Perfect way to kill the project [LWN.net]

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 4:14 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46)
In reply to: Perfect way to kill the project by burki99
Parent article: Automattic reduces WordPress contributions

> PS: I was probably wrong, Automattic didn't sue, but rather tried to push them into rather harsh terms for their usage of an Open Source software (https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-term-sheet.pdf).

No, No, No.

This has nothing to do with *using open source software*. The software is released in pure source form under the GPL. No usage (or modification) restrictions whatsoever.

This is about *SERVICES* that stand outside the scope of any open source software license. Nothing in the GPL or any other F/OSS license, entitles anyone free use of any third party services.

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Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 6:49 UTC (Sat) by burki99 (subscriber, #17149) [Link] (14 responses)

Did you read the PDF I linked? That says nothing about services. It talks only about trademarks and brands: License Grant. Automattic will license to WP Engine use of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks and branding.
For this, they demand 8% of gross revenues. To me, that doesn’t sound like a friendly Open Source community but rather like business practices you might find in Sicily. And as others have pointed out, even if the trademark payments were reasonable, one would expect them to go to the charitable WordPress Foundation and not to Automattic, the for profit.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 10:53 UTC (Sat) by aragilar (subscriber, #122569) [Link] (10 responses)

Not that I'm agreeing that how Automattic has been going about this whole thing, but "WordPress" and "WooCommerce" are (as far as I know) two very different things in terms of how they're produced/sold/etc. with "WooCommerce" being very much a proprietary project (and the trademark isn't associated with the WordPress Foundation) and and open source (I believe, I've never actually used it) only because of the GPL and the mess that is WordPress licensing. I suspect this announcement implies that Automattic is going to spend more effort on their proprietary extensions/services like "WooCommerce" (and I'll bet they'll create their own separate plugin server and use that to block off WP Engine from their plugins/try to make WP Engine pay the amount they wanted originally that way), which could hollow out the WordPress codebase.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 11:13 UTC (Sat) by burki99 (subscriber, #17149) [Link] (9 responses)

WooCommerce is GPL as well: https://github.com/woocommerce/woocommerce (the license is a bit hidden, but you find it for example in their composer.json)

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 12:49 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> WooCommerce is GPL as well

Be that as it may, nothing automatically (hah!) entitles any random person or company to use the instances that Automattic is hosting.

Software can be used to provide services, but services are _not_ software.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 12, 2025 2:02 UTC (Sun) by aragilar (subscriber, #122569) [Link] (7 responses)

My understanding is that every WordPress plugin has to be GPL due to the way they connect into WordPress, that's why the trademarks are being lent on (and why Automattic could legally fork WP-Engine's plugins). It sounds very much like the ecosystem is held together by good will and trademarks (and hence that's why everyone is being weird about money and the apparent breaking of norms, because they can't withdraw their code), because the licensing is such that everyone has to open source their plugins if they don't want run their own hosting platform.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 12:11 UTC (Mon) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link] (1 responses)

Technically the GPL does not require you to publish your software for everyone to use, it just requires that you give source code to users of the software.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 17:00 UTC (Mon) by edeloget (subscriber, #88392) [Link]

That's not enough : the GPL also mandate that the user is given some important rights, such as the right to modify and redistribute using the same license ; so even if you make me pay for your GPL software I still have the right to redistribute a free-as-in-beer version of the same source code (and those to which I distribute it also have the same rights).

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 12:57 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> because the licensing is such that everyone has to open source their plugins if they don't want run their own hosting platform.

And apparently the system is also designed such that running your own hosting platform is well-nigh impossible ...

Cheers,
Wol

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 15:16 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (3 responses)

I think at this point though it's inevitable that a consortium of Auttomatic's competitors and customers will stand up a new infrastructure brand and the ecosystem will insulate itself from the risk of a single rogue upstream.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 15:37 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (2 responses)

The problem is that the act of trying to do that is a Hail Mary "succeed or die trying". And it's likely to kill everyone, WordPress included ... the option that has the least risk for everyone is a hostile takeover of wordpress.org ... and Matt is likely to press the MAD button ...

Cheers,
Wol

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 17:17 UTC (Mon) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link] (1 responses)

It's primarily a brand management and marketing problem, not technical though, right? All of the developers, customers and service providers in the ecosystem have source code licenses, in the same way Autommatic "took over" maintenance of a plugin which they depended on that was developed by a competitor, so too could their competitors. The real sticking point is that they won't be able to use the WordPress(tm) trademark, except by reference, without an unlikely shake up of the WordPress Foundation/wordpress.org, so they need to get a critical mass to understand that "GrafSquash(tm)" or whatever is the "new" WordPress with detailed instructions on how to change the update repo for an existing install, for people who are not that invested in the drama. There seems to be plenty of president of forks moving on with a new trademark back in the day with Hudson/Jenkins, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, or Mambo/Joomla and other examples im forgetting.

In fact the OpenOffice v LibreOffice transition is a cautionary tale on the power of branding and trademarks, since IIUC the 2014 version of OpenOffice still has substantial new installs even though it's effectively abandoned, because its well known.

WordPress has such a large installed base it's not credible to me that it could be killed, no matter what nonsense Autommatic gets up to, but it could definitely have a substantial change in how maintenance is funded and its name.

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 13, 2025 21:33 UTC (Mon) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

> It's primarily a brand management and marketing problem, not technical though, right?

Yes. Somebody needs to fork Wordpress, set up a competing organisation, and win the battle for customer support. Which is likely to attract Matt's ire, and quite likely imho to trigger MAD.

We'll see. If we're lucky, the courts will wrest Wordpress.org from Matt on the grounds of fraud, and then let the chips fall where they may ...

Cheers,
Wol

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 12:47 UTC (Sat) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> For this, they demand 8% of gross revenues. To me, that doesn’t sound like a friendly Open Source community but rather like business practices you might find in Sicily

s/Sciily/Everywhere trademarks are a thing (ie everywhere)/

*nothing* in _any_ F/OSS license grants the user free reign to use anyone's trademarks. Indeed, the opposite is usually explicitly the case [0]

There are reasonable arguments about how Automattic's actions are "bad" but coming at this from an "It's open source therefore we are owed X[1]" is _not_ one of them.

[0] Eg the MPL, ASL, and GPL include clauses to this effect
[1] Where X is "anything other than the complete corresponding source code". [2]
[2] Which only applies to copyleft-type licenses [3]
[3] And even then only if one receive binaries

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 11, 2025 12:59 UTC (Sat) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (1 responses)

> s/Sciily/Everywhere trademarks are a thing (ie everywhere)/

Pizza, you're missing the "nice-a business you have-a here. Would-a be a shame-a if anything-a happened to it-a". (You seem to make a habit of that, approving business practices that most people consider bordering on extortion.)

And I think you'll find Auttomatica's demands are based mostly on things that trademark law says are EXPLICITLY PERMITTED. It is an absolutely fundamental requirement of trademark law that - in order to do anything wrong - you start by taking a trademark and using it to describe something that is not the trademarked article. I think you'll find Wordpress has done nothing of the sort.

Cheers,
Wol

Perfect way to kill the project

Posted Jan 12, 2025 12:30 UTC (Sun) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> Pizza, you're missing the "nice-a business you have-a here. Would-a be a shame-a if anything-a happened to it-a".

And you're missing that licensing trademarks after threatening litigation is *business as usual* in most places.

> And I think you'll find Auttomatica's demands are based mostly on things that trademark law says are EXPLICITLY PERMITTED.

That assertion is very much in dispute here, and up for a court to decide.

> In order to do anything wrong - you start by taking a trademark and using it to describe something that is not the trademarked article.

The point of trademarks is to prevent market confusion in a specific field of endeavor. I don't know what fields the Automattic/wordpress.org-held trademarks cover, but it is beyond dispute that WP Engine positions themselves as a direct competitor to Automattic.

> I think you'll find Wordpress has done nothing of the sort.

That's also very much in dispute, and also a matter of a court to decide.