Hacker News Reader

Comment by mjburgess | Hacker News Reader

So, to be clear: if I want to start a company using wordpress as core technology, I should expect to be extorted for around 8% if I get successful enough.

I cannot imagine "Automattic" has thought this through. There is no ransom agreement in open source, and the very basis of wordpress' success is the absence of such a thing.

What company now, looking at this technology, would touch it with a 100ft pole?

View on HN

I am not sure if I understand this correctly but this is about using the WordPress trademark not using WordPress in itself. So I think you would be fine if you are offering it as a general website hosting.

I might be wrong though.

I mean I guess using "WP" in their business name is kinda pushing it I guess, but offering Wordpress hosting while using the word "Wordpress" is fair game (IMO). A company can't/shouldn't be able to tell someone they can't use the trademark name in describing the service another company offers. How would that even work? "We offer hosting for the project that 80% of the websites in the world use!". If Wordpress (the project/company) allows someone to offer hosting of that project (ie: it's not a mongo type licence), they can't expect someone to not even use the name of the project they are offering hosting for.

Imagine if Linus prevented companies from saying they offer hosting using Linux.

> I mean I guess using "WP" in their business name is kinda pushing it I guess…

It was explicitly permitted by the WordPress foundation.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41643676

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

They've always been actively protecting their trademark. Also small companies or meetups using WordPress were asked to change that. I think they even have to do that legally to some degree to protect their trademark.

WP Engine has build their success on piggybacking the WordPress trademark, their slogan is "Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond".

It's probably fair they pay a fee for that.

If they would just use the open source software & would market it as a blog-hosting they would most likely be in the clear.

> Similarly, a business related to WordPress themes can describe itself as “XYZ Themes, the world’s best WordPress themes,” but cannot call itself “The WordPress Theme Portal.”

https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/

How does "Most Trusted" differ from "best" which is allowed?

I think that's not the difference, if I read it correctly the difference is being a WordPress Host, vs a hosting company offering wordpress hosting.

I think the big difference is also the marketing WP Engine is running full on The WordPress hosting.

> being a WordPress Host, vs a hosting company offering wordpress hosting

WPEngine is also offering Headless and WooCommerce as well as WordPress.

So your point makes absolutely no sense.

Automattic also owns WooCommerce.

Woocommerce is a Wordpress plugin.

But that besides the point.

The question is when is a company piggybacking on a brand.

Maybe Automattic is asking for too much, but it’s very clear wp engine strongly benefited from the brand, not only the software. Just Google them now, they are marketing full on with Wordpress.

I don’t see a way how they won’t win this in court.

It's the implication of a single type of entity having the official endorsement. If you change "The" to "A" in the second one it'd be fine again.

I think you're getting them mixed up.

WP Engine's slogan is: "Most Trusted WordPress Hosting and Beyond"

What the WordPress foundations trademark policy specifically allows is: "the world’s best WordPress themes"

> They've always been actively protecting their trademark

The trademark is owned by the WordPress foundation not Automattic.

https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy

And it has been a standard in this industry for decades (e.g. LAMP) that saying 'X Hosting' does not mean that you should be considered the owner of X. It just means you host it.

And if you do a wayback machine till a few months ago on that policy, you'll find they actively give permission for others to use "WP"

So the idea theyve been protecting their trademark is against their own trademark policy

The claim is that, while WP is legal, it is “WordPress Engine” that was also used (in press releases or tolerated in the writings of 3rd parties), alongside “WordPress Core”, a plan which they later renamed.

I don't know if this changes anything, but I'm guessing a lawsuit is coming, so we shall see. But it would be great if people did some research before commenting on the story.

Whenever someone's asking for 8% of gross revenue, they've lost the plot regardless of the underlying claim. For most businesses that's easily much more they're taking in profit. One imagines were this agreement in place, WPEngine would have to raise their prices to levels beyond what any customer would pay.

Likewise, the use of "wordpress" as a trademark is clearly permitted when referring to wordpress; it's a common part of trademark law that you can refer to products in this manner. WPE customers do not think WPE is wordpress, it's a host.

cf., "The most trusted platform for WordPress" --https://wpengine.com

> “WordPress Engine” that was also used (in press releases)

Do you have examples of these since you've done so much research ?

Look forward to Automattic also going after companies using the term "WordPress Plugin" as well.

It's complicated. The trademark is indeed owned by The Foundation but they have granted Automattic an "exclusive, fully-paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sublicensable right and license to use and otherwise exploit the trademarks". This is only just coming to light.

So the Foundation appears to only own the trademarks on paper. Despite that, this is how Matt Mullenweg framed the trademark ownership situation to the community:

"the most central piece of WordPress’s identity, its name, is now fully independent from any company." he also claimed that Automattic had "give[n] up control" of the trademarks. Those statements are demonstrably untrue.

https://ma.tt/2010/09/wordpress-trademark/

https://assignments.uspto.gov/assignments/assignment-tm-4233...

But the software is called WordPress. How else should they say that they can host WordPress on their site without referring to it?

This feels like if you were to go after someone advertising themselves as a "Honda repair shop".

The sibling comment of "The WordPress Theme Portal" makes more sense as it might imply "The (Official) WordPress Theme Portal"

It seems more like someone advertising as a Honda dealership.

Yeah when I go to WPEngine site it feels like they copy-pasted it.

This is the thing about open source is MOST people do not contribute anything. And we’re seeing this trend with the whole Continue.dev situation too. Copy-paste, rebrand, make some money.

I think everyone needs to consider what the O.G. Wordpress team has created—and how many hours of blood, sweat, and tears went in. And then some folks just copy-paste and siphon out their business.

They explicitly allowed it. If you don't want to be taken advantage of, put it in the license. It's honestly hard to feel sympathy for companies that release a product under a what some meme circles have called a "cuck license"¹ and then complain when some other entity adheres to the license.

1: https://lukesmith.xyz/articles/why-i-use-the-gpl-and-not-cuc...

(GPL would not help in this specific case — I believe the project is already under the GPL — but his general point still stands.)

Yeah I agree—they should use the AGPL as that’s the one that protects on the server side.

Fun fact. Matt Mullenweg himself was a seed investor in WPEngine. He has either sold since then, or his share has been diluted to the point of being meaningless.

The reality is that he had no problem with WPEngine until recently. Just last year he spoke at their conference.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com