Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

Comment by graeme | Hacker News Reader

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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.

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.

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.

> 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.”

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