.imgur.com/LeF241n.png https://i.imgur.com/LeF241n.png
  - auggierose 2y ago
    Lol, are you on drugs? That's probably what is going on here. I'd chill a bit before continuing to comment.
throwaway984393 2y ago
I finally have an analogy for the "Open Source company": A company creates a free buffet and sells seats at a table. They hope a competitor doesn't come and take the free food, slather it in hot sauce, and sell it at their own restaurant, because that would be rude.
lsaferite 2y ago
Did WPE fork WordPress though? They clearly claim in their legal filing that the WordPress installs they use come directly from the official sources. I don't use WordPress or WPE, but I would (perhaps naively) assume that if they are making a clear statement of fact in a court filing that they are not lying about that fact.
- jart 2y ago
  They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting. In the complaint they brag about how they haven't changed a single line of code in WordPress itself. That's way more adversarial than forking the codebase, since the GPL ensures people still give back when they go their own way.
  - chx 2y ago
    > They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting. You are constantly talking nonsense. This is simply not a thing. Much as "rizz" and "cuckoo" is not in this context.
  - lsaferite 2y ago
    > forked their business ... is that even a thing? How is WPE the bad guy even if it is when there are NUMEROUS other wordpress hosting companies? > GPL The GPL specifically allows you to even SELL the GPL'd code to people, so I don't see how they are even violating the _spirit_ of the license. More to the point, it's not like WPE is a black hole. They _are_ engaging and spending money on the community from what their court filing claims. Is it all self serving? Of course it is! A for-profit corporate entity rarely (never?) does things not in it's self interest. I will freely admin I'm not a part of the WP community and have zero investment on either side of this fight. I will also say that just from reading what has been posted by all parties, I feel really strongly that Matt needs to stop talking/acting and let the lawyers sort things out at this point. As an aside, as I was thinking about it this morning, Matt claims that WPE is causing him personally due to excessive usage of wordpress.org, right? But, if WPE goes away today, all those sites they were hosting are suddenly going to other hosting companies and the SAME amount of traffic will still hit the wordpress.org site. Trying to claim that WPE is causing undue traffic is just saying the WP as a whole causes too much traffic. So, are ANY hosting companies beyond Matt/Automattic funding the wordpress.org website? It's clear from the WPF financial filings that they don't contribute to funding that critical resource. And it's clear from Matt's posts that he prefer that every WP install uses those resources as he's expressly questioned why he would make it easy to point to another resource.
chx 2y ago
Whether the factual claims of WPEngine are true is the matter of the lawsuit but it's incredibly well put together. What have you found illogical in there? Your tone doesn't fit at all a serious discussion. "rizz" "cuckoo" , I detest your garbage is posted as an answer to my rather detailed post.

by jart 2y ago

auggierose 2y ago

Oh, finally a summary of the whole thing I understand.

chx 2y ago
Someone posts literal garbage filled with nonsense words and that's what you understand? What's going on here?
- jart 2y ago
  Wow I don't think I've ever made someone on Hacker News this upset before. If it makes you feel better, I chose to reply to your comment because you put the most effort into your analysis, and your comment contributed actual information, unlike a lot of the other low effort stuff.
  - chx 2y ago
    Well you didn't reply to mine. You replied to meaningless word salad.
    - jart 2y ago
      Word salad. Detailed post. Which is it boykie?
      - chx 2y ago
        boykie? cookoo, rizz so you are answering to yourself as a sock puppet. People don't talk like this especially not here. And once again which one it is: you didn't answer me. If you think you did that's because you forgot to switch accounts. https://i.imgur.com/LeF241n.png https://i.imgur.com/LeF241n.png
- auggierose 2y ago
  Lol, are you on drugs? That's probably what is going on here. I'd chill a bit before continuing to comment.

throwaway984393 2y ago

I finally have an analogy for the "Open Source company": A company creates a free buffet and sells seats at a table. They hope a competitor doesn't come and take the free food, slather it in hot sauce, and sell it at their own restaurant, because that would be rude.

lsaferite 2y ago

Did WPE fork WordPress though? They clearly claim in their legal filing that the WordPress installs they use come directly from the official sources. I don't use WordPress or WPE, but I would (perhaps naively) assume that if they are making a clear statement of fact in a court filing that they are not lying about that fact.

jart 2y ago
They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting. In the complaint they brag about how they haven't changed a single line of code in WordPress itself. That's way more adversarial than forking the codebase, since the GPL ensures people still give back when they go their own way.
- chx 2y ago
  > They forked their business, which is WordPress hosting. You are constantly talking nonsense. This is simply not a thing. Much as "rizz" and "cuckoo" is not in this context.
- lsaferite 2y ago
  > forked their business ... is that even a thing? How is WPE the bad guy even if it is when there are NUMEROUS other wordpress hosting companies? > GPL The GPL specifically allows you to even SELL the GPL'd code to people, so I don't see how they are even violating the _spirit_ of the license. More to the point, it's not like WPE is a black hole. They _are_ engaging and spending money on the community from what their court filing claims. Is it all self serving? Of course it is! A for-profit corporate entity rarely (never?) does things not in it's self interest. I will freely admin I'm not a part of the WP community and have zero investment on either side of this fight. I will also say that just from reading what has been posted by all parties, I feel really strongly that Matt needs to stop talking/acting and let the lawyers sort things out at this point. As an aside, as I was thinking about it this morning, Matt claims that WPE is causing him personally due to excessive usage of wordpress.org, right? But, if WPE goes away today, all those sites they were hosting are suddenly going to other hosting companies and the SAME amount of traffic will still hit the wordpress.org site. Trying to claim that WPE is causing undue traffic is just saying the WP as a whole causes too much traffic. So, are ANY hosting companies beyond Matt/Automattic funding the wordpress.org website? It's clear from the WPF financial filings that they don't contribute to funding that critical resource. And it's clear from Matt's posts that he prefer that every WP install uses those resources as he's expressly questioned why he would make it easy to point to another resource.

chx 2y ago

Whether the factual claims of WPEngine are true is the matter of the lawsuit but it's incredibly well put together. What have you found illogical in there? Your tone doesn't fit at all a serious discussion. "rizz" "cuckoo" , I detest your garbage is posted as an answer to my rather detailed post.