Hacker News Reader

Comment by WillPostForFood | Hacker News Reader

It also explicitly says you can't use "Wordpress" in your product names, and WP Engine is doing that. I thought it might be common, but the other big providers do not use WordPress in their product names.

Essential Wordpress

Core Wordpress

Enterprise Wordpress

https://wpengine.com/plans/

View on HN

> you can't use "Wordpress" in your product names, and WP Engine is doing that

WP Engine is explicitly not doing that.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GYPsyoSbwAACO7X?format=jpg&name=...

If you are selling "Core Wordpress" WP Engine is explicitly naming a product using "Wordpress". If it was "Core WP" that would be fine.

They just changed the naming after this dispute started.

And yet, here is Godaddy doing the same thing:

https://www.godaddy.com/en-ph/hosting/wordpress-hosting

Or a recent hosting provider I interacted with in a 3rd world country:

https://client.absolutehosting.co.za/store/wordpress-hosting

Come now, this seems to be a huge abuse of "trademark" of a term. Wordpress may be open source, but having the actual name of the "Opensource" thing be trademarked by a non-profit (that's also who-knows-how-much controlled by a for-profit entity) seems like such a dick move. I'm gonna start adding it to my list... OpenAI, Mozilla Foundation, Wordpress.

Edit. Side note:

I looked up the Linux trademark usage guidelines. Looks like half the internet is infringing on this one too if you squint. So maybe this all boils down to a case of "Don't be a jerk" that some entities adhere to when it comes to protecting their trademark, whilst others like Automattic use it to bully competitors.

https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/trademark-usage

> Wordpress may be open source, but having the actual name of the "Opensource" thing be trademarked by a non-profit (that's also who-knows-how-much controlled by a for-profit entity) seems like such a dick move.

I get the "ick" factor here, but there doesn't really seem to be a better alternative. If "OpenSourceWare" isn't trademarked by non-profit "OpenSourceSoft", the options are either a) no trademark, and it's a free-for-all where the biggest marketing budget and SEO teams get the biggest return on mindshare and search results or b) Oracle gets the trademark and nobody else is allowed to use it.

Or it's WP Engine being a jerk, and this is just a way to put some pressure on them.

Look at it this way - WordPress is the #1 platform for websites. It is a free, Open-source, and huge asset to the community. Are you going to shit on the guys who made it and gave it away because you have some sympathy for some overpriced, hosting company?

If the Wordpress team disappeared, it would be a tragedy. If WP Engine disappeared it would be nothing.

The page you linked applies to trademarks owned by the Linux Foundation. The Linux trademark is actually owned by Linus Torvalds, not by the Linux Foundation; and different rules apply to it, as your link notes.

>For information regarding the Linux trademark, owned by Linus Torvalds, please see the Linux Mark Institute (administered by The Linux Foundation). Your use of the Linux trademark must be in accordance with the Linux Mark Institute’s policy.

Which links to this page: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/legal/the-linux-mark

Wow, you're right. That page is a undeniably an infringement.

Probably (the trademark equivalent of) fair use, because WordPress is what they are selling. If I have a basket of windows disks to sell, I can write Microsoft Windows on my price list because the thing I'm selling is called that.

This analogy came up recently when discussing Elasticsearch. It's flawed.

Free and open source software does not, and has never, required giving up trademark rights. I think the GPLv3 is even explicit about this.

In the Windows case it's fair use of the trademark because you're reselling something you previously bought. That's not applicable here.

WordPress is open source software, but a hosting service has a variety of characteristics unrelated to the nominal software. Besides, WP Engine are disabling key features of the product: of course that's misleading.

The hosting company sells WordPress hosting services. The rest of the arguments are nonsense, such as the one about revisions being disabled.

Looks like those are just headings, not product names.

Wut? In what are are those not product names? Any reasonable person would assume so.

Looks like product names to me. It’s certainly confusing at least, which is an issue either way.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com