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This isn't even a fork—looking at the text on this site, I think it's just this guy Vinny deliberately trolling Matt by registering a bunch of WP domains and flaunting them. If so, he succeeded at the goal of provoking an asinine response from WordPress.org (aka Matt).

From the author [0]:

> I love how I never said I was going to fork the project and only wanted to support those who did. Matt is incredible at only hearing the things he wants to hear.

See the FAQ for more evidence that this is mostly just Vinny trolling so far [1]:

> Well, what does ‘wp’ mean?

> We found some notes referencing “word processing” and “web publishing,” and there’s even a mention of Wendell Pierce, who played Detective William ‘Bunk’ Moreland in the popular HBO series The Wire. It seems to be related to one of those topics.

> It’s also rumored the singsongy vibes really sealed the deal.

[0] https://x.com/vinnysgreen/status/1844488053060141233

[1] https://freewp.com/faq/

I am not sure who is trolling who here. Maybe they both are trying to troll each other, but both don't really look great.

FreeWP seems like a completely meritless attempt at a fork / initiative. Potentially even just an attempt by "Vinny" to move himself into the spotlight. And the WordPress community, for a big part, looks still very novice and in-experienced and a decent junk of community members might fall for this and put at least some (and more than they should) eggs into that basket.

Matt just seems to troll and knows that "FreeWP" is no competition at all. And continues on his path of eccentric and very weird behavior.

> FreeWP seems like a completely meritless attempt at a fork / initiative. Potentially even just an attempt by "Vinny" to move himself into the spotlight.

This is why I think it's a troll—it's so completely devoid of substance that I think it must be deliberately void, and getting Matt to respond was the only point. The OP specifically says they don't intend to fork, and they have a goofy FAQ with an intentionally-absent mission statement.

It's not a fork. I'm "Vinny," and I've been a part of other communities outside of WordPress. Matt seems to be very concerned about it because while the site is just a placeholder, the real work is organizing the community, which I know he knows I am doing.

Wordpress has consistently said that “WP” is fair game, but that leaning on “Wordpress” is not.

They said that consistently right up until they changed the trademark policy to call out WP Engine by name:

> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

"Consistently" is not an adverb I would associate with Automattic/WordPress.org/WordPress Foundation/Matt's behavior in recent months.

They used to, until the WP Engine fight began. The trademark policy was updated a few days after Matt started publicly beefing with them. There’s now the following on the trademark policy page: https://wordpressfoundation.org/trademark-policy/

  The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

That seems clear and consistent to me; they’re not saying you can’t use “WP”, just asking that people avoid confusing users.

The issue with WP Engine isn't the WP in the name. That's fine and part of how WordPress wants it. The issue is they use the word WordPress to define the services they provide. Which is why it's completely bonkers that there is a trademark dispute since they provide managed Wordpress hosting so using WordPress to describe providing WordPress hosting is normal and expected.

No, they updated the trademark policy to call out WP Engine specifically with a petulant mini-rant:

> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

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

> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks

This goes with my view that Matt is technically correct almost all the time, which is the best kind of correct. https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/909991-futurama

Thanks to that, I normally find consistency in what he says. The forking post about FreeWP makes sense.

Especially because there is some amount of joking in both freewp.com and the post. I like how Matt refers to him as a former WordPress community member.

I'm not a lawyer but the lack of donating is not grounds for a copyright violation. Part of having a copyright is defending it. This is why we occasional see a Goliath beat up on a David. If Goliath lets the David slide it could undermine Goliath's status as actively defending his copyright.

In fact, Matt shoots himself in the foot. You don't become a billion dollar company overnight. Zero to thousands. Thousands to hundreds of thousands. Hundreds of thousands to millions. Silence all the way. But billions and it becomes a copyright violation??

That's so ridiculous that only the stupid or the insane would believe it. Or both.

But this isn't about copyright. It's Matt looking for revenue and then manufacturing a flimsy excuse to demand money. Up to recently most of the WP Community drank the MM Kool Aid. That's not the case any more.

Trademark, not copyright.

Copyright can’t be extinguished by common use. Trademarks can.

Despite the number of factors, the criteria is fundamentally similar across circuit courts. A trademark infringement will depend upon, among other factors:

- strength/distinctiveness of plaintiff trademark;

- proximity/competitiveness of plaintiff and defendant’s business;

- comparative quality of plaintiff and defendant’s products;

- evidence that the imitative trademark was adopted in bad faith; and

- sophistication of consumers in relevant markets, and evidence of confusion.

Source: https://legal.thomsonreuters.com/blog/trademark-litigation-1...

IDK, some of those read as if you can't wake up one morning and then decide you've been violated.

For example, if WP Engine acted in bad faith, why was it bad faith in 2024, but not prior? It's difficult to argue bad faith when you watched - and enabled? - a company to go from zero to "billions".

If fact, that lens applies to most of this list. These conditions existed all along and MM & Co was silent.

On the other hand look at Apple (Computers) and Apple (Records). Once Apple Computer enter the mmusic market they had to negotiate with Apple Records because Apple Music's change in direction would cause confusion in the market.

Extinguish? Maybe not. But if you don't defend your trademark your argument for violation dilutes more and more as time goes on, true? "Billions" feels like a long time. "Billions" - and how MM went about it - feels very much like a "trademark troll".

Even if he wins the battle. He's lost the war. The community no longer trusts and respects him.