Howdy, Matthew Charles Mullenweg from the lawsuit here.
One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/
They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive Director of WordPress.org for Automattic, a position that was held by Josepha.
Hi Matt, great that you're participating here and I'm broadly supportive regarding your concerns with the trademark and WP Engine's conduct.
However I do not understand why you chose to make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning and consequently reducing the security of their websites.
To be entirely blunt it's all damage control for us at this point when your name comes up, and it's because of that one singular mistake, if this was just WPE and Automattic duking it out in court no one would really care, but now the reliability of the WPOrg infrastructure is being questioned by a big chunk of the people who depend on WordPress and they will probably be inclined to walk away from your infrastructure and deeper into the arms of someone like WPEngine when they get the chance.
If you care about the broad perception of your efforts and your business practices I think you need to address this. Again I see that there are plenty of reasons to take issue with WPE's conduct but this singular decision you made has people calling for you to step aside and let someone else run WordPress. It's not going to go away on its own.
> make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning
AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers and do not depend on Canonical to run their business. WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers.
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.
>However I do not understand why you chose to make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning and consequently reducing the security of their websites.
yup. I'm about to make a new site and I dont care about the platform, I just want to write. but I'm not gonna use wordpress ever again now, probably. Matt seems friendly but this is evil CEO garbage
Well said, I hope that there will be forum to discuss the ethos of these actions and see if there isn’t a better way to go about this, and how we can strengthen the community of open source.
An interesting article was written by Dries (Drupal Founder) and others.
To me, the military language used in a few of their execs messages was telling.... I have seen that more than once in anti competition lawsuits and Heather has as well
Hi Matt - long time WordPress user here, and I've been hosting and running a WordPress multisite for over 15 years now. In fact, I met you at a WordCamp here in NZ 15 or 16 years ago. Anyway, this whole episode has been the final nail in the coffin for me, and I no longer want to have anything to do with WordPress.
I've long thought that the relationship between Automattic/WordPress.com and WordPress.org was not good for the community, and your behaviour here has put that beyond doubt.
I honestly don't know what's going through your head, but you need to try to wind back the clock a couple of weeks and put things right. You continue to lie and manipulate words (even in this thread!) to make it sound like you are in the right, but it's not working. You need to stop.
I left WordPress ~8 years ago for a similar reason.
I watched Matt destroy friends' WordPress businesses by saying they violated the WP ethos while he and Automattic did the same thing in their businesses.
I've seen them break legal agreements with theme creators and refuse to pay them despite contracts. They also use legal threats against small creators to force them to accept an agreement that pays far less.
I would never do business with Matt or Automattic. They have behaved unethically in my experience.
Matt has too much power and uses it to do whatever he wants. He should never have been allowed to be involved in WordPress.org once he was working at Automattic.
It's obvious what you intend to accomplish, but here is what you've actually accomplished:
Before this week I knew what wordpress was (of course), did not know either names WP Engine nor Matt Mullenweg, and had never happened to build a site with wordpress.
Now I know your name and will never build a site with wordpress.
You can choose to make that about me instead of recognizing any responsibility for that outcome, but it's never the less a fact. Do with this simple data what you will, but data it is.
Another comment by someone else in one of the severel conversations on this went something like:
"I don't know either of these companies and so far WP Engine hasn't said anything yet. So far I have only heard Wordpress's side of the story, and that has made me assume that Wordpress are the side in the wrong."
Every once in a while there's someone who's smarter than everyone else and keeps talking. SBF from FTX famously was giving interviews to whoever would listen.
> The atypical chattiness for a criminal defendant is likely causing Bankman-Fried's attorneys to scratch their heads, or worse. Prosecutors can use any statements, tweets or other communications against him at his trial, which is scheduled for October.
> Prosecutors love when defendants shoot their mouths off," said Daniel R. Alonso, a former federal prosecutor who is now a white-collar criminal defense attorney. If Bankman-Fried's public comments before trial can be proven false during the trial, it may undermine his credibility with a jury, he said.
I have seen a couple founders post to HN like this during legal action. Its embarrassing, even if I enjoy reading the content.
Of course its possible that these posts are happening through consultation with a lawyer/PR or something but often it feels like someone using their “inside” voice in the outside, and reads like unforced errors.
A. Legally, it cannot possibly help you (whatever happened, happened). However, it can hurt you (inconsistent statements, etc). This is particularly true in colloquial environments like HN.
B. While it may be useful reputation/press wise, because anything you do wil be evidence, you should be having someone else do that.
C. If you are part of a publicly traded company, you can run into SEC violations quickly from what you say, how you say it, and where you say it. Even moreso if you are CEO/an officer/etc
I could go on forever here - for example, you can also run yourself into trouble quickly if the people you are talking to are people you know may be witnesses in the case, etc.
There is a near infinite number of reasons lawyers tell people to STFU when you get sued.
Of course, if your company/you as CEO get sued, it can obviously be incredibly frustrating and difficult to sit there and watch a one-sided story take hold - not the least of reasons because people often take complaints as evidence rather than assertions, and the response rarely gets as much press, etc.
I think the closest lots of HNers come is when they love their company and see a legal complaint pop up on HN that they felt is just insane but can't say anything about it. It's like that, but like 100x worse :P.
But saying nothing is the most useful thing you can do - get away from it. Take a walk, meditate, whatever.
Get the people who are experts in handling it involved (lawyers, comms folks, whatever), and let them do their job.
I'm going to do him the favor of not responding to anything else he writes in this thread for his own good.
honestly, just read this and his initial post about the whole issue (content is "sacred" or whatever) and it's clear he's semi-deluded himself into thinking he has massive support and/or more important in the grand scheme of things than he actually is. burned so many bridges and still won't concede anything.
That's not what page 35 says at all. Check out page 36:
> 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or
negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she
would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined.
(edit: I have no idea who is right, but it's just not correct to read page 35 as saying that)
She was interviewing November 2023 to January 2024. She declined the WordPress.org role on January 26, 2024. I even invited her to my 40th birthday on Jan 11, another text message she decided not to share.
"she wanted to be the Executive Director of WordPress.org for Automattic"
But you own and run and finance WordPress.org personally, as you've revealed and talked about numerous times in the last few weeks. I don't follow, how can Heather apply for a job with Automattic to be the Executive Director of a website you personally own?
Automattic employs ~100 people that work full-time on WordPress.org. I can appoint them into positions on WordPress.org, if I think that's appropriate.
Your response to this complaint is going to look very interesting.
Also, a note for the audience: Quinn Emanuel is one of the premier (and most expensive) litigation firms in the US. Partners in their litigation department run $2000/hour or more. Associates cost almost $1000/hour. WPEngine apparently has deep pockets.
Not only that but the team is lead by Rachel Kassabian. As I noted elsewhere in the thread, she was lead counsel for Google which in Perfect 10 v Amazon (originally it was against Google) resulted in thumbnail of copyright images in search results being fair use.
Matt, with the greatest of respect - shut up, and get off the internet until this is over. You just keep digging the hole and making things worse for yourself.
In this instance, you are not the smartest guy in the room, and anything you say is just going to make the outcome of this whole saga that much more painful.
If I were in your position I'd be very carefully trying to figure out what the next step is, especially given whats going to come out about the Wordpress foundation's commercial licensing agreement with Automattic. That alone should be an exctremely worrying position for you personally, assuming your legal team have pointed out the issues on an international scale that you're about to be hit with.
Matt, thanks for engaging here and for all you’ve done with WordPress. My college internship was working on “Standard Theme” in 2009. We haven’t met but I’m Stephen.
I don’t expect you to take questions from an internet stranger, but since you asked…
What rules does Automattic enforce for all companies who operate businesses built on WordPress? In other words…when does a business owe 8%? There are thousands of businesses wondering if they’re next on the list.
Matt. You are rich. What is behind your motivations here? You seem to be very candid and passionate about this but I must be missing something. Why spend your time doing this? What’s your end goal?
Matt, you have been criticised here for speaking openly but it is quite refreshing to hear you be so candid and not hide behind PR consultants issuing generic press releases.
Hi Matt! I appreciate the transparency. Reading about this has been interesting to say the least.
I am curious about your desired outcome. If you win, WP Engine pays 8% going forward? If you lose, will it be business as usual? Fewer open source offerings?
Obviously this could take years to resolve, but developers do have very real concerns over what the landscape may look like in a few years.
Since you're trying to get WP Engine to pay for "WordPress" trademark, by contributing back to open-source, because you feel they should, since it made them rich, I was wondering how many open-source projects did Automattic contribute to financially? Aside from WordPress, I'm sure you stand on the shoulders of giants such as Linux, nginx, MySQL, JavaScript libraries (or maybe you should call it ECMAScript, because you're not paying any trademark fees), etc.?
This boils down to something quite simple. WPEngine wants money. Matt wants money too. It’s zero sum.
Matt, free advice. If you really think your commercial product is better (maybe it retains more post history or whatever the case), spend more time selling it.
Hey Matt. This has no relevance to anything but is a fun story I wanted to share. 15-20 years ago I discovered a "UX bug" on default Wordpress installs, which was that all you needed to impersonate someone in a Wordpress comment section was know their email address. I used your guessable email address while writing a comment on the official Wordpress.org blog and it pulled your gravatar etc. Sorry. I was a child at the time. lol
[Edit 2: could you kindly take some time to explains where you disagree as you downvote this so I can learn? Reading documents like this for the first time pointing out where things don't make sense to me.]
> 89. Defendants’ extortion campaign included levying personal attacks against the CEO of WPE for not capitulating to his demands. For instance, on September 26, 2024, Mullenweg gave an interview on the X platform during which he gave the CEO’s personal cell phone number to the interviewer and encouraged him to contact her. She was in fact contacted by the interviewer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUJgahHjAKU
[Edit: Ignore this paragraph, see JimDabell and lolinder comments below] I watched the whole interview they linked to and don't recall that happening, ChatGPT also doesn't seem to think so based on its transcript. During the interview Matt did ask at one point if Theo would talk to Lee and Heather on stream, it was about giving everyone a fair chance to tell the story and I doubt that anyone can characterise it as extortional in nature.
Even it was Matt who gave the number away during stream (if it was cut out of the YouTube version) or off stream, it's a huge stretch to claim that as "personal attacks" as part of an "extortion campaign"...
> 90. Defendants’ attacks against WPE’s CEO have also continued in private. First, on September 28, 2024, Mullenweg attempted to poach her to come and work for Automattic, and falsely suggested that WPE’s investor was making her do something she did not want to do.
They screen capped just Matt's message without any context about what was said prior to that message? By September 28, 2024 they have already met many times in-person, too. I think it's just insane for Matt to send a text like but that just seems very out of context in isolation. If absolutely nothing compelled Matt to send that message then I guess it's possible that he's either extremely naive or he is a psychopath.
> 91. After WPE’s CEO did not immediately respond, Mullenweg threatened her the following day. Specifically, on September 29, 2024 Mullenweg gave her until midnight that day to “accept” his job “offer” with Automattic. If she did not accede to his demand, Mullenweg threatened to tell the press, and WPE’s investor, that she had interviewed with Automattic:
> 93. WPE’s CEO did not respond to Mullenweg’s September 29 threat
91 has very interesting wording: "After WPE's CEO did not *immediately* respond". In contrast to 93, they also don't claim that Heather didn't respond to the messages on September 28.
The screenshot of Matt's message on September 29 begins with this:
> Heather, after our extensive discussions about you joining Automattic, the offer you negotiated with me is still on the table.
So... there was definitely a conversation between the screenshots on September 28 and September 29 that lead Matt to think that they presumably didn't include?
> 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined.
92 feels like an assertion that's deliberately placed between 90, 91 and 93 to potentially make their claim seem more valid? I suppose "had never interviewed" depends what kind of evidence Matt can produce at this point if he's not lying; if it's all in-person and there are no records at all, which he pointed out in the interview with Theo, then it's unfortunate.
The "[had never] negotiated" part doesn't make sense at all if something was indeed discussed between September 28 and September 29.
> If you decline, on Monday morning, I tell Greg Mondres:
> - Lee's refusal to negotiate terms to resolve our conflict
> - your interviewing with Automattic over the past year
> - I will possibly tell the press all of the above
I feel like the minority on HN that wants to give Matt the benefit of the doubt. Even so, that's a sure-fire way to get someone who may have been listening to you to turn on you.
If you're not going to call your lawyers, at least call Theo since he offered.
> > during which he gave the CEO’s personal cell phone number to the interviewer and encouraged him to contact her. She was in fact contacted by the interviewer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUJgahHjAKU
> I watched the whole interview they linked to and don't recall that happening
He admits it here:
> Afterward, I also privately shared with him the cell phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on or debate these points. As far as I’ve heard she hasn’t responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists live?
This is referencing a different livestream than the one with Theo, they refer to that one separately as a livestream on YouTube. It's confusing because of where the footnote is placed, but if you trace the 46 back up to the top you'll see it refers to a different quote:
> On September 28, 2024, Mullenweg gave an interview to the author of the “This
might be the end of WordPress” video blog. Among other statements, Mullenweg acknowledged
his retaliatory and vindictive intentions, saying: “They could make this all go away by doing a
license. Interesting question is whether, now … you know, maybe more than 8% is what we would
agree to now.”46
The X interview is a different one. Matt's been busy.
While others are stating that you should not, the court of public opinion delivers results (including to Wordpress) a lot faster than the formal court system. So get ahead.
In general it’s better better the hear authentic voices than none or lawyered-up PR consultants, and this site has hammered companies that do so in the past.
IANAL, but the WordPress license (GPLv2) says that if you attempt to sublicense the software or otherwise distribute it under different terms, you forfeit your own license to it:
"4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance."
WordPress is itself a fork, with no copyright assignments, so Matt has no ability to change the license.
Given this, is it legal for WordPress.com to continue using and distributing the WordPress software as we speak?
This was a separate agreement from their GPL license, which of course allows them to fork. Sorry it's not clear from the term sheet, but this was about them forking our Stripe extension to replace the attribution from us to them for WooCommerce sites hosted on WP Engine. Stripe is also looking into this, as it's spammy.
They (i know it's you but easier to not personalize it here) do not own all the rights to the software themselves. For the parts they do not own, they have no rights other than what they got through GPLv2.
Those rights are conditioned upon them not trying to sublicense/etc the software in a way that conflicts with GPLv2.
First, something general - one thing to keep in mind is that open source folks think of these things as license violations/etc, but that's not actually a thing, legally.
Breach of contract and copyright infringement are. That is how a claim would be analyzed. Not as a "GPL violation".
Why is this relevant?
Well, you really have to think of this stuff as contracts to use a given copy of software, and not as some abstract thing licensed or not.
This is fairly relevant because:
1. The general view on GPLv2 is that you gain a shiny new license every time you receive a new copy from someone else. In other words, you have signed a new contract.
So while your rights may have been terminated the existing contracted copy (and you would be liable for distributing or ... that one), if you just get a new copy from someone else, congrats, new contract.
This is supported by the license:
"6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions."
Let's assume this was not true
2. Wordpress is actually GPLv2 or later. GPLv3 has a notice and cure period. Under GPLv3, they would still be within the cure period (unless i screwed up the timeframe :P), and would have not lost a license yet.
3. GPLV3 has a more complex termination mechanism to try to deal with notice, cure, and the issue in #1.
In short, worst case, if they are claiming to use it as licensed by GPLv2, it would be fairly easy to cure the ability to distribute new copies. They could do nothing about violations that exist in existing copies (and would not be allowed to continue distributing those).
I realize how insane this sounds, since it's basically saying "These bits over here are red but these same exact bits over here are green", but that's life in the legal realm sometimes.
For sure, if they do nothing, explicitly, they would be in bad shape, legally, in the worst case.
GPLv3 is a more complex question.
Also: there are those that strongly disagree with the view in #1 and believe you lose all rights forever unless they are reinstated. Rather than try to say who is right or wrong, i tried to give you where general consensus seems to lie.
That is not something you should take to court, it's closer to "if you surveyed 100 open source lawyers what would most think"
Would it be a valid for someone to take "GPL v2" (with no or later version) clause, and re-license a derivative work as "GPL v2 or later", and then another entity takes that derivative work and re-licenses it as the "GPL v3"?
That seems to be what's happened here. The b2 software is a strict "GPL v2". There is no later clause. Then WordPress has re-licensed their derivative work as "GPL v2 or later". Now we are talking about a GPL v3 derivative work.
> Why is this relevant? Well, you really have to think of this stuff as contracts to use a given copy of software, and not as some abstract thing licensed or not.
If you think about it in that way, copyright infringement is out of the picture completely because of the statutory exception.
17 U.S.C § 117 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs
(a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1)that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2)that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
I've been a long Wordpress user and proponent for a long time. Until a week ago I had never heard the name Mullenweg.
Regardless of who's in the right or wrong here (I have my opinions), my perception of Wordpress flipped a switch overnight. It went from this quiet, reliable, refreshingly boring open source platform to yet another cult of personality tech fiefdom.
Likewise. I used it for my personal website before I learned how to use nginx. I guided my wife through the process of moving her personal site from Wix to WP and it's been a massive improvement. I really had no idea all this insanity was going down.
Above a certain size all communities sooner or later turn into cults, most of the time around one or a few persons. The ones that you don't perceive as such you just haven't looked into close enough. I wish it were different but so far I have yet to find a community that doesn't fit that description. Not just open source, not just software, any community.
I'm in basically the same boat, but aside from a bit of eye rolling I think I've convinced myself I can just ignore this and safely continue to download wordpress.org/latest.zip when I need it and hack it into whatever shape is convenient - which is what I've always liked doing with it anyway.
Hot take incoming: she wasn't very effective in this job. WPorg cargo culted and went the way of a bunch of open source foundations which have appointed non technical people to their top roles. WP Core has particularly poor technical and architectural direction, this arises when an organization stops valuing the tech and the tech people. Someone with technical vision should hold the top post and fix that.
> WP Core has particularly poor technical and architectural direction, this arises when an organization stops valuing the tech and the tech people
You make it sound like Wordpress had particularly good technical and architectural direction until this person was appointed, which is honestly just laughable.
In my ~20 year career I've seen exactly one PHP codebase that was more shocking than Wordpress for the way that mistakes are not just made, but embraced and defended.
Yes all projects in all languages make mistakes. Most don't look at a litany of feedback/suggestions/bugs about a poor mans solution they've invented themselves and say "fuck it our way is better".
For anyone who's curious about an example of this: lookup how Wordpress does parameterised SQL statements. They refer to it as "preparing" a statement, but it's not preparing a statement for multiple executions the way native prepared statements do, it's doing home-grown parameterisation and then they send a string to mysql. Now consider that PHP has had built-in support for prepared statements (including parameterised queries) since 5.0 was released.... 20 years ago, and about 6 months after WP's v1.0 release.
I have never seen a more reckless case of CEO behaviour in a long time. I have no idea how the discussions with streamers and now Hacker News, is going to fare for Mullenweg, but I don't think it's good.
He did let WP fuck it up with React too. Writing WP themes lets you experience the worst templating solution ever, especially post that. Crazy dude that one.
I don’t know about that, it’s normal to name a business after the founder. For example JCPenney, Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer, Disney, Boeing, Wells Fargo. The reference is also quite oblique.
I hope Matt can supply his legal team with conversations that would somehow justify his behaviour. From my (incomplete) reading of the complaint, he (Matt) does indeed look very "petulant". It's almost like he's intentionally self-destructing, which is why I hope for his sake that he has more tangible evidence to share, especially after reading section 201.
Yes this is part of their smear campaign, just like their last C&D. They're cherry-picking stuff to try and make me look bad, while not addressing the core issue of their trademark violations. They want me to stop telling their customers about their bad behavior.
Man... You are still talking on the internet publicly, obviously without any lawyer checking out what you say before you post comments. You will inevitably end up posting a lot of things that can make you look bad or sink the case for your side. Just stop talking about this anywhere online and offline. Let the lawyers talk.
As someone who had to handle four websites that suddenly stopped getting Wordpress security updates and updates for plugins because of how you handled this I don’t very much care to hear about “their” bad behavior.
You have no checks and balances so we paid the price. I hope people stop using Wordpress in droves. I hope you have to worry about your business the same way you suddenly made people have to worry about theirs.
I'm sorry, _their_ smear campaign? That's rich, considering you've been the one on the "scorched earth nuclear" crusade to get rid of a "cancer" from the WP community.
They didn't have to cherry-pick anything to make you look bad. You did that by yourself. While also making a criminal case for extortion.
And regarding their trademark violation: WP Engine was founded in 2010. You've been OK with the trademark violation for 14 years, and suddenly decided to take legal action just now? C'mon. The optics of this don't put you in a good light no matter how you spin it.
You are giving them more options and a bigger legal attack surface by writing online. If it turns out not to be a smear campaign and a court decides that, that alone is an attack surface for you getting surely convicted of slander.
The legal game is a different one. Get a lawyer and don't write online. Otherwise you will learn to lose everything you've built in your life over some stupid comments online.
Again, get a lawyer. Now. Stop writing. Now. Everything you will write or say will be used against you in the court of law.
There is a damn good reason this is mandatory for every cop to tell you if they arrest you.
You are mounting up the evidence for them. For free. They ragebaited and played you like a fool. Don't be that guy. Play the smart move.
Dude, your "trademark violations" claim is going to get absolutely destroyed in court. I obviously don't have all the details, but I would expect that if you did have more evidence against WPEngine, given how much you're posting in online forums I would expect you would have put forth something that helps your case, and I sure haven't seen it. How can you counter:
1. As their brief makes clear, they have been using the "challenged marks" for over a decade, including a period when you were an investor. You have given no evidence publicly that they changed anything recently - indeed, you publicly stated that the reason for the trademark infringement actions was because you thought they weren't a good contributor to open source, not that they did anything different with the marks.
2. Your recent attempt to trademark "Hosted WordPress" and "Managed WordPress" are pretty bad, and blatant, attempts to rewrite history. If the courts let you trademark this nominative use of a term, it would be a first.
3. Your actions have only targeted WP Engine, not any of the other WordPress hosts that use the marks in the same way.
I definitely am not cherry picking the above - I'm just presenting what I know has been irrefutably announced publicly, and again which I assume you would have already countered if you could given all your other public statements.
It seems less like they're cherry-picking and more like you've attached one of those giant tree-shaker machines to your cherry tree and all they are doing is just standing underneath it catching everything.
Do you think your ego may have gotten in the way of doing what was best for your business and users here? How was harming so many sites and the WP name justifiable here?
You've been doing that to yourself, since you brought up the FBI in response to "a car covered in hammers that explodes more than a few times and hammers go flying everywhere." months ago
So they're "cherry picking" things that you said which make you look bad, which are true and accurate - and that's a "smear campaign".
While you are telling lies about trademark violations and extorting money specifically from WPEngine and have publicly admitted you're not doing that to anyone else that provides Wordpress hosting? And you've used terms like "war" and "nuclear option" when threatening the lies you subsequently told?
And somehow you still think _you're_ the good guy here?
:boggle:
Just resign. Make the WordPress Foundation into everything you've pretended it is over the years, including rightful and permanent owner of the trademarks and .org domain, and complete seperate from you personally and Automattic and it's related businesses. _Maybe_ that'll save WordPress. Maybe...
What's sad here is that this dispute isn't likely to make Wordpress any better, but rather send money to lawyers and reduce enthusiasm for the OSS project.
And what is more sad is that it really appears that the WordPress figurehead is to blame.
Matt has made so many unforced errors in the last month, in addition to revealing, one way or another, that he basically considers WordPress, the .org, the .com, the Foundation, and Automattic, all to be synonymous, which is news to a significant portion of the community, let alone to the incorporation and other founding filings.
I’m an arm length removed from all this drama having not used Wordpress in a while, but to be honest this opinion feels overblown. To an outsider, it just looks like some legal issue between two entities irrelevant to my concerns on whether I’d use or contribute to Wordpress in the future. Something that happens between corporations all the time
My guess is there will be some settlement, one party will walk away with a better position than before, and that will be that
One of the two entities completely controls the plugin ecosystem and wielded that control against the other entity (the largest WordPress host except, possibly, Automattic itself) to block them and all of their customers out of the ecosystem over this dispute.
That's why this matters to average developers. WordPress is the plugin ecosystem, and messing around with it does as much damage to the WordPress ecosystem as left pad did to npm—it's not unrecoverable, but it's a major setback that could quickly become unrecoverable.
Matt seems to have jumped on WP Engine essentially because they were making a lot of money. So now, any other company that is making a lot of money (or hoping to make a lot money) with Wordpress may wonder whether Matt will target them too.
What's the criteria? Is there some exact revenue or profit number a company needs to stay under to avoid this sort of attack? Does Matt only get mad at hosting companies, or do other companies making a lot of money with WP (e.g. big creative agencies) need to be concerned?
Without clarity, it's hard to quantify the risk. And companies might decide to shift their CMS work elsewhere rather than deal with it. The drama undercuts one of the big advantages of WP: it was free and permissively licensed.
I agree it might not have much effect on random people using or contributing to WP. But open source projects actually need a lot of investment to grow and survive. And anything that depresses that investment can depress the overall project trajectory.
You’re welcome to your opinion, but my company is in the market for a large enterprise CMS management contract, and this situation has taken every WordPress option off the table due to uncertainty about the business and technical stability of the ecosystem. I highly doubt we’re the only ones feeling that way.
Matt is usually the lead developer at WP.org you can find his references in almost all changelogs. I still think, attention and resources will be diverted.
The Stripe attribution stuff that WPEngine is accused of sounds potentially illegal.
I don't think Automattic's trademark claims are fundamentally going to hold up. From the complaint:
"WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space."
I dont know what the settled trademark law is, but this seems like common sense to me.
Everyone says 'WordPress' to refer to the software platform. Just seems like extortion, plain and simple.
I get Matt's upset that WPEngine is making all this money, but that's par for the course when you release something open source. You simply need a better product if you want to beat WPEngine in the marketplace.
Sounds like something that WooCommerce should have in their license or something. idk sounds like a pitfall to me. Why would anyone pay WooCommerce anything then? Just fork it and change the attribution code.
Readit News
One thing I'm surprised they disclosed is on page 35 that Heather Brunner at WP Engine was interviewing for a job at Automattic. That's why we were spending so much time together 1:1 without her team there in the meetings I posted here: https://automattic.com/2024/10/01/wpe-terms/
They lied that it was to run WordPress.com, though, she wanted to be the Executive Director of WordPress.org for Automattic, a position that was held by Josepha.
However I do not understand why you chose to make 1.5 million enemies in the WordPress community in one weekend by shutting down their ability to update plugins with zero warning and consequently reducing the security of their websites.
To be entirely blunt it's all damage control for us at this point when your name comes up, and it's because of that one singular mistake, if this was just WPE and Automattic duking it out in court no one would really care, but now the reliability of the WPOrg infrastructure is being questioned by a big chunk of the people who depend on WordPress and they will probably be inclined to walk away from your infrastructure and deeper into the arms of someone like WPEngine when they get the chance.
If you care about the broad perception of your efforts and your business practices I think you need to address this. Again I see that there are plenty of reasons to take issue with WPE's conduct but this singular decision you made has people calling for you to step aside and let someone else run WordPress. It's not going to go away on its own.
AWS and Digital Ocean run local Ubuntu download servers and do not depend on Canonical to run their business. WPEngine is a hosted service and could make very simple changes to download updates from their own servers.
yup. I'm about to make a new site and I dont care about the platform, I just want to write. but I'm not gonna use wordpress ever again now, probably. Matt seems friendly but this is evil CEO garbage
An interesting article was written by Dries (Drupal Founder) and others.
It is a stupid hissyfit and some bad judgments. People make mistakes.
There are far better purely technical / code issues to turn people away from WordPress, but WordPress is spectacularly popular.
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I've long thought that the relationship between Automattic/WordPress.com and WordPress.org was not good for the community, and your behaviour here has put that beyond doubt.
I honestly don't know what's going through your head, but you need to try to wind back the clock a couple of weeks and put things right. You continue to lie and manipulate words (even in this thread!) to make it sound like you are in the right, but it's not working. You need to stop.
I watched Matt destroy friends' WordPress businesses by saying they violated the WP ethos while he and Automattic did the same thing in their businesses.
I've seen them break legal agreements with theme creators and refuse to pay them despite contracts. They also use legal threats against small creators to force them to accept an agreement that pays far less.
I would never do business with Matt or Automattic. They have behaved unethically in my experience.
Matt has too much power and uses it to do whatever he wants. He should never have been allowed to be involved in WordPress.org once he was working at Automattic.
Before this week I knew what wordpress was (of course), did not know either names WP Engine nor Matt Mullenweg, and had never happened to build a site with wordpress.
Now I know your name and will never build a site with wordpress.
You can choose to make that about me instead of recognizing any responsibility for that outcome, but it's never the less a fact. Do with this simple data what you will, but data it is.
Another comment by someone else in one of the severel conversations on this went something like:
"I don't know either of these companies and so far WP Engine hasn't said anything yet. So far I have only heard Wordpress's side of the story, and that has made me assume that Wordpress are the side in the wrong."
That is some galaxy brain stuff right there.
https://m.economictimes.com/tech/technology/ftx-founder-keep...
> The atypical chattiness for a criminal defendant is likely causing Bankman-Fried's attorneys to scratch their heads, or worse. Prosecutors can use any statements, tweets or other communications against him at his trial, which is scheduled for October.
> Prosecutors love when defendants shoot their mouths off," said Daniel R. Alonso, a former federal prosecutor who is now a white-collar criminal defense attorney. If Bankman-Fried's public comments before trial can be proven false during the trial, it may undermine his credibility with a jury, he said.
Of course its possible that these posts are happening through consultation with a lawyer/PR or something but often it feels like someone using their “inside” voice in the outside, and reads like unforced errors.
A. Legally, it cannot possibly help you (whatever happened, happened). However, it can hurt you (inconsistent statements, etc). This is particularly true in colloquial environments like HN.
B. While it may be useful reputation/press wise, because anything you do wil be evidence, you should be having someone else do that.
C. If you are part of a publicly traded company, you can run into SEC violations quickly from what you say, how you say it, and where you say it. Even moreso if you are CEO/an officer/etc
I could go on forever here - for example, you can also run yourself into trouble quickly if the people you are talking to are people you know may be witnesses in the case, etc.
There is a near infinite number of reasons lawyers tell people to STFU when you get sued.
Of course, if your company/you as CEO get sued, it can obviously be incredibly frustrating and difficult to sit there and watch a one-sided story take hold - not the least of reasons because people often take complaints as evidence rather than assertions, and the response rarely gets as much press, etc.
I think the closest lots of HNers come is when they love their company and see a legal complaint pop up on HN that they felt is just insane but can't say anything about it. It's like that, but like 100x worse :P.
But saying nothing is the most useful thing you can do - get away from it. Take a walk, meditate, whatever.
Get the people who are experts in handling it involved (lawyers, comms folks, whatever), and let them do their job.
I'm going to do him the favor of not responding to anything else he writes in this thread for his own good.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these comments here make it to some of the legal documents we will be reading in the future.
I assume some ignore this advice either because they think they are right, or they are unhinged and they think they know better than everyone.
I’m here for it all, whichever may be the case.
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> 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined.
(edit: I have no idea who is right, but it's just not correct to read page 35 as saying that)
But you own and run and finance WordPress.org personally, as you've revealed and talked about numerous times in the last few weeks. I don't follow, how can Heather apply for a job with Automattic to be the Executive Director of a website you personally own?
Also, a note for the audience: Quinn Emanuel is one of the premier (and most expensive) litigation firms in the US. Partners in their litigation department run $2000/hour or more. Associates cost almost $1000/hour. WPEngine apparently has deep pockets.
- Page 12: "wordrpess.org"
- Page 17: "fundamental principal"
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Yeah because they don't have to spend any money on R&D nor do they spend money contributing to the open source project :)
In this instance, you are not the smartest guy in the room, and anything you say is just going to make the outcome of this whole saga that much more painful.
If I were in your position I'd be very carefully trying to figure out what the next step is, especially given whats going to come out about the Wordpress foundation's commercial licensing agreement with Automattic. That alone should be an exctremely worrying position for you personally, assuming your legal team have pointed out the issues on an international scale that you're about to be hit with.
I don’t expect you to take questions from an internet stranger, but since you asked… What rules does Automattic enforce for all companies who operate businesses built on WordPress? In other words…when does a business owe 8%? There are thousands of businesses wondering if they’re next on the list.
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I am curious about your desired outcome. If you win, WP Engine pays 8% going forward? If you lose, will it be business as usual? Fewer open source offerings?
Obviously this could take years to resolve, but developers do have very real concerns over what the landscape may look like in a few years.
An aspect that literally no one could care less about. Bizarre.
Just curious.
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Matt, free advice. If you really think your commercial product is better (maybe it retains more post history or whatever the case), spend more time selling it.
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> 89. Defendants’ extortion campaign included levying personal attacks against the CEO of WPE for not capitulating to his demands. For instance, on September 26, 2024, Mullenweg gave an interview on the X platform during which he gave the CEO’s personal cell phone number to the interviewer and encouraged him to contact her. She was in fact contacted by the interviewer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUJgahHjAKU
[Edit: Ignore this paragraph, see JimDabell and lolinder comments below] I watched the whole interview they linked to and don't recall that happening, ChatGPT also doesn't seem to think so based on its transcript. During the interview Matt did ask at one point if Theo would talk to Lee and Heather on stream, it was about giving everyone a fair chance to tell the story and I doubt that anyone can characterise it as extortional in nature.
Even it was Matt who gave the number away during stream (if it was cut out of the YouTube version) or off stream, it's a huge stretch to claim that as "personal attacks" as part of an "extortion campaign"...
> 90. Defendants’ attacks against WPE’s CEO have also continued in private. First, on September 28, 2024, Mullenweg attempted to poach her to come and work for Automattic, and falsely suggested that WPE’s investor was making her do something she did not want to do.
They screen capped just Matt's message without any context about what was said prior to that message? By September 28, 2024 they have already met many times in-person, too. I think it's just insane for Matt to send a text like but that just seems very out of context in isolation. If absolutely nothing compelled Matt to send that message then I guess it's possible that he's either extremely naive or he is a psychopath.
> 91. After WPE’s CEO did not immediately respond, Mullenweg threatened her the following day. Specifically, on September 29, 2024 Mullenweg gave her until midnight that day to “accept” his job “offer” with Automattic. If she did not accede to his demand, Mullenweg threatened to tell the press, and WPE’s investor, that she had interviewed with Automattic:
> 93. WPE’s CEO did not respond to Mullenweg’s September 29 threat
91 has very interesting wording: "After WPE's CEO did not *immediately* respond". In contrast to 93, they also don't claim that Heather didn't respond to the messages on September 28.
The screenshot of Matt's message on September 29 begins with this:
> Heather, after our extensive discussions about you joining Automattic, the offer you negotiated with me is still on the table.
So... there was definitely a conversation between the screenshots on September 28 and September 29 that lead Matt to think that they presumably didn't include?
> 92. Mullenweg’s premise was false, as WPE’s CEO had never interviewed with or negotiated a job offer with Automattic. To the contrary, back in 2022 Automattic had asked if she would be interested in running wordpress.com, but she politely declined.
92 feels like an assertion that's deliberately placed between 90, 91 and 93 to potentially make their claim seem more valid? I suppose "had never interviewed" depends what kind of evidence Matt can produce at this point if he's not lying; if it's all in-person and there are no records at all, which he pointed out in the interview with Theo, then it's unfortunate.
The "[had never] negotiated" part doesn't make sense at all if something was indeed discussed between September 28 and September 29.
> If you decline, on Monday morning, I tell Greg Mondres: > - Lee's refusal to negotiate terms to resolve our conflict > - your interviewing with Automattic over the past year > - I will possibly tell the press all of the above
I feel like the minority on HN that wants to give Matt the benefit of the doubt. Even so, that's a sure-fire way to get someone who may have been listening to you to turn on you.
If you're not going to call your lawyers, at least call Theo since he offered.
> I watched the whole interview they linked to and don't recall that happening
He admits it here:
> Afterward, I also privately shared with him the cell phone for Heather Brunner, the WP Engine CEO, so she can hop on or debate these points. As far as I’ve heard she hasn’t responded. Why is WP Engine scared of talking to journalists live?
— https://ma.tt/2024/09/on-theprimeagen/
(With the slight discrepancy that he says he did it after the interview, not during, which I’m not sure is a meaningful distinction.)
> On September 28, 2024, Mullenweg gave an interview to the author of the “This might be the end of WordPress” video blog. Among other statements, Mullenweg acknowledged his retaliatory and vindictive intentions, saying: “They could make this all go away by doing a license. Interesting question is whether, now … you know, maybe more than 8% is what we would agree to now.”46
The X interview is a different one. Matt's been busy.
While others are stating that you should not, the court of public opinion delivers results (including to Wordpress) a lot faster than the formal court system. So get ahead.
In general it’s better better the hear authentic voices than none or lawyered-up PR consultants, and this site has hammered companies that do so in the past.
https://automattic.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/term-sheet...
IANAL, but the WordPress license (GPLv2) says that if you attempt to sublicense the software or otherwise distribute it under different terms, you forfeit your own license to it:
WordPress is itself a fork, with no copyright assignments, so Matt has no ability to change the license.Given this, is it legal for WordPress.com to continue using and distributing the WordPress software as we speak?
Stripe thinks that an affiliate using their affiliate link is spammy, but that you, another affiliate, publishing yours with WordPress is not?
Also, I'm sure you think they entirely agree with you, but maybe consider they may not (don't) want you to speak for them while you're being sued...
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They (i know it's you but easier to not personalize it here) do not own all the rights to the software themselves. For the parts they do not own, they have no rights other than what they got through GPLv2.
Those rights are conditioned upon them not trying to sublicense/etc the software in a way that conflicts with GPLv2.
Which this term sheet purports to do.
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First, something general - one thing to keep in mind is that open source folks think of these things as license violations/etc, but that's not actually a thing, legally. Breach of contract and copyright infringement are. That is how a claim would be analyzed. Not as a "GPL violation".
Why is this relevant? Well, you really have to think of this stuff as contracts to use a given copy of software, and not as some abstract thing licensed or not.
This is fairly relevant because:
1. The general view on GPLv2 is that you gain a shiny new license every time you receive a new copy from someone else. In other words, you have signed a new contract. So while your rights may have been terminated the existing contracted copy (and you would be liable for distributing or ... that one), if you just get a new copy from someone else, congrats, new contract.
This is supported by the license: "6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions."
Let's assume this was not true
2. Wordpress is actually GPLv2 or later. GPLv3 has a notice and cure period. Under GPLv3, they would still be within the cure period (unless i screwed up the timeframe :P), and would have not lost a license yet.
3. GPLV3 has a more complex termination mechanism to try to deal with notice, cure, and the issue in #1.
In short, worst case, if they are claiming to use it as licensed by GPLv2, it would be fairly easy to cure the ability to distribute new copies. They could do nothing about violations that exist in existing copies (and would not be allowed to continue distributing those). I realize how insane this sounds, since it's basically saying "These bits over here are red but these same exact bits over here are green", but that's life in the legal realm sometimes.
For sure, if they do nothing, explicitly, they would be in bad shape, legally, in the worst case.
GPLv3 is a more complex question.
Also: there are those that strongly disagree with the view in #1 and believe you lose all rights forever unless they are reinstated. Rather than try to say who is right or wrong, i tried to give you where general consensus seems to lie. That is not something you should take to court, it's closer to "if you surveyed 100 open source lawyers what would most think"
That seems to be what's happened here. The b2 software is a strict "GPL v2". There is no later clause. Then WordPress has re-licensed their derivative work as "GPL v2 or later". Now we are talking about a GPL v3 derivative work.
If you think about it in that way, copyright infringement is out of the picture completely because of the statutory exception.
17 U.S.C § 117 - Limitations on exclusive rights: Computer programs (a)Making of Additional Copy or Adaptation by Owner of Copy.—
Notwithstanding the provisions of section 106, it is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided:
(1)that such a new copy or adaptation is created as an essential step in the utilization of the computer program in conjunction with a machine and that it is used in no other manner, or
(2)that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.
Regardless of who's in the right or wrong here (I have my opinions), my perception of Wordpress flipped a switch overnight. It went from this quiet, reliable, refreshingly boring open source platform to yet another cult of personality tech fiefdom.
If it actually was a cult of personality tech fiefdom, and you are a long-time Wordpress user, presumably you would've heard of Mullenweg before this?
The fact that you hadn't indicates that it's not.
https://x.com/jeffr0/status/1841679115419553825
https://profiles.wordpress.org/chanthaboune/ does not seem to indicate any resignation.
nor https://josepha.blog/
You make it sound like Wordpress had particularly good technical and architectural direction until this person was appointed, which is honestly just laughable.
In my ~20 year career I've seen exactly one PHP codebase that was more shocking than Wordpress for the way that mistakes are not just made, but embraced and defended.
Yes all projects in all languages make mistakes. Most don't look at a litany of feedback/suggestions/bugs about a poor mans solution they've invented themselves and say "fuck it our way is better".
For anyone who's curious about an example of this: lookup how Wordpress does parameterised SQL statements. They refer to it as "preparing" a statement, but it's not preparing a statement for multiple executions the way native prepared statements do, it's doing home-grown parameterisation and then they send a string to mysql. Now consider that PHP has had built-in support for prepared statements (including parameterised queries) since 5.0 was released.... 20 years ago, and about 6 months after WP's v1.0 release.
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https://ma.tt/2003/04/hit-diggity/
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The onus is on you now to respond. The best venue for that is the courts, not online forums and social media (that was 2 weeks ago).
You have no checks and balances so we paid the price. I hope people stop using Wordpress in droves. I hope you have to worry about your business the same way you suddenly made people have to worry about theirs.
They didn't have to cherry-pick anything to make you look bad. You did that by yourself. While also making a criminal case for extortion.
And regarding their trademark violation: WP Engine was founded in 2010. You've been OK with the trademark violation for 14 years, and suddenly decided to take legal action just now? C'mon. The optics of this don't put you in a good light no matter how you spin it.
You are giving them more options and a bigger legal attack surface by writing online. If it turns out not to be a smear campaign and a court decides that, that alone is an attack surface for you getting surely convicted of slander.
The legal game is a different one. Get a lawyer and don't write online. Otherwise you will learn to lose everything you've built in your life over some stupid comments online.
Again, get a lawyer. Now. Stop writing. Now. Everything you will write or say will be used against you in the court of law.
There is a damn good reason this is mandatory for every cop to tell you if they arrest you.
You are mounting up the evidence for them. For free. They ragebaited and played you like a fool. Don't be that guy. Play the smart move.
1. As their brief makes clear, they have been using the "challenged marks" for over a decade, including a period when you were an investor. You have given no evidence publicly that they changed anything recently - indeed, you publicly stated that the reason for the trademark infringement actions was because you thought they weren't a good contributor to open source, not that they did anything different with the marks.
2. Your recent attempt to trademark "Hosted WordPress" and "Managed WordPress" are pretty bad, and blatant, attempts to rewrite history. If the courts let you trademark this nominative use of a term, it would be a first.
3. Your actions have only targeted WP Engine, not any of the other WordPress hosts that use the marks in the same way.
I definitely am not cherry picking the above - I'm just presenting what I know has been irrefutably announced publicly, and again which I assume you would have already countered if you could given all your other public statements.
You need to do a lot of growing up, and fast, because this isn't fucking Tumblr, dude.
I'd say they're very happy to have you continue talking. They couldn't buy better PR.
While you are telling lies about trademark violations and extorting money specifically from WPEngine and have publicly admitted you're not doing that to anyone else that provides Wordpress hosting? And you've used terms like "war" and "nuclear option" when threatening the lies you subsequently told?
And somehow you still think _you're_ the good guy here?
:boggle:
Just resign. Make the WordPress Foundation into everything you've pretended it is over the years, including rightful and permanent owner of the trademarks and .org domain, and complete seperate from you personally and Automattic and it's related businesses. _Maybe_ that'll save WordPress. Maybe...
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Matt has made so many unforced errors in the last month, in addition to revealing, one way or another, that he basically considers WordPress, the .org, the .com, the Foundation, and Automattic, all to be synonymous, which is news to a significant portion of the community, let alone to the incorporation and other founding filings.
My guess is there will be some settlement, one party will walk away with a better position than before, and that will be that
That's why this matters to average developers. WordPress is the plugin ecosystem, and messing around with it does as much damage to the WordPress ecosystem as left pad did to npm—it's not unrecoverable, but it's a major setback that could quickly become unrecoverable.
What's the criteria? Is there some exact revenue or profit number a company needs to stay under to avoid this sort of attack? Does Matt only get mad at hosting companies, or do other companies making a lot of money with WP (e.g. big creative agencies) need to be concerned?
Without clarity, it's hard to quantify the risk. And companies might decide to shift their CMS work elsewhere rather than deal with it. The drama undercuts one of the big advantages of WP: it was free and permissively licensed.
I agree it might not have much effect on random people using or contributing to WP. But open source projects actually need a lot of investment to grow and survive. And anything that depresses that investment can depress the overall project trajectory.
I expect long-term effects for both entrepreneurs and enterprise.
Companies that would’ve started in the ecosystem just got a clear signal that success comes with a tax.
And the risk-management department of every enterprise will use this* as their logical basis for choosing something with a better license.
* Matt unilaterally turning off WP updates for millions of WordPress sites is a major risk signal.
This is very relevant to anyone that cares about open source.
Companies being able to host any OSS without the threat of a trademark dispute is vital to the software industry.
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Seriously though, it's a freaking legacy. Sad to see it go this way.
I don't think Automattic's trademark claims are fundamentally going to hold up. From the complaint:
"WPE’s nominative uses of those marks to refer to the open-source software platform and plugin used for its clients’ websites are fair uses under settled trademark law, and they are consistent with WordPress’ own guidelines and the practices of nearly all businesses in this space."
I dont know what the settled trademark law is, but this seems like common sense to me.
Everyone says 'WordPress' to refer to the software platform. Just seems like extortion, plain and simple.
I get Matt's upset that WPEngine is making all this money, but that's par for the course when you release something open source. You simply need a better product if you want to beat WPEngine in the marketplace.