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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

At 14:50 in the video they read a term sheet together. Prior to that, they read aloud an email complaint (not a birthday party invite) from this summer. He claims that they've been meeting in person about this; I don't disbelieve him.

For what it's worth: I agree with you about what seems subtextually to be behind this whole thing. But then: if they've been on notice for many months about Mullenweg being upset about their use of the trademarks and lack of participation in the community (confirmed on camera, unless he forged emails), it feels to me like WPE --- a company with an 8-9 figure run rate --- should have been in a position to know what was coming with WordPress.org and how to mitigate that.

I'm not casting Mullenweg as a hero; just making a case for it being a JABOG† situation, as I said above. And, of course, that the summary in the story we're reading is pretty one-sided.

† gonna make this a thing

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> But then: if they've been on notice for many months about Mullenweg being > upset about their use of the trademarks and lack of participation in the community (confirmed on camera, unless he forged emails), it feels to me like WPE --- a company with an 8-9 figure run rate --- should have been in a position to know what was coming with WordPress.org and how to mitigate that.

Matt's company owns and uses wordpress.com, so Matt's sudden concern about WP Engine using Wordpress' trademark does not seem very believable (or at the least massively hypocritical). The trademark issue just seems like a handy weapon to get what he wants. However, there are no good guys in this feud as you said -- only mud.

Again you're claiming it was "sudden", but it does not appear to have been sudden. Meanwhile: nobody seems to deny that WPE could simply use WordPress's OSS software assets to stand up their own services, including Mullenweg. But that's all open source gets you. It doesn't entitle you to trademarks or online services!

> Again you're claiming it was "sudden", but it does not appear to have been sudden.

It was definitely sudden, just last week the term "WP" was explicitly allowed in Wordpress' Trademark Policy. This issue isn't really trademarks, it is just a club.

"The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."

https://web.archive.org/web/20240924024555/https://wordpress...

> But that's all open source gets you. It doesn't entitle you to trademarks

Unless you're Mullenweg, who has abused the Wordpress trademark for years via wordpress.com. I greatly respect his years of work and dedication. However, the ends do not justify the means.

No, he hasn't. Automattic's contributions back to the WordPress foundation dwarf those of WPE's. He gave a whole interview spelling out what other companies do to get access to commercial use of those trademarks. He wasn't even demanding parity with Automattic.

I'd like to point out that the WordPress Foundation is merely the entity that owns the trademark, then gave ("for good and valuable consideration" [1]) an exclusive, perpetual, and irrevocable licence for commercial use of it to Automattic.

The WordPress project is not the foundation. The WordPress dot org website isn't under the foundation either (it's owned and run by Matt [2]), and should be considered separate from the project.

I think most contributors outside Automattic want to contribute to the project and its surrounding community, not WordPress dot org.

[1] https://tsdr.uspto.gov/caseviewer/assignments?caseId=7882673...

[2] https://x.com/photomatt/status/1840980359673995362

Matt (intentionally?) mumbles it so that might be how you missed it but at 14:50 he shows the term sheet email and says “September 20th” which is the day of the initial blog post that kicked off the storm. There was no term sheet until the situation was public.

The trademarks argument seemed overblown, "JABOG" style.

The new to me allegation in this is this alleged WPE swap out of WooCommerce Stripe affiliate account:

WP Engine had been siphoning “tens of millions” of dollars away from Woo’s revenue share partnership with Stripe into its own coffers. It’s understood WP Engine has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce.

Ripping out an OSS' revenue model would seem not great. There's a term for use of electronic communication systems to redirect money to oneself. But, not cut and dried, if the source code containing that model is fair game...

To your point, this must be a one-sided take as well, since one would have expected an accusation of 8 figure wire fraud to escalate more clearly if it were that simple.

You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce.

It is their version of the project and they are permitted by the terms of the license that WooCommerce agreed to make whatever changes they like.

Open source is a double edged sword. You can't leverage the benefits of the community and then deny the community the ability to benefit themselves.

> You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce.

That point is impossible to reconcile with this phrase:

"...has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce."

The verb tense "has been swapping" implies continuous repetition of the swap, not a one time fork, then "when a user installs WooCommerce" doubles down, implying it's the original code, with user install action being the time of the stealth edit.

The article's sentence is constructed incompatibly with the point you're making. Note I'm not saying your point is incorrect.

Not sure if you're a developer or not.

But it's extremely common to fork a project and keep it up to date with the latest commits from the original repository. Pretty much the standard in fact since most people just want to make a few small changes.

Isn't the "small change" here "redirecting affiliate revenue"? (This is a plugin, which apparently WPE replaced altogether, but if the only reason to do that replacement is to capture the affiliate revenue I can see the Foundation being pissed.)

It is irrelevant what the change is.

WP Engine has the legal right to make whatever change they like in their fork.

Including redirecting affiliate revenue.

I think everybody is aware of how the GPL works with respect to forking and altering software, but people seem to be confused about how the GPL works with respect to registered trademarks and online services operated by the copyright holder.

If it's any help, WPE didn't alter WooCommerce at all. WooCommerce requires a separate plugin for Stripe payments, and WPE happens to offer their own payments plugin that competes with the official WooCommerce one (and works with systems other than WooCommerce at that).

MM continues to repeat the claim that WPE modified Woo itself, so WPE's lawyers are probably adding libel to the pile of claims. I think they're still waiting for a8c to file first for PR reasons.

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