More thoughts on WordPress: manton.org
WordPress is literally in WP Engine’s name! It’s not exactly like if my platform was named Hugo.blog instead of Micro.blog, because we use Hugo behind the scenes, but it’s not far from that either.
Still not a bad idea. They could even call it WPE or simply Blog.Engine. I generally support Matt in this whole affair, but a strategic question, forking it would simply be a straightforward “fine, take the house in the divorce but I keep the kids (read: users).”
@lukemperez Yeah, it would be a major rebranding effort, but I think worth it. It’s not great for a business to depend on any one company.
@manton especially if your company built its entire biz without understanding the underlying trademark and the possible implications. I’ve tried to avoid paying too much attention to the drama here, but I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone call out WP Engine for not doing rudimentary due diligence.
@rscottjones The trademark policy on WordPress.org literally said they weren’t claiming “WP”. The language calling out WP in the name was only added in the last month, and I think that’s contributing to the “rug pull” feel.
@manton To be clear, I’m not in any way saying that they should - just that I can see it as a possibility!
@oddevan well if that’s true, I think it makes my point, as a 3 second trademark search shows that Wordpress Foundation owns the trademark—not Wordpress.org—years before WPEngine existed. Presumably they acquired some documentation at the time to ensure they wouldn’t run into a trademark situation.
@oddevan @scott Add to that, Automattic funded WP Engine in 2011—See the bottom of this page https://automattic.com/ventures/ —and then sold their stake to Silver Lake in 2018 —https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/04/wp-engine-a-managed-wordpress-platform-raises-250m-from-silver-lake/
Why were they OK with the "WP" part of the name during that time, but not now? Will other companies/projects also need to license "WP"?
Automattic, etc. obviously controls the trademark and can do whatever they want, but as Evan mentions, they explicitly called out "WP" as being OK only a few weeks ago