Wordpress Drama
- Thread starter Forsaken
- Start date
I don't mean super-skilled programmer stuff... I mean that as an end user, XenForo is not suitable for managing articles. It's bare.
digitalpoint
Well-known member
All that would be needed is to call first party addons, “Applications” and third-party addons are still called “Addons”.
That being said…
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
If Xenforo Framework was Notion Like, it could take over the world.
The tiptap editor brags about Notion Like editing, so maybe that would help ?
The tiptap editor brags about Notion Like editing, so maybe that would help ?
Mr Lucky
Well-known member
having sites with both. Wordpress has become a real pain since Gutenberg, you need two plugins just to get editor and widget systems to not rely on the block system.
DragonByte Tech
Well-known member
Delete this immediately or you'll be hearing from my lawyers (5 instances of ChatGPT), eCommerce is my flagship product and you no take candleOh yes add ecommerce product and we're all set
I don’t think we have many aspirations to be Notion-like. Many people have actually started to go off the software itself and the editing experience is far from a unique selling point at this stage.
CedricV
Well-known member
Nah, Matt's going to sue because it's too similar knowing him.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Sim
Well-known member
There are a lot of existing PHP frameworks out there.
Probably the most well established framework is Symfony - which is nothing more than a series of components that you can hook together as the basis for an application. It doesn't even do anything "out of the box" - you need to build the box first! XenForo actually uses a few Symfony components under the covers!
These days I'd say the biggest and most well known framework is Laravel. It's free/open source, but by default only provides the bare bones scaffolding to create an application and provide some basic user registration / login functionality. Laravel also uses quite a few of Symfony's components under the covers. There are forums and CMS systems built on top of Laravel out there - some free, some not.
Yii is another framework that's been around a long time but isn't very well known. The only product I know that uses it is Craft CMS which is very well regarded, but not very well known - it's also relatively expensive, but extremely robust and flexible for building sites. I know of a quite a few businesses that get a lot of work converting WordPress sites over to Craft CMS.
There's plenty of other frameworks beyond those I've listed, but none are very popular these days in my experience. CakePHP is still kicking - but I don't know that anyone would choose it for a new application unless that's all they knew?
Most application developers these days are looking for a back-end framework that allows them to work with their favourite front-end development tools, typically some type of JavaScript UI framework. I'm not sure if a highly "opinionated" commercial framework like XenForo would get that much traction in the broader market - but it's major USP would be how quickly it can facilitate the development of new applications given how much work is already done by the framework.
As a replacement for WordPress though? It wouldn't take much effort for the XF team to build something just as capable but far more flexible than what WP offers. The key will be to have a good library of quality themes for it, to suit a wide variety of use-cases.
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javakhir
Well-known member
TLDR
Active member
It's not about "WP". Or, I mean, now it could be, but I would bet it won't survive a court.
August 2024:
web.archive.org
Now:
wordpressfoundation.org
The "official" claim is that WPE used names for their hosting plan like "WordPress Hosting" and they doctored it so it sounds "official" which is what Automattic claims is a problem. According to the CaD letter.
But apparently, after changing the trademark policy – I might add, over a decade after WPE started its business – the "WP" prefix "can" be a problem now too. Although it isn't trademarked.
---
Apparently, it is even more funny when it holds water what DHH writes:
And of course, Automattic now has an own WP hosting service, Pressable. How bout that.
I feel like this has the potential to get really funny when put to court.
August 2024:
Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
web.archive.org
Now:
Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
wordpressfoundation.org
The "official" claim is that WPE used names for their hosting plan like "WordPress Hosting" and they doctored it so it sounds "official" which is what Automattic claims is a problem. According to the CaD letter.
But apparently, after changing the trademark policy – I might add, over a decade after WPE started its business – the "WP" prefix "can" be a problem now too. Although it isn't trademarked.
---
Apparently, it is even more funny when it holds water what DHH writes:
And of course, Automattic now has an own WP hosting service, Pressable. How bout that.
I feel like this has the potential to get really funny when put to court.
Suzanne O
Well-known member
This.It's not about "WP". Or, I mean, now it could be, but I would bet it won't survive a court.
August 2024:
View attachment 312597Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
Now:
View attachment 312598Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
The "official" claim is that WPE used names for their hosting plan like "WordPress Hosting" and they doctored it so it sounds "official" which is what Automattic claims is a problem. According to the CaD letter.
But apparently, after changing the trademark policy – I might add, over a decade after WPE started its business – the "WP" prefix "can" be a problem now too. Although it isn't trademarked.
---
Apparently, it is even more funny when it holds water what DHH writes:
And of course, Automattic now has an own WP hosting service, Pressable. How bout that.
I feel like this has the potential to get really funny when put to court.
Trademarks need protecting.
Ricsca
Well-known member
It's not about "WP". Or, I mean, now it could be, but I would bet it won't survive a court.
August 2024:
View attachment 312597Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
Now:
View attachment 312598Trademark Policy
The WordPress Foundation owns and oversees the trademarks for the names and logos of WordPress as well as a few other WordPress-related brands. Trademarks are a signifier of a product’s identity an…
The "official" claim is that WPE used names for their hosting plan like "WordPress Hosting" and they doctored it so it sounds "official" which is what Automattic claims is a problem. According to the CaD letter.
But apparently, after changing the trademark policy – I might add, over a decade after WPE started its business – the "WP" prefix "can" be a problem now too. Although it isn't trademarked.
---
Apparently, it is even more funny when it holds water what DHH writes:
And of course, Automattic now has an own WP hosting service, Pressable. How bout that.
I feel like this has the potential to get really funny when put to court.
That's what I've been saying all along... Wp-Engine has been posing as Wordpress since the very beginning... It's not just a simple hosting that has resold custom space for Wordpress.
Globally, Wordpress is recognized as WP (which also has wp.org and wp.com) so in a fight, Wp-Engine gets the worst of it!
So I'm saying from the very beginning that Wp-Engine wasn't in a position to fight since it depends 100% on Wordpres.
That Matt is now acting like a bully is true but the fact remains that he is in a position to do so since Wordpress is his and he's also a millionaire...
MySiteGuy
Well-known member
While I think Automattic (Matt) has handled this poorly, trademarks aren't always about the specific trademarked word/phrase. I think Automattic can make a very compelling case in court if they pursue legal channels.
Having dealt with what (at the time) was a Fortune 10 (yeah, you read that right, not a Fortune 100 but a very big company) in a trademark issue, and seeking help from an experienced IP firm, my understanding is the threshold to be met is if it is "confusingly similar" - ie the public is led to believe or could easily be confused that WP Engine is WordPress, owned by Automattic, etc. In my case, it was an enthusiast community using the larger company's name in my domain (a similar example in the physical world would be, Sony Repair Shop).
And frankly, there's a compelling case (to me) that WP Engine's web site does make it confusingly similar.
https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024_WP_Engine_Style_Guide.pdf - even in their branding guide, they do not take clear steps to say they aren't WordPress, they aren't Automattic (they don't even mention them), and anyone who didn't know there wasn't a relationship might think there was. Its as if they are purposefully avoiding making the distinction - and that version of the page was made after Automattic started pursuing them about licensing.
The only mention that comes close is in small text "Incorrect: WPE (externally), WPEngine, WordPress Engine, wp engine"
Plus, here's evidence they can't run from:
1. The very case study they present on their site, the customer clearly uses the term "WordPress Engine". If a case study client was/is confused, what does that say about others?
2. They themselves call it WordPress engine: https://wpengine.com/blog/all-hands-fall-16/
3. There are only a handful of pages left on the site using "WordPress engine" and it appears over time they've been scrubbing such pages. Wayback Machine, and subpoenas of backups will not bode well for them.
Trademark cases don't care if Matt's been a jerk. They care if the claims meet the thresholds required.
(Edit: fixed my spell checker rewrittng Automattic as Automatic)
Having dealt with what (at the time) was a Fortune 10 (yeah, you read that right, not a Fortune 100 but a very big company) in a trademark issue, and seeking help from an experienced IP firm, my understanding is the threshold to be met is if it is "confusingly similar" - ie the public is led to believe or could easily be confused that WP Engine is WordPress, owned by Automattic, etc. In my case, it was an enthusiast community using the larger company's name in my domain (a similar example in the physical world would be, Sony Repair Shop).
And frankly, there's a compelling case (to me) that WP Engine's web site does make it confusingly similar.
https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024_WP_Engine_Style_Guide.pdf - even in their branding guide, they do not take clear steps to say they aren't WordPress, they aren't Automattic (they don't even mention them), and anyone who didn't know there wasn't a relationship might think there was. Its as if they are purposefully avoiding making the distinction - and that version of the page was made after Automattic started pursuing them about licensing.
The only mention that comes close is in small text "Incorrect: WPE (externally), WPEngine, WordPress Engine, wp engine"
Plus, here's evidence they can't run from:
1. The very case study they present on their site, the customer clearly uses the term "WordPress Engine". If a case study client was/is confused, what does that say about others?
2. They themselves call it WordPress engine: https://wpengine.com/blog/all-hands-fall-16/
3. There are only a handful of pages left on the site using "WordPress engine" and it appears over time they've been scrubbing such pages. Wayback Machine, and subpoenas of backups will not bode well for them.
Trademark cases don't care if Matt's been a jerk. They care if the claims meet the thresholds required.
(Edit: fixed my spell checker rewrittng Automattic as Automatic)
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Mr Lucky
Well-known member
That is all correct I believe, however as there is no clear cut Trademark per se violation (ie if a trademark was logo, font and specific colours) , it becomes a potentially very expensive lawsuit relying on "proof of public confusion."
In those cases if it's big guy with money vs little guy with less money, the little guy is screwed if they can't risk paying for the case and then not even getting costs even if they win. I've been there (as the little guy) and once the big guy bamboozles you with huge swathes of paperwork that costs you more than you can afford to just pay your lawyer to read them, then you have to just give up.
I hope that isn't quite the case here.
TLDR
Active member
If Matt is to be believed, WPE is like similar sized as Automattic.
I think the point that WPE was in part an Automattic venture (until Automattic sold their shares) is really interesting in this case.
Also, the "WP" isn't the point (at least not initially). It is the "WordPress" part. And here is to be determined if they just name the product (which they host) or if it actually is a trademark violation.
MySiteGuy
Well-known member
My hunch is they will easily find many online examples over the years of public confusion, including the example on WP Engine's own website. This includes examples where professionals in the field thought WP Engine was the same company. Even now, I've seen posts on Reddit saying things similar to "until now I thought they were WordPress"
WP Engine is not a little guy, nor backed by little guys. They have deep enough pockets to hire the best as well. They pull in $750 million per year, and have 1,000 employees. At about $850 million per year for Automattic, this is a pretty even match.
There are other ways out, but WP Engine, based on what Matt says (and frankly I believe this part of his story), negotiated in what at the time appeared to be good faith but WP Engine may have actually been trying to run the clock out.
I hope two things:
1. Matt stops doing the awful things he's doing, and reversing course with that, because it's not giving him leverage. It's making him look like a jerk and damaging the WordPress community.
2. Matt prevails with the trademark issue. I think WP Engine has traded off public confusion in a huge way. And their behavior negotiating over the past year lends credit to Matt saying they knew they were violating. Had they really not believed infringement, they'd have told him to go pound sand instead of dragging it along for so long.
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