WP Engine Asks Court To Stop Matt Mullenweg From Blocking Access To WordPress Resources 31
WP Engine has filed a motion for a preliminary injunction against Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg, seeking to halt their public campaign and regain access to WordPress resources. The hosting platform claims it's suffering "immediate irreparable harm," including a 14% spike in cancellation requests following Mullenweg's criticism.
WP Engine alleges the dispute has created anxiety among developers and increased security risks for the WordPress community. The legal action comes after Automattic accused WP Engine of trademark infringement, leading to exchanged cease-and-desist orders and a lawsuit. Last week, the WordPress.org project, led by Mullenweg, took control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, redirecting users to a forked version.
WP Engine alleges the dispute has created anxiety among developers and increased security risks for the WordPress community. The legal action comes after Automattic accused WP Engine of trademark infringement, leading to exchanged cease-and-desist orders and a lawsuit. Last week, the WordPress.org project, led by Mullenweg, took control of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields plugin, redirecting users to a forked version.
I just can't be sympathetic to Automattic (Score:4, Interesting)
Mullenweg's handling of the governance has been an absolute shit show AFAICT for the FOSS side, and it seems like a lot of FOSS decisions were set up to subtly financially advantage one vendor.
Generally speaking, mature FOSS projects with the ASF, CNCF, GNU, etc. have governance models that actively avoid this "BDFL wearing two hats for great profit" scenario, among other obvious conflicts of interest.
Sorry, guys. Y'all chose the GPL v2 and WP Engine is compliant.
Re:I just can't be sympathetic to Automattic (Score:5, Funny)
Mullenweg's handling of the governance has been an absolute shit show AFAICT for the FOSS side, and it seems like a lot of FOSS decisions were set up to subtly financially advantage one vendor.
Generally speaking, mature FOSS projects with the ASF, CNCF, GNU, etc. have governance models that actively avoid this "BDFL wearing two hats for great profit" scenario, among other obvious conflicts of interest.
Sorry, guys. Y'all chose the GPL v2 and WP Engine is compliant.
Wow, it’s like an acronym convention exploded! You've got the FOSS brigade, the ASF squad, the CNCF crew, and don’t forget GNU’s marching band. It’s a wonder anyone can understand what they’re saying between the BDFLs and the AFAICTs! Honestly, with that many acronyms, I half expected a secret handshake to come next. Did they all just win a game of buzzword bingo?
Re: I just can't be sympathetic to Automattic (Score:3)
"while WP Engine ticks that box, it raises red flags about long-term sustainability and ethical stewardship within our shared codebases"
No, it does not.
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long-term sustainability and ethical stewardship
See, it's Automattic's position that the long term sustainability of the project is tied to their profits. It's just not ethical stewardship if you create a risk to profitability of the organization steering the project.
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One more applicable acronym: TANSTAAFL
Re: I just can't be sympathetic to Automattic (Score:2)
If WP engine is not that stable (legally) wouldn't it just make more sense at this point to self-host wordpress? Lol...
If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't been following this story in any kind of deep way, so I'm just familiar at a very high level. From what I remember, the WP creator is restricting access to their servers, for whatever reasons, and this is impacting WP Engine directly. WP says that if WP Engine wants to continue to consume WP's server resources at the rate they current are, that they will need to compensate WP for this.
Others have said that the way that WP's creator is handling this is bad, and that might be true but unless they've done something illegal or that weakens their defence in court, that's irrelevant. It's not a crime to be a douche wad.
So, the way I'm looking at it is why would WP Engine be entitled to unlimited access to WP's resources? The corollary of that is why should WP be compelled, under penalty of law, to offer these services at their own expense without compensation?
I might be missing something but from what I understand, that's the essence. If it is a contract dispute and the courts find that WP entered into a binding agreement, that's one thing. But if that's not the case and the courts actually side with WP Engine, if I were the WP creator I'd just shut everything down and walk away. And no that's not wishful thinking (wanting WordPress to disappear), it's a moral principle. I'm not your tool and you're not entitled to something I produce or offer for free. And if you've been using it for free because I'm kind, and now I change my mind and that affects your negatively, tough shit. My kindness in the past doesn't make me your tool in the present.
Re: If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:5, Insightful)
yeah, hard agree. it seems like WP Engine is trying to fallaciously bootstrap the legit FOSS requirement to "make source available for users" into a bogus requirement to "host resources for my customers at whatever capacity i need to run my business, for free."
and slashdotters are agreeing, perhaps because their dedication to entitlement and piracy is stronger than their dedication to software development.
Re: If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:3, Funny)
maybe a solution would be for Matt Mullenweg to redirect WP Engine users to a site where they can sign up to receive a copy of the plugin they want on a USB drive sent by media mail, in exchange for a modest fee to cover distribution costs and fund future development. aiui this is an rms-approved way to fulfill the obligations of the GPLv2.
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I was thinking GOATSE redirect, but notice for source code on a pendrive, or better yet floppies, also sounds good.
Re: If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:1)
Do both, and place the form submission button inside the gaping anus?
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yeah, hard agree. it seems like WP Engine is trying to fallaciously bootstrap the legit FOSS requirement to "make source available for users" into a bogus requirement to "host resources for my customers at whatever capacity i need to run my business, for free."
and slashdotters are agreeing, perhaps because their dedication to entitlement and piracy is stronger than their dedication to software development.
I think the vast majority of slashdotters (and other FOSS adherents) clearly understand the distinction between "free as in speech" and "free as in beer".
So no, I would not say that slashdotters are agreeing with WP Engine because of your perception of "dedication to entitlement". Not sure how "piracy" even enters into it.
Re: If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:2)
yes free speech/free beer is indeed a simple framework.
it gets fuzzier when the issue is "entitlement to the costs for storing and distributing 'speech' at scale in realtime for a competitor's customers on behalf of one's competitor."
FOSS does not cover that and is at least implicitly opposed to it (indeed most licenses explicitly disclaim even the guarantee of merchantability!), and yet slashdotters are confused. Why is that?
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The ethos of FOSS is to protect and preserve access to the source code of the software. As long as a company does this, it can make all the money it wants charging for services based on that software and still be in compliance with FOSS licenses.
Your comment about merchantability is a red herring. A disclaimer of merchantability does not mean someone can't make money offering a service based on the software in question.
I don't see the "fuzziness" or "confusion" you claim is present.
Re:If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:5, Insightful)
If you offer a service to the public for free and some big for profit company comes and overloads the service, wouldn't you also get a little annoyed? And if they simply refuse to help cover the costs of expanding said service to accommodate their high load, you too would start going a little crazy or at least start blocking the corporate pig trying to profit from your free service at your expense.
The media is trying to make it an EGO fest when it is simply a case one side abusing the resources provided by the other - for corporate profit.
Re:If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:4, Insightful)
WP Engine is depending on WP's distribution servers
This, exactly.
WP Engine needs to host their own production shit.
Re:If The Courts Side With WP Engine ... (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is also what I understand from the various bits of info, Wordpress (the organisation) made it work so that it hoards all the plugins on its own servers, so anyone using Wordpress (the framework) is forced to use them.
From this viewpoint, both WP and WPE are morally wrong but for two different reasons. WPE could have set aside part of the profit to support the software development, and WP should enable an independent plugin structure in the software and not do a bait and switch like those who switch fro
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> so anyone using Wordpress (the framework) is forced to use them
This isn't true.
If you are using ACF Pro, for example, it downloads the updates / packages from their servers and not from WP.
Get Involved! (Score:2)
https://automattic.com/work-wi... [automattic.com]
You too could put your name on this dumpster fire!
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-FFS
I'm no genius, but ... (Score:2)
Why hasn't WP Engine already set up an internal mirror of the resources on their own servers and modified the WP code to look at their own mirror instead of looking at the WP site? It would be faster, would give Mark what he's asking, and resolve their problems today. Is it because there's not readily available index of all the resources? Is it because there's a mixture of licenses on the resources, so that they can't copy them? If it's the Trademark issue, then that's something WP Engine should have ad
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Yes, this is the trivial end of it. When they were blocked initially, some proxies solved it.
The real issue is the precedent. That Matt/WPorg can arbitrarily decide who and who can't be a part of (what was) standard WP architecture.
Imagine if Github suddenly started 'owning' code, and deciding who can access it free, and who has to pay to access it.
NOT FOSS if there's Hyper-Targeted Restrictions (Score:1)
The restrictions can be financials (requiring binding contracts or financial reparations), technical (cybersec/ipsec), legal (undisclosed split-licensing terms or various legal challenges), or other hurdles (like geotargeted restrictions beyond national/multinational obligations or export controls).
Companies like Oracle and Redis and Elasticsearch make licensing changes to properly impos
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What does WordPress' source code license have to do with the servers that distribute it?
From what I understand, and I could be wrong because I only know the details at a very high level, but it sounds like WP's complaint is about how much WP Engine is thrashing WP's servers. They're not suggesting that WP Engine can't use Word Press' source code without paying them.
In other words, the dispute is over the distribution channel, not the source code that is being distributed.
However, based on your opening sente
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I believe tte issue is that WP has insisted that it be the repository for plugins and themes. As such, all developers dump their creations on the WP servers, which WP then disseminates to the rest of the world. The real issue I see here is that there is no mirror mechanism for this. They just need to set up a mirror mechanism and the problem is solved.