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>My personal take on this has to do entirely with how the decision to block WP Engine access to WordPress.org, unless they were willing to pay for it, was arrived at.

Matt would be allowed to charge for access to Wordpress.org. It's his property. What you can't do is:

make a service publicly available and then threaten a company that it needs exclusive terms

In the lawsuit the judge asked Automattic to come up with a price for access to Wp.org and Matt did not provide an estimate.

>we think we're going to need either ask that you setup local mirrors, or we can maybe arrange a pay as you go deal.

In the lawsuit Automattic asked the judge to force WPengine to shut down their mirrors. They want control over the system. Which is also legit, but legally you can't offer public terms for all and then threaten a company with "the nuclear option" unless they agree to a separate set of terms for 8% of revenue.

Wordpress.org could have terms that allow companies to setup mirrors, but they explicitly don't want this, and wordpress.org is hardcoded into Wordpress Core.

> In the lawsuit the judge asked Automattic to come up with a price for access to Wp.org and Matt did not provide an estimate.

Automattic and Mullenweg argued that WP Engine should be required file a bond of $1.6 million to ensure that they are compensated for potential costs and damages if it’s later found that the preliminary injunction was granted without sufficient basis.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/judge-sides-with-wp-engi...

That's a separate heading, which the judge rejected completely. From the same article:

>WPEngine’s arguments are persuasive. …the Court finds that any harm to Defendants resulting from the issuance of preliminary injunctive relief is unlikely, as it merely requires them to revert to business as usual as of September 20, 2024. Accordingly, the Court declines to require WPEngine to post a bond.”

Isn't he within legal rights in fact to take away certain public services whenever he does want? Assuming that's the case (and that is an assumption), the fact that WPEngine went all in on a half billion dollar business model dependent on Matt is a big risk they took; I would think it would be absolutely top priority on their part to understand the nuts and bolts of the ecosystem they depend on.

It's very complicated and beyond my ability to analyze accurately.

The court filing is here if you'd like to have a look. Some california law around anticompetitive behaviour applies.

I thought of trying to summarize but don't wish to be inaccurate. Obviously this is under litigation so it remains to be seen which headings they win on if any.

But it definitely isn't as simple as being able to selectively withdraw a public service at any point for any reason. If it were the case would have been dismissed already.

https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP...

I've read some of it and it's actually compelling reading but it bogs down pretty quick in spin, for example wpe claims they invested hundreds of millions "to serve the community". But the community they are referencing is their own customers. They did not invest millions in core maintenance to my knowledge.

I'm more interested in the colloquial understanding than the legalese. The dev community will probably have a more relevant opinion than the judge imho. As I see it, WP core is free and the "public utility" you mention. But the infrastructure running the plugins has very little precedent it seems, and that's the important part. That's what Matt's pissed about. I don't think there is a good analogy in the Linux ecosystem or anywhere else as to such a massive undertaking as WP that is simultaneously non profit and for profit. And that's where I think it's kind of foolhardy to go head to head with the guy who's managed to staple it all together while they're still standing on it.

The thing he withdrew is their plugin repo access which is not a public service afaik. I can see why Matt is going crazy running servers for hundreds of millions of downloads and people treat it like he's legally obligated to do that. It's an ambitious enterprise and people should be sensitive to the fact that they probably work extremely hard keeping that going.

Thanks! Your reply added some missing context. Particularly the part about Automatic not wanting WP Engine to host their own mirrors. That definitely casts doubt and suspicion on Matt and Automatic's motivations and helps put into perspective all of the Matt/Automatic "haters" who are siding with WP Engine. Without context like that, it sounds like people are asking others to float the bill for them. But if they are being denied the option to "self-serve" then yeah, there's obviously way more to it.

> But being a jerk isn't a crime and doesn't forfeit your rights.

The court case isn't about Matt being a jerk, it's about crime.

> WordPress.org has to pay for their servers

Wordpress.org was sold to volunteers as a community asset owned by the foundation not Matt and even Matt's lawyer made public statements to that effect.

Volunteers spent their time building it up, developing in to WordPress core reliance on w.org infra, etc..

Matt has a long history of un-ethical behaviour, and the current WPDrama is extensive. For me alone, the one screenshot of his threats to go to the press with confidential information about someone unless they did what he wants was enough.

Now volunteers find out from court documents that w.org is "Matt's personal website" as he puts it.

Additionally, now many volunteers are banned from the thing they helped build simply for voicing disagreement with his actions which are almost universally accepted as unethical. Many have been banned for reacting to one of his post with with disapproving emojji!!

Matt has built up the foundation through deception and then weaponised it.

> > But being a jerk isn't a crime and doesn't forfeit your rights.

> The court case isn't about Matt being a jerk, it's about crime.

If we're going to get that pedantic, and ignore the "spirit" in which that statement of mine was intended, then it's equally fair for me to point out that no, the legal case is not anything to do with a "crime." It is a civil dispute.

> WordPress.org has to pay for their servers and WP Engine is a for-profit company that is using WordPress.org's services, free of charge, for their own gain. Mutual consideration here seems warranted.

WPEngine allege

> > "As part of the WordPress community, WPE has contributed tens of millions of dollars in ongoing support "

> going to get that pedantic

I didn't think i was being pedantic, sorry.

I don't understand the US Court system but from what i gather, at least Attempted Extortion and breaches of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act are crimes.

COMPLAINT FOR:

(1) Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations;

(2) Intentional Interference with Prospective Economic Relations;

(3) Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1030 et seq.;

(4) Attempted Extortion;

(5) Unfair Competition, Cal. Bus. Prof. Code § 17200, et seq.;

(6) Promissory Estoppel;

(7) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Infringement;

(8) Declaratory Judgment of Non-Dilution;

(9) Libel;

(10) Trade Libel; and

(11) Slander.

> So what, specifically, led to WP Foundation choosing to ask WP Engine to pay for the services they are using?

That isn't what happened. The for-profit company Automatic asked for money, and then used their CEO's exclusive control of the non-profit foundation to punish their direct competitor.

It would be an entirely different thing if this was part an initiative to charge commercial users of WordPress.org for the costs they incur the non-profit foundation to stabilize it's funding. Such a thing could have been handled professionally without threats of "nuclear" retaliation.

> But being a jerk isn't a crime and doesn't forfeit your rights

Being a jerk isn't a crime, but it does broadcast a lack of professionalism and mental stability. Those aren't great traits to see in and individual who has unilateral control over infrastructure that you depend on. Those are extremely concerning traits when that individual has demonstrated a willingness to use that control to pursue personal vendettas in childish ways.

The problem the community is facing is that Matt is a weak, single point of failure. To re-establish trust given Matt's actions here, the non-profit needs to no longer be under his control, but under that of an independent board of directors.

20 years at the helm and one major conflict over a half billion dollar business doesnt strike me as particularly weak. Personally I would be much happier if he just keeps on keepin on. The BDFL model has a strong precedent for jerk-ness a la Linus Torvalds

WordPress is an open source project, and part of being an open source project is you don't really have a right to demand that people not mooch off of your work, at least as far as most open source licenses are concerned [1]. If you don't like that, well, then open source isn't for you.

The other major complication here is that Matt has thoroughly mixed his several roles together, so you have to spend time untangling what is Matt-personally, what is Matt-as-his-company, and what is WordPress-via-Matt. When you untangle that, the core demand appears to be that Matt (in who knows what role) demanded that WP Engine compensate Matt-the-company for its use of WordPress-via-Matt resources being provided by Matt-personally (that no one knew was being provided by Matt-personally as opposed to WordPress-via-Matt). Given the thoroughly tangled mess of that stuff, and the fact that--in the past--Matt made several steps to untangle the ownership of everything, I am not particularly persuaded by the logic of "I'm just trying to get them to pay their fair share," as they're not being asked to pay the people they should be paying.

> why is Matt / WP Foundation acting unfairly by asking for payment?

Because they're asking someone to pay, not the foundation whose resources they are allegedly using, but their largest competitor (a very distinct legal entity).

[1] There are licenses that do have clauses that let you take action, but generally having such a clause makes it not Open Source-compliant, and frequently the relicensing needed to bring the current licenses to that state involves a lot of drama.

WordPress' GPL license guarantees you access to the code and specific rights. It doesn't guarantee you access to the the WordPress database repository of plugins and themes.

WordPress could, in theory, make the repository free for access to all except larger hosting entities that put more of a strain on things, for which there is a fee or throttling. Possibly even indicating this within the WordPress admin UI which flavor of access the user is getting. "Pro" vs "Free" for example.

Note that I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, and this is based on my understanding of open source licenses like the GPL over my 20 years working on PortableApps.com.

w.org infra was said to be owned by the foundation for the community.

Automattic's lawyer told the community the same thing.

Volunteers built in to WordPress core dependence on W.Org infra on that understanding. there are over 1500 hardcoded references to W.org infra.

Now those volunteers find out it's "Matt's personal website" and he can do what he likes with it. Including banning volunteers who's livelihoods depend on it for nothing more than reacting to a post with a disproving emojji.

Differentiating IP/copyright/code rights and infrastructure hosting is definitely an important aspect of the feud.

In a perfect world, open source projects would never use private infrastructure (and would certainly not privilege any particular private infrastructure!).

That said, the ability to 'open source' infrastructure (read: have hosting provided by a non-profit or similar attached to the open source project) has always been more difficult (financially, legally, and practically) than simply commiting a license file.

Well said.

I think Matt Mullenweg has every right to take the action he's taking. It really seems like many companies are perfectly happy to exploit open source products.

In this case, it seems like one company makes a lot of money using the Wordpress codebase and doesn't want to make equal contributions. Then they use the money they're making to turn around and sue Wordpress for standing up for themselves.

If I were Matt Mullenweg, you can bet I would be incensed! I'm honestly very surprised that Matt Mullenweg is facing such criticism when he's simply trying to protect IP that he and the community have spent a lot of time and money building together. It's only natural to want to ban the freeloaders, and in any case, it's a little outrageous to think anyone is entitled to access to the resources and creations of others with or without compensation.

I don't think there's any disagreement about that particular aspect of what kicked this all off (in terms of being incensed about an imbalance of contributions to money being made) - it's the _way_ he went about that, _then_ all the subsequent WPDrama that unfolded (personal attacks, unilateral cancellations, removals, blockages, deletions etc) that has most people concerned.

I've been around WordPress since 2003 (since the fork from B2/Cafelog) and have watched Matt evolve over that time, make a few missteps, act/react with humility, speak conscientiously on a wide range of matters and issues. The actions of the past 12 months seem quite contrary to that established behaviour (speaking from a far perspective & never had met the man in person).

I feel sad whether this is a deliberate or unintentional (mental) path, but am confident that like the drama that created WP's popularity orignally (MoveableType), there will be a path forward for the community - it's the damage that will be done in getting there that's upsetting...

I don't think many people have issue with his original complaints. They're responding to the absurd way he's behaved.

There's a right way and a wrong way to handle a conflict, and he's taken a direct route down the wrong way with his foot on the gas.

He would've been wise to read Sun Tzu, 48 laws, all those books on the basics of manoeuvring in a conflict, and found himself some wise and steady council to guide him through this effectively.

Instead he basically burst into a sustained petulant childish tantrum. He was doing things that basically any adult would know not to do.

He was in here, running his mouth in the comments section after legal proceedings had started. With everyone telling him to shut up. And instead he just kept going. And the comments literally then showed up in the legal proceedings against him, as everyone had warned.

Rights and obligations go hand in hand. Yes he had rights, and yes he could have exercised them to the benefit of the open source community (which was extremely important given WPs role in the internet - effectively carrying the beacon of the original internet vs its consumption by big companies).

But he also had obligations stemming from that. He should have played this diligently and carefully. But he didn't. And thus everyone expresses their disappointment in their own ways.

Tens of thousands of us depend on WP directly for our livelihood, and millions more depend on it for their businesses and connections with the world. We all need confidence in the stability of WP or an alternative to use and recommend it. WP was right to sanction WPE. It's spilling over to all of us now though.