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Comment by slyall | Hacker News Reader

That one of Matts claims. Personally I suspect the actual trigger was WPE removing Automattic's affiliate key from WooCommerce and costing them $m/y of revenue.

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That's also one of Matt's claims. According to WPE's court filings, they claim it was an alternate/fork of WooCommerce's Stripe integration they provided with additional features, and makes them less than ~2000$/mo.

If that claim is false, that's perjury.

That's not even a true claim, because there are two separate plugins, one is WPE's and one is Automattic's. WPE doesn't force you to use theirs, it's a total lie.

Our attempts at resolving trademark issues with WPE predate our discovery of the attribution removal.

What do you mean by “trademark issues”? Is this about the WP in the WPEngine’s name? If yes, what about other companies in a similar position?

The abbreviation "WP" was initially permitted for use before they retroactively changed it a few days ago. Saying "We host WordPress" on WPEngine's site constitutes as much trademark violation as a random shoe shop listing Nike shoes in their catalog. It seems this is more about attempting to undermine a competitor, with trademark issues serving merely as an excuse.

Who is our in this context?

If you are a party to this dispute, why on Earth would you comment publicly?

It really is strange Automattic's lawyers haven't clamped down on any public comment. Have any of WP Engine's people been as free with commentary as Automattic employees have been?

If I were an employee at a company being sued I wouldn't say anything related to it even without an order from legal because I wouldn't want to have to risk answering for it in the trial. Why dangle yourself out there as a target for the opposition's lawyers?

Lawyers can give advice, but clients make the decisions. One of Automattic's lawyers appeared in an earlier thread and strongly suggested that Matt is ignoring his advice.

I haven't seen any comments from any WP Engine employees. They have an adult CEO, though, so I'm sure she told them not to comment on it.

Matt has actually complained on the official WordPress Twitter account that the WPE CEO hasn't commented on it. It's really bizarre. Honestly, he doesn't sound well. There's no way he can be this reckless and be in his right mind. He's worth a ton of money, so I don't know if anyone can actually get him under control or get him out.

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