Tough, but that's business [LWN.net]

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 5:58 UTC (Tue) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

And both parties can lose tremendous goodwill. Mutual Assured Destruction.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 6:37 UTC (Tue) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't think so. When your IP is what amounts to public infrastructure and you allow basically anybody to use it, discrimination against any one entity can and probably (IANAL and all that) will be construed as unfair business practice.

And sorry but if blocking a single company from updates and kicking out their widely-used ACF plugin isn't unfair practice, I don't know what else that term should mean.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 14:02 UTC (Tue) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

If nothing else, these actions would deny them the protection of being a 'mere conduit' for the purpose of the digital services act.

Whether there's actually any legal recourse is a different question.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 8:16 UTC (Tue) by taladar (subscriber, #68407) [Link]

A competing company losing access to the infrastructure is one thing. Banning anyone who merely asks for clarification on that new checkbox seems incredibly self-destructive though.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 13:44 UTC (Tue) by raven667 (subscriber, #5198) [Link]

That's not dissimilar to the relationship between IBM/Redhat and Oracle, and a lot of people have taken exception to even the mild case of consolidating patches in kernel RPMs, let alone blocking a community member, instituting a loyalty test and expropriating their code.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 15, 2024 15:14 UTC (Tue) by Paf (subscriber, #91811) [Link]

Given the way the dispute is being handled is hugely impacting the open source project and its users, I think I have to disagree. There’s a corporate dispute but it’s a dispute centered on an open source project.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 9:37 UTC (Thu) by davidgerard (guest, #100304) [Link] (6 responses)

No, it's absolutely about open source. If WP Engine vanished into dust tomorrow, Mullenweg would still be the guy who'd messed with the central essential repository for the project, supposedly run by an independent 501(c)3, purely for personal business advantage, and kicking out project contributors for questioning him.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 11:59 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (5 responses)

> Mullenweg would still be the guy who'd messed with the central essential repository for the project, supposedly run by an independent 501(c)3, purely for personal business advantage, and kicking out project contributors for questioning him.

You're confusing "Software" with the "Service" of providing software.

Absent a contract stating otherwise, *nobody* is owed *anything* beyond the source code they have in their hands *right now*. They are not entitled to new versions of said software. They are not entitled to add-ons ("plugins", "themes", etc) written by other people. They are not entitled to have their own add-ons or software hosted by someone else, for free. They are not entittled to a collaboration platform provided by someone else, for free. See where I'm going here?

They are free to create their own modified version of that software. They are not entitled to give it the same name (due to trademark law).

Ultimately the only property right is the right to exclude others from what is legally yours. Mullenweg is fully within his legal (and moral!) rights to do what he is doing for (nearly) any reason whatsoever.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 13:28 UTC (Thu) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link] (4 responses)

> Mullenweg is fully within his legal (and moral!) rights

Have you heard of estoppel?

Have you heard of breaking your promises?

Everything seems to have gone quiet on the lawsuit front, but basically that's the essence of the lawsuit - that Mullenweg knowingly mislead other people in the ecosystem, and that he broke a whole bunch of promises. That's definitely not moral.

There's also the allegation he was running the 50?1?3?(c) for his own personal benefit, which is or should be illegal.

Okay, you never know how a lawsuit is going to go, but that one appears to have legs ...

If someone can launch a CREDIBLE lawsuit against you, I would hesitate to describe you as "fully within your rights" ...

Cheers,
Wol

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 13:39 UTC (Thu) by jzb (editor, #7867) [Link]

Things are not entirely quiet on the lawsuit front. WPE is seeking a shorter timeline for emergency relief, and Automattic/Mullenweg have until 30 October to file opposition to the motion for preliminary injunction. There are some additional filing deadlines with a hearing set for 26 November on the preliminary injunction. That might be worth covering when it happens, we'll see. AFAIK (and it's possible I've missed something) Automattic still hasn't filed any sort of counter-suit.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 14:14 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link] (2 responses)

> Have you heard of estoppel?
> Have you heard of breaking your promises?

"I revoke permission for you to use my property" does not rise to the level of estoppel.

Meanwhile, a "promise" is not a legally binding contract.

> There's also the allegation he was running the 50?1?3?(c) for his own personal benefit, which is or should be illegal.

Key word -- Allegation. The truth of that is for the courts to decide, if anyone cares enough to file suit over that issue.

> If someone can launch a CREDIBLE lawsuit against you, I would hesitate to describe you as "fully within your rights" ...

*shrug* At the end of the day, absent a written contract to the contrary (which doesn't appear to exist, or they'd be waving it around from the yardarm) nobody has any inherent right to indefinitely receive any services from wordpress.org, or its owner, for free or otherwise.

F/OSS (and the GPLv2 specifically in this instance) grants you the right to use/alter the software you have in your hands right now, nothing more. No warranty, no support, no updates, no hosting/collaboration platform, nothing. And nobody has attempted to take that away from any wordpress user (or hoster).

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 16:21 UTC (Thu) by smurf (subscriber, #17840) [Link] (1 responses)

> "I revoke permission for you to use my property" does not rise to the level of estoppel.
> Meanwhile, a "promise" is not a legally binding contract.

Well. Not in general, no. But in this case?

In the Real World, if you have allowed people for *years* to, say, freely cross your property in order to get from A to B, suddenly erecting a roadblock is legally questionable, esp. if the roadblock only applies to people with green eyes.

Also in this case (blocking access to a service, not a road) there's an implied promise of No Roadblocks, which can be inferred from the fact that the property in question belongs to a tax-exempt entity that's been created with the explicit purpose of providing said access.

Tough, but that's business

Posted Oct 24, 2024 16:53 UTC (Thu) by pizza (subscriber, #46) [Link]

> > Meanwhile, a "promise" is not a legally binding contract.
> Well. Not in general, no. But in this case?

In this case? Still no.

> In the Real World, if you have allowed people for *years* to, say, freely cross your property in order to get from A to B, suddenly erecting a roadblock is legally questionable,

Unless there is an "public right of way" on said property, still no. This can be explicit (ie listed on the deed) or implicit (due to some law that requires it). Neither applies in this case.

> Also in this case (blocking access to a service, not a road) there's an implied promise of No Roadblocks,

No such promise existed. Again, they are not obligated to provide these services to the public at large, or anybody they choose to not associate with [1] [2].

> which can be inferred from the fact that the property in question belongs to a tax-exempt entity that's been created with the explicit purpose of providing said access.

Except... that's not the case here. But even if it was, that still doesn't mean they are legally obligated to provide access to everyone, for free, in perpetuity.

Mind you, I'm not saying that Mullenweg's actions are necessarily _wise_, but legally speaking, it is his [near-]absolute legal right to do so.

[1] Except where law demands -- eg if providing a service to the public as a whole, one can't deny service based on race, gender, and a handful of other legally protected classes. Eye color is not one of them.
[2] I routinely block large swaths of the internet from accessing my internet-facing servers/services. I've also removed/blocked individual accounts numerous times. Should I not be allowed to do this?