Comment by graeme
1 day ago
The threat was to "go nuclear". Among other things
* Start a smear campaign
* block people from wordpress.org unless they ticked a loyalty checkbox stating they weren't affiliated with wpengine
* Take over and null Advanced Custom Fields, a WPengine plugin
* Block wpengine from wordpress.org, which is baked into wordpress, refuse to name a price for access, refuse to allow development of any alternate plugin hosting system
* Ban wordpress.org accounts of anyone who spoke up in favour of wpengine
* Start specific campaigns to poach wpengine clients
* start a website listing the staging urls of all wpengine customers and cite which ones left wpengine
I'm sure I've forgotten some things. The deal with extortion is you may have a legal ability to request money you are not legally entitled to. You may have a legal ability to take certain actions. But what is often not legal is threatening to take certain otherwise legal actions UNLESS you are paid money you are not legally entitled to.
The extortion claim was dismissed as the judge found there's no civil extortion tort under California law. California prosecutors haven't seen fit to file charges, so no formal proceeding.
But you're being rather blithe in your description.
If we're listing them in detail personally I think one of the most offensive (though least commercially relevant) offenses was to attempt to use public resources, the trademark owned by a 501c3 charity, fraudulently transferred back to Matt, to extort them. Both since that's obviously fucking wrong, and they were already only making nominative use of the trademark (i.e. using it to refer to WordPress's product) which they have a free speech right to do.
This was all shitty behavior.
But WP Engine was equally shitty (even if it's "legal" - OSI purism has no sense of justice) to steal his company's lunch, from their decades of hard work, and contribute absolutely nothing back.
Again, it reeks of the same foul behavior we see from the hyperscalers.
Just to be clear, by “steal his company’s lunch” you mean “use software his company published in the manner specified by that software’s license,” right? It’s a funny definition of theft.
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But them behaving badly (or not; I don’t know enough here to agree or disagree) isn’t the legal issue. Matt is in court for allegedly harming WPE’s business in violation of law and contracts, which has monetary damages WPE can seek to recover.
If you call me names, you’re misbehaving and should be called out for it. If I retaliate by knocking over your fence and spraypainting your cat, you get to sue me even though you were the one who behaved poorly, but legally, to start with.
TL;DR Matt claims WPE acted unethically, which is shameful. WPE claims Matt tried to ruin their business, in ways they say are illegal.
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It's not equally shitty. Actively lying or smearing someone else is at least one level above freeloading on shittiness. WPE has explicit permission to freeload. No one gives explicit permission to drag their name through mud. Sorry, "both sides" won't cut it here.
I don't agree that WPE's behavior was shitty (as already discussed), let alone "equally" shitty. Even if I did though, so what? Two wrongs don't make a right. Shitty behavior doesn't justify someone else's lying/cheating/extorting/defaming/... Even criminals, real ones who have done far worse things than anything that happens in a business dispute, have the right to seek recourse via the legal system.
> and contribute absolutely nothing back.
Absolutely nothing besides:
- contributions, bug and security fixes to the core codebase
- the creation of multiple plugins which were free to use (though some had a premium offering)
- the contribution of at a minimum several hundred thousand dollars a year on event and other sponsorship, including for events they were banned from attending, had all mention removed (and in one case, Matt stood on a stage and spat venom at them for 45 minutes).
"Absolutely nothing" indeed.
Would you care to disclose your identity?
The last time I encountered someone making these points, they had a financial bias. Is that true for you?