I will concede that my remark about a “smear campaign” is worthless or detrimental to the discussion.
1. The author claims dozens of other companies behave similarly and claims that Matt has not taken any action against them. However, the author makes no claim of what level of contribution to WordPress, cost to Wordpress.org, or any contractual agreements those companies may have with WordPress entities. Multiple companies do pay for trademark licenses. Scale is also an important factor here. Estimates are in the hundreds of millions of revenue for WP Engine. They are one of the largest companies in the ecosystem, of course they should be contributing more than smaller players.
2. The author claims that Matt attempted “extortion” and refused to give WP Engine more time to address his demands. It does seem true that Matt refused to give them more time. However, Matt claims this conversation has been going on for more than a year. A deadline seems appropriate if your counterparty keeps delaying.
3. The author claims that trademark confusion between WordPress and WP Engine is an unfounded concern, citing confusion Shopify and Spotify. This is ludicrous on its face, those companies serve completely different market needs, compared to the WP Engine literally offering the product produced by the trademark holder. The author claims that WordPress.com and WordPress.org is confusing the trademark, but doesn’t state whether WordPress.com has a license to use the trademark.
4. The author claims that Matt’s dissatisfaction with WP Engine’s contribution is unreasonable because there aren’t terms and conditions or a contract. This is missing the point entirely. The point is that good members of the community shouldn’t need to be forced to contribute. If they want to play by the letter of the law, Matt isn’t obligated to provide the free services that their business relies on, just as they aren’t obligated to give back. It cuts both ways, and if they won’t operate in good faith, it is self destructive to continue to enable them.
>2. The author claims that Matt attempted “extortion” and refused to give WP Engine more time to address his demands. It does seem true that Matt refused to give them more time. However, Matt claims this conversation has been going on for more than a year. A deadline seems appropriate if your counterparty keeps delaying.
What would "seem appropriate" would be some form of terms and conditions, or contract, or legal authority that would warrant any of this business about imposing any deadlines or demands of any kind whatsoever, in the first instance. The time isn't Matts to give or not give to begin with.
>The point is that good members of the community shouldn’t need to be forced to contribute.
I think the author was at pains to emphasize through the beginning middle and end of the article that there was such a thing as a right way to make this case. And the problem is weaponizing certain levers at WordPress in ways that raise all kinds of conflict of interest issues, have the potential to cause all kinds of collateral damage, and undermining credibility and integrity of WordPress as a long-term project.
I agree that there is a right way to make this case, but we don’t know if it was already made behind closed doors.
The ultimatum Matt made in the texts highlighted by WP Engine appears short, but it seems unlikely this was the first time Matt brought up these issues.
Even assuming the best was done behind closed doors, isn't it reasonable to WP Engine customers to give them notice of at least a few weeks or months that "unless your host complies, you will lose access to WordPress.org updates"?
If Matt can pull the rug on one host's customers without notice, he can do it again. He has been on streams saying no other host is in the doghouse with Matt, but a week ago almost nobody knew WPE was on thin ice.
If Matt didn't do the reasonable thing to warn WPE customers, what other unreasonable things is he capable of doing in the future?
The "reprieve" of a new Oct 1 deadline is still far from reasonable in my opinion to the point that it is further infuriating that he is using it to virtue signal, though it is at least a tiny start of an implicit acknowledgement that he screwed up. But it's a matter of rebuilding trust in the ecosystem now, and I think Matt is still digging a hole, and this can't be fixed until he apologizes, and the governance of the WordPress.org update server is clarified (best case: out of Matt's hands), or somebody more neutral creates a competing update server, fracturing the ecosystem.
1. The author claims dozens of other companies behave similarly and claims that Matt has not taken any action against them. However, the author makes no claim of what level of contribution to WordPress, cost to Wordpress.org, or any contractual agreements those companies may have with WordPress entities. Multiple companies do pay for trademark licenses. Scale is also an important factor here. Estimates are in the hundreds of millions of revenue for WP Engine. They are one of the largest companies in the ecosystem, of course they should be contributing more than smaller players.
2. The author claims that Matt attempted “extortion” and refused to give WP Engine more time to address his demands. It does seem true that Matt refused to give them more time. However, Matt claims this conversation has been going on for more than a year. A deadline seems appropriate if your counterparty keeps delaying.
3. The author claims that trademark confusion between WordPress and WP Engine is an unfounded concern, citing confusion Shopify and Spotify. This is ludicrous on its face, those companies serve completely different market needs, compared to the WP Engine literally offering the product produced by the trademark holder. The author claims that WordPress.com and WordPress.org is confusing the trademark, but doesn’t state whether WordPress.com has a license to use the trademark.
4. The author claims that Matt’s dissatisfaction with WP Engine’s contribution is unreasonable because there aren’t terms and conditions or a contract. This is missing the point entirely. The point is that good members of the community shouldn’t need to be forced to contribute. If they want to play by the letter of the law, Matt isn’t obligated to provide the free services that their business relies on, just as they aren’t obligated to give back. It cuts both ways, and if they won’t operate in good faith, it is self destructive to continue to enable them.
I’m out of energy to continue, so I’ll stop here.