this post was submitted on 26 Sep 2024
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The blocked resources in question? Automatic security and features updates and plugin/theme repository access. Matt Mullenweg reasserted his claim that this was a trademark issue. In tandem, WordPress.org updated its Trademark Policy page to forbid WP Engine specifically (way after the Cease & Desist): from "you are free to use ['WP'] n any way you see fit" to a diatribe:

The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.

https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/26/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained attempts to provide a full chronology so far.

Edit:

The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also filed to trademark “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers and providers are worried that if these trademarks are granted, they could be used against them.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 1 month ago (4 children)

Would it be wrong to hope they manage to commit some gross act of mutual destruction, and that the outcome would be that I never have to deal with Wordpress ever again?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 month ago (5 children)

That would be great but the reality is that client’s mindsets need to change. I tried to explain to a client that Wordpress is not a good fit for their complex web application and yet they didn’t wanna switch to anything else. People are way too worried about new tech and wanna stick with whatever they know, even if it causes massive problems.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wordpress is not a good fit for their complex web application

Seriously. People want to shove everything into Wordpress then get cranky when you can't make Wordpress into a ecommerce store, marketing platform, personal blog, file sharing service, and NFT marketplace.

And then it gets hacked because they needed 14 SEO plugins, 2 different form plugins, and were not going to pay for managed updates because that's easy they can do it themselves.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you're trying to turn WordPress into an application, for christs sake go use Django, Laravel, or Rails. Don't send a CMS to do an applications' job.

Shit you don't even need a CMS at this point. I moved off WordPress to Hugo and SFTP and i'm happier than a pig in shit. Shit loads fast and no external threats.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wordpress is the Excel of CMSs. It can do just about anything, but at this point it barely manages content well.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

That's a great analogy actually. You can do almost anything with it but what the vast majority of people choose to do with it is wrong.

Just like how people insist on using Excel as a database or Excel as a form.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I haven't done web work for well over a decade and recently was surprised to learn that Wordpress is still very relevant. I remember back then, seeking alternatives as we expected it to become more of a legacy thing a few years down the track, so we were on the lookout for future-proofing client sites with a better foundation. At that point it was a decade old and annoying af because it morphed into a messy way of doing websites because people misused it's original purpose. Brain had to think like a blog and then trick it into doing what you want, kind of like using tables to structure pages before CSS-P saved the day.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

This year I stopped to let my clients pick the CMS. I tell them you wouldn’t ask a carpenter to make a chair, but restrict them to only use metal.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I have off-and-on searched for alternative software for personal blogs that can be self-hosted and it doesn’t seem like there are many options anymore. The only ones I’ve seen are WriteFreely and FlatPress. Are there any other options you’re aware of?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Depends on if you need a CMS, or if you can use a static site generator.

For a CMS, I'm still a fan of Ghost and it has (mostly) not enshittified to the point it's unpleasant to use.

If you don't need the whole CMS thing, there's an awful lot of options. (And hosting them is super simplified since you can just stuff the output into a S3 bucket/Cloudflare Pages/Github Pages/a dozen other providers for basically free.)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (5 children)

There's Contao, Drupal, Blogger, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace...

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Had to use Squarespace for work. Did not enjoy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

That's fair. Interesting how blanket advertising often means the opposite of better.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago

Shopify seems like it was purposely designed to be as dreadful as possible. They seemed to go out of their way to make dumb decisions.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (13 children)

Any suggestions for a free easy to use alternative to wp?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago

Wix was not free when I looked last, I cannot stand using websites that use Shopify.

I will look into some of those others.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Yeah, open source licenses don't entitle you to use trademarks.

This looks pretty bad to me.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 1 month ago (7 children)

WP Engine for WordPress.
That seems to be the commonly accepted solution if you look at other 3rd party trademark cases - situations like "RIF is fun for Reddit" coming to mind.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Like JohnEdwa said, using a trademark to refer to someone else's product is considered nominative fair use: "referencing a mark to identify the actual goods and services that the trademark holder identifies with the mark."

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 month ago (13 children)

They're very obviously using the trademark in a manner that implies endorsement.

That is absolutely trademark infringement.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

What does WP stand for then?

[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I must be old - it's WordPerfect to me.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 month ago

Exactly what I thought. I'd love to sit a young person today in front of that blank blue screen with the blinking cursor. Now, I have to go take my pills before bed.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

WillPeoplenoticethecashgrab

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Wow Matt really looking bad on this one. This just reeks of trying to push out a major business competitor to wordpress.com and abusing control over wordpress.org to do it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 month ago (1 children)

ThePrimeagen invited Matt to explain what's going on.

TL;DW Matt's claim is that he tried to get WP Engine to pay for a Trademark license (or whatever it's called - I'm recalling from watching yesterday), over several months, and they tried to legally block him in every way. Their self-claimed contributions to Wordpress were (as he tells it) that they held conferences where they promoted their own stuff only - code contributions have been minimal.

So the combination of not willing to pay for the trademark + not contributing back (not in code, not in helping the community) is Matt's reasoning for blocking them from using Wordpress' resources.

He also mentioned that he has good relations with other Wordpress hosts, so it's not like he's trying to block anyone else from hosting, but they were all willing to pay for the use of the Trademark (and/or contribute back).

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

This is accurate, but also, "minimal" here is 40 hours of code contributions per week compared to Automattic's near-4000. Additionally, WP Engine is the biggest Wordpress.com competitor.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

The open-source side of WordPress is pretty pissed off at Matt right now. The Slack is heavily downvoting/disliking all of this.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Wordpress is a security hole anyway, use something else if you have to use plugins for your usecase.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

Just not Drupal. Its still pretty bad.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 month ago

Hopefully this spurs Automaticc to put more attention into the fediverse. With Tumblr moving to use Wordpress code that could bring all tumblr blogs to the fediverse and get more programmers and resources interested

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (18 children)

Fuck WordPress, but also it kinda sounds like WordPress is more in the right here.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

greymatter blog superiority

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