WPEngine, Inc. vs. Automattic– Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69221176/64/wpengine-inc-v-automattic-inc/

by kbarmettler • 2 years ago

433 158 2 years ago

minimaxir2• 2 years ago

Yes, they did use Matt's Hacker News comments against him. (p24)

The more relevant outcome of WPEngine getting the injuction is in Section F (p40), which includes removing that WordPress login checkbox.

talldayo• 2 years ago

I feel like photomatt's comments are going to be enshrined in the same way the Dropbox one was. He talked up such a huge game but everyone knew he was in the wrong - we need to intercept cocky executives before they incriminate themselves in media res.

kbarmettler2• 2 years ago

I agree if we're talking from the perspective of his lawyers. From the wordpress community perspective, I think we benefited from Matt's extraordinary outspokenness here. It made all the bad acts very easy to bullet point in this injunction!

speckx• 2 years ago

Curious as to what was the Dropbox comment? Can you please share or link? Thanks!

fabianhjr• 2 years ago

we need to intercept cocky executives before they incriminate themselves in media res.

Please don't, just let them.

Never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.

Brian_K_White• 2 years ago

Why intercept them? I don't want douchebags like that to succeed in their douchebaggery. I want them to mouth off.

unsnap_biceps• 2 years ago

Matt hasn't commented here in 57 days. I wonder what changed from, paraphrased, my lawyer okayed this communication[1] and now.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41726961

legitster5• 2 years ago

https://ma.tt/2024/10/first-amendment/

The lawyer thing was hilarious. Someone actually claiming to be his lawyer was on the HN threads and anytime he was asked a question the response was a version of "Oh, I hadn't heard about this. I can't answer that."

ivraatiems3• 2 years ago

Almost certainly the lawyer either A) did NOT ok it, B) OK'd it and then realized that was a huge mistake and reneged, C) was replaced by a different lawyer who made it very clear it was an awful idea.

Matt is pretty clearly a terrible client from a client control perspective. He's simply not good at doing anything but exactly what he wants to do.

As I have said elsewhere, he is now in this situation solely due to his own actions, having gained almost nothing and lost a lot. He'll lose more if this goes to trial.

marcus_holmes2• 2 years ago

Given the amount of downvotes his comments attract, I wouldn't be at all surprised that he just behaved like a normal human and decided to stop posting on a site where everyone seems to disagree with him.

Havoc• 2 years ago

Pretty sure everyone except Matt saw that one coming

legitster5• 2 years ago

TL;DR: This is a huge verdict against Automattic. To get an injunction like this is a really high bar - you have to prove that you have a winnable case AND that you/the public is actively being harmed right now and it can't wait until trial.

The injunction covers almost everything relevant - returning ACF, taking down the website tracker, removing the checkbox, etc. Basically return everything as it was before Matt became a supervillain the day of Wordcamp.

pclmulqdq3• 2 years ago

This is a huge sign that the case against Matt is a slam dunk. The writing in injunctions like this is indicative of the court's thinking based on the pleadings, and they have basically regurgitated the complaint while adding on more evidence from Matt being an ass on social media, which suggests that the judge has a strong preference.

FireBeyond2• 2 years ago

Right - not just a preliminary injunction but basically the Court dismisses basically every argument put forth by Automattic in all even claims as "not withstanding scrutiny", "not supported by evidence", and "a consequence of their own actions". Throughout the document, there is -very- little that says Automattic's defense to any of this has any substance.

DannyBee2• 2 years ago

Uh, yeah, and in fact, the judge found likelihood of success on the tortuious interference claim which basically never happens, and so didn't bother to deal with the unfair competition part.

That's remarkably bad for Automattic - tortuious interference is often a throwaway claim.

The judge here clearly does not think much of Automattic's positions.

I wonder if Neal found the merit yet[1].

[1] https://automattic.com/2024/10/03/meritless/

flootz• 2 years ago

I don't know if Neal has found the merit yet, but Automattic seems to be losing their company lawyers at a pace of one per week since a couple of months ago. That seems a pretty good indicator of where the legal department of the company sees things going towards.

adgjlsfhk1• 2 years ago

Automattic made the unusual choice of publishing a blog saying "We did a tortuous interference intentionally" which makes it a lot easier.

jcranmer3• 2 years ago

Here, Mullenweg’s “statement that he had the right to disable WPEngine’s account access and to make changes to the ACF plugin for the sake of public safety[,]” see Opp. at 27-28, is belied by the declarations of WPEngine’s executives stating that the claimed vulnerability was minor [...]

@photomatt literally screwed himself over by talking about his actions here, when everyone was screaming at him to shut the fuck up. Will he start listening now?

In short, what this injunction does is a) remove the checkbox, b) return ACF to WPEngine, c) restore access to website, d) no bond required.

chris_wot5• 2 years ago

I'm not sure how many people (including myself) told him to stop talking about the case on Hacker News. He never listened.

mikae1• 2 years ago

Wasn't it good that he kept talking though? Sorry for being crass, but I'd prefer him loosing this case.

michaelcampbell2• 2 years ago

Like every dictator, he knows better than you, me or anyone. If you don't believe that, just ask him.

perihelions• 2 years ago

Here's the HN thread that's an exhibit in this court filing (screenshot on page 24),

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821336#41821399 ("Secure Custom Fields by WordPress.org (wordpress.org)")

josefresco• 2 years ago

When does ACF return to WP Engine? Still looks like it's under the control of "WordPress.org" https://wordpress.org/plugins/advanced-custom-fields/

RegnisGnaw2• 2 years ago

within 72 hours..

bravetraveler3• 2 years ago

Tried to get bond for an amount covering bills for two years; lol. This gives me more hope than most things I've read lately

bawolff3• 2 years ago

Makes you wonder if they really thought that would work. I guess it never hurts to shoot for the moon.

bravetraveler3• 2 years ago

+1, something about landing among the stars. I think Matt wanted to be one; this had a very astroturf feel - making himself the champion... and now, lol. But I repeat myself!

digitalPhonix• 2 years ago

I sort of wish the court did a hand wavy estimate of the marginal cost of providing service to WPEngine (Automattic was claiming the bond was to cover the cost of service) and ordered a bond of something like $0.01

jcranmer3• 2 years ago

This is the preliminary injunction, which needs to be issued relatively quickly to preserve the status quo for the litigation, so the court isn't going to ask for anything it doesn't already have. Automattic only asked for covering the total cost of website hosting, which was clearly too high, so the court didn't have sufficient information to be able to make any reasonable estimate.

rglover2• 2 years ago

Rooted in speculation about why this meltdown occurred in the first place: be very careful about taking money, as well as the amount and who from. My guess from day one is that Matt was put under pressure from investors and this was the only "fix" he saw.

A real shame to see such a great legacy flushed for zero ROI.

lolinder4• 2 years ago

I've often wondered if his emphasis on how private equity was ruining WordPress was him telegraphing his frustration with his own investors at Black Rock while technically abiding by his contract with them. It's interesting to consider that his performance could have been a type of malicious compliance with their demands—going so far overboard that he intentionally destroys the whole ecosystem as a kind of revenge.

It's probably more likely he just went nuts, but it's fun as a head canon.

bravetraveler3• 2 years ago

As amusing as that thought is... I think he could have done that without misrepresenting [the 'contracts' of] open source software so readily.

He stood to gain from this little knife twist, we all may still lose. Who knows what misconceptions were born/the downstream effects. WPEngine was never under any obligation to Matt himself/Automattic/WordPress/the Foundation [whatever distinction - if any - that may offer!]... outside of the license.

I don't believe it's a question of distance overboard, it started there! To quote Kendrick: "colonizer"

legitster5• 2 years ago

his own investors at Black Rock

Blackrock does not at all operate the same as a private equity and it's a huge pet peeve of mine when people lump them in together. Usually they are confusing Blackrock with Blackstone.

All Blackrock does is manage wealth and investments on behalf of individual clients. One of the ways they do this is by sticking private assets into funds for their clients. It's more akin to Vanguard than anything to do with private equity. There's no reason to believe BlackRock would be breathing down their necks when all they do is broker the funds on behalf of their clients.

Automattic DOES have private equity backers though like Tiger Global, Insight, ICONIQ, and more.

myst1c2• 2 years ago

No, Matt is just a classic CEO exhibiting symptoms of narcissist personality disorder who's now getting served in court and doesn't realise how much he earned it.

rglover2• 2 years ago

Sure seems like it.

legitster5• 2 years ago

Matt went on a Youtube channel last week to partake in a Wordpress speed building challenge, and he got frustrated several times using his own product: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqY5bje8D2o

He spent years squashing anyone who complained about Gutenberg, and then he calls WPEngine a cancer and accuses them of offering an inferior version. All to find out that he's not even familiar!

taytus• 2 years ago

I would say, negative ROI at this point.

wlonkly2• 2 years ago

Matt has claimed[1] before to be "post-economic", i.e. has enough money that it doesn't matter to him anymore. It's hard not to see this as personal, not financial.

[1] https://x.com/sereedmedia/status/1839394786622722432

chx• 2 years ago

had

WPEngine (and a horde of Emanuel Urquhart lawyers led by Rachel Kassabian) are taking him to the cleaners. This won't be pretty. A preliminary injunction is not easy to get, it's really likely WPEngine will win at least something.

xnx2• 2 years ago

It's hard not to see this as personal, not financial.

Despite not needing the money, Matt seemed to be very upset that WPEngine was making money.

hooverd• 2 years ago

In terms of cognitive impairment that's like being kicked in the head by a horse every day.

avree• 2 years ago

That was before he made tons of horrible angel investments - https://pitchbook.com/profiles/investor/106035-94#exits you can see how many of his portfolio are out of business or near death.

bawolff3• 2 years ago

That sounds like what every person pretending to be rich but isn't as rich as they claim to be, says.

ookblah2• 2 years ago

I dunno, I mean he could have applied the "fix" in a more cold and calculated method. Tons of PE companies out here doing the same and squeezing the stone without resorting to random personal attacks of those they disagreed with. Everything just had this air of pettiness to it instead.

wmf• 2 years ago

The difference between an MBA and a hacker who lucked into a profitable business.

pessimizer• 2 years ago

I think this is fair. I think wordpress had every right to cut WPEngine off, but

1) the fact that subbing in his fork of their plugin killed already purchased "pro" user features without warning was an illegitimate attack on the "pro" customers themselves (who probably have a case against him personally),

2) the pretense that he was doing it for "security reasons" because there was an exploit (every single part of everything about wordpress has an exploit in a random month) shows that he thought he was doing something unjustifiable; he should have been clear and open about why he was forking, and not do anything that broke people's installs, and

3) the behind-the-scenes harassment was just over the top. He should have just made his demand, and when they turned it down, sent a follow up explaining how he was going to cut off access so they could coordinate doing it cleanly. Instead he was intentionally optimizing for chaos and saying this in private communications over and over again.

He could have done almost all of the same things, and just refused to update "pro" users to the fork and instead refer them to WPEngine's alternative setup. Instead he ranted and raved ominously behind the scenes, trying to make it as clear as possible that this was extortion when in essence it wasn't. It was all of the fake snarkiness in public and in private, attempts to poach employees, threats to destroy the company, and insinuations of security problems that made it extortion.

WPE is going to win this because Mullenweg seemingly has no ability to emotionally self-regulate. Real teenage swatter vibes. And I think he was in the right, and I think that without all of the crap, they'd probably have backed down and started contributing.

They'll probably end up getting a remedy where he has to help them set up and maintain their alternative plugin directory, he might have to pay them damages, and he might even end up having to allow everyone use of the mark freely. Then what does he have? He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

FireBeyond2• 2 years ago

the pretense that he was doing it for "security reasons" because there was an exploit (every single part of everything about wordpress has an exploit in a random month) shows that he thought he was doing something unjustifiable

Not to mention the threats posted online to other plugin developers, "we can and will find an exploit in your plugin and do exactly the same to you if we want" indicated it had very little to do with security. I'm sure he had Automattic employees pulled onto finding even the most trivial of exploits just to be able to do this.

they'd probably have backed down and started contributing

WPE contributes probably in the seven digit a year range to WP. The very conference that Matt went "nuclear" at was sponsored by WPE to the tune of $75K (and for insult on injury, they were denied the ability to attend, and I believe all references to them were removed, but the money was kept).

InsomniacL• 2 years ago

I think wordpress had every right to cut WPEngine off

Even though wordpress.org is built/maintained by volunteers such as WPEngine who were all told it's a "community asset", "nobody owns it but wordpress", "it's maintained by the foundation".

Volunteers who now find out from court documents that wordpress.org is the personal website of Matt who can do whatever he wants with it?

Volunteers who are now banned from the thing they helped build for simply voicing disagreement with actions which are accepted by most as extreme/unwarranted?

Even volunteers who work on WordPress (not w.org), who built in to the Core reliance on w.org infrastructure after being lied to that it's owned by the Foundation.

I think in this specific case, they have absolutely no right and the injunction supports that.

onli• 2 years ago

The explanations in the injunction with regards to clients' contracts of wpengine does not read like he ever had any right to cut wpengine off. And his argument about how trademarks somehow gave him a right to ask for money from a wp hoster was never valid. I don't think he ever had a right to cut off wpengine, neither legally nor ethically. The case will be a complete loss for WordPress, and matts statements probably didn't even change that all that much, they just make the decision easier and add additional charges to lose, like the blatant extortion.

(It's thinkable to ask for money from entities accessing the plugin registry, making it a paid api. But not a fee from a company just for using a Foss software. The license doesn't allow that.)

snowwrestler• 2 years ago

I hope Matt considers placing all the community resources of Wordpress into the foundation, including Wordpress.org, constituting an actual board, contributing funds, and setting up a governance and contribution system that matches the open ethos of the license and community.

I think this is an area that Drupal gets right, and Dries wrote an interesting post about it in October:

https://dri.es/solving-the-maker-taker-problem

recursivegirth• 2 years ago

This is pretty on the nose considering Matt's latest blog post[1]. I feel for Matt in some regard, and I do think the lawsuit sets a precedent that OSS developers are required to provide software with warranty. However, I say that with not fully understanding the seperation of actions between Automattic the company and Matt in his own personal capacity.

[1] https://ma.tt/2024/12/drupalcon-singapore/

duskwuff2• 2 years ago

I do think the lawsuit sets a precedent that OSS developers are required to provide software with warranty

1) This is a preliminary injunction, not a decision. An injunction which resets a situation to the former status quo pending a decision isn't all that unusual.

2) I don't think the issue here is so much a "warranty" as much as that Automattic (et al) set out to discriminate against WPEngine to obtain a business advantage. If Automattic wanted to shut down the WordPress plugin repository entirely, they'd be within their rights to do so. (It'd be business suicide, of course - but the point is that they could.)

kmeisthax2• 2 years ago

and I do think the lawsuit sets a precedent that OSS developers are required to provide software with warranty

If Matt hadn't tried to extort WP Engine he would have been perfectly within his right to say "large hosts have to pay to use the WordPress plugin directory". The injunction is purely about one specific company who was allegedly harmed by Automattic.

jcranmer3• 2 years ago

I do think the lawsuit sets a precedent that OSS developers are required to provide software with warranty.

Not really. The court order is to restore things to the status quo of 3 months ago, to require that Matt undo all of the things he specifically had to single out to do to fuck over WPEngine. If Matt hadn't specifically singled out WPEngine, and instead decided to stop providing the website to everybody, there wouldn't have been much of a case anyone could bring.

However, I say that with not fully understanding the seperation of actions between Automattic the company and Matt in his own personal capacity.

As I understand it, everything Wordpress is Matt in three trenchcoats. Certainly, that's how he's pushing it in his defense filings in this lawsuit.

junon• 2 years ago

OSS developers are required to provide software with warranty

This injunction is against WPcom (a for profit entity) and not WPorg. Matt conducted tortious interference. This sets zero precedent on OSS maintainers.

throw16180339• 2 years ago

However, I say that with not fully understanding the seperation of actions between Automattic the company and Matt in his own personal capacity.

Automattic and the Wordpress Foundation are both Matt's to use as he sees fit. There isn't a meaningful distinction between him and his organizations.

eXpl0it3r• 2 years ago

I don't see this happening, as it would de-throne Matt and Matt hasn't shown any "remorse", any understanding of him being the issue and that there's a clear conflict of interest. No, in fact he keeps doubling down [1] on claiming that all of his/Automattic's efforts are happening for the good of open source and the community.

[1] https://x.com/automattic/status/1866644684057248090

godzillabrennus• 2 years ago

Agreed. Matt thinks he is solely responsible for this cafelog fork taking over so much of the Internet… he needs some humble pie…

stonogo• 2 years ago

Advocating, in other words, the creation of a sort of

Automattic for the People

jzb• 2 years ago

He would argue that Matty got a raw deal.

sonofhans2• 2 years ago

Bravo. I haven’t listened to that record for ages. Thank you!

softwaredoug• 2 years ago

Matt honestly seems unaware this is how it’s done in many projects. I even asked him about it and he responded with “when has that ever been successful”

https://x.com/softwaredoug/status/1862510030571860017?mx=2

ivraatiems3• 2 years ago

As much as the US justice system is deeply, deeply flawed, it is one of the few places where very wealthy people ever hit the "find out" stage after fucking around. Some recent examples, apart from this case, certainly include SBF going to prison, Elon Musk being forced to buy Twitter, Alex Jones' enormous civil judgment, and so on.

I'm not saying I have faith in the system, exactly, especially when it tends to only do this at the behest of other very wealthy people demanding it, but it is nice to see.

Matt Mullenweg, if you're reading this (and we know you read HN), feel free to not listen to your attorneys and continue to attack random individuals and companies randomly because you decide you don't like them, or whatever. It will surely end well for you and definitely not with more massive own goals like this one. (And if you are Matt Mullenweg's attorney, and reading this because he decided to follow my bad advice instead of your good advice, well, I'm happy to take a steak dinner in appreciation of the massive bill you'll soon be sending him.)

tofof• 2 years ago

Alex Jones' loss of infowars has been rejected by the judge, who seems intent on handing it to the assets Jones transferred to his parents to shield them instead. You might want to reevaluate.

ivraatiems3• 2 years ago

That's not an accurate description of what happened, and in any case, I was referring to the massive approximately $1 billion judgement against Jones, which isn't going anywhere regardless.

anonymousab2• 2 years ago

Matt's attorney - or someone claiming to be him - was saying that Matt is in the right and everything he's posted since the start was cleared by him. On here and on Twitter.

That jives with Matt's claims that his lawyers were on board with all of his nonsense (and now, probably legally incriminating!) posts. But it could also have just been someone LARPing.

echoangle6• 2 years ago

Since Matt was personally commenting in the threads, I think he would have made a comment saying that the person claiming to be his lawyer isn't actually his lawyer.

kmeisthax2• 2 years ago

In almost every example you cited, the very wealthy people were also very stupid and violated bedrock principles of the court system in a way that could not be swept under the rug. Specifically:

- Elon Musk put it in writing that he was going to buy Twitter with no due diligence. Contracts are nine tenths of the law; no court in the world is going to get you out of one because the biggest value the court system has to the wealthy is contract enforcement.

- Alex Jones never actually argued the merits of the defamation case against him. He didn't even show up to court. Judges have wide latitude to rule against people who don't show up to defend their cases, because otherwise nobody would be dumb enough to actually defend themself in a (neutral) court of law.

- One of the few things US law can actually still protect you against is all the classic failure modes of banks and investments, both because the wealthy demand protection for their wealth and because the less-wealthy have been fleeced by investment fraud for so long that the list of memestock victims includes Issac Newton. SBF did the one kind of financial crime that the system actually cares about[0].

Today's system is corrupt on the margins: it needs to at least provide the appearance of impartiality, because the wealthy still rely on it being an impartial arbitrator of competing interests. In 1500s England, wealthy people didn't get divorces, they got annulments, where they paid a priest to go squint at Bible verses and find something to explain why the marriage was spiritually invalid. The wealthy person gets to sidestep the rules, but only if someone can find their desired loophole. Sometimes, they can't.

And then sometimes a Henry VIII comes along, tries to have it both ways, gets told no, says "fuck that, I'm the church now", and completely replaces the partially corrupt system with a completely corrupt one. Matt Mullenweg seems to be playing at the same bit, doing ideological purges of Automattic and such; but he doesn't own the WordPress community, and he doesn't own the law.

Enjoy it while it lasts, because it might not survive convicted felon / ex-President / President-Elect Donald Trump, depending on how many of Big Tech's Henry VIIIths come running to Trump for protection from countries that actually enforce their antitrust laws.

[0] This also goes for Martin Shkreli; whose first criminal charge was for running a Ponzi scheme, not for jacking up the cost of generic drugs to exploit FDA regulations on sole-supplier drugs.

jjulius2• 2 years ago

He didn't even show up to court.

Yes he did, under oath, and he didn't do so well - he was caught lying about evidence during his testimony, and famously admitted that he knew that the shooting wasn't staged.

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/08/03/alex-jones-trial-def...

ookblah2• 2 years ago

I stopped following it for a bit after the initial drama after Matt had repeated meltdowns and showed his true face in all of this. It was just tiring try to fight all the non-stop gaslighting which was probably part of the strategy. Any leg he had to stand on was betrayed by his tantrums. Good to see some movement.

chris_wot5• 2 years ago

Defendants’ arguments in opposition do not persuade otherwise. They assert that “[t]he public is not, and will not, be subject to any harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction” noting that WPEngine implemented a workaround for Mullenweg’s interference with its access to WordPress. Opp. at 33. Not so. In his reply declaration, Prabhakar explains that the temporary solution “is impractical for many reasons.” Prabhakar Reply Decl. ¶ 4. Without access to wordpress.org, those who use WPEngine’s plugins “would not know that their plugins require update[.]” Id. Many do not know how to update plugins manually. Id. For those that do, if they manage several websites, and those websites run multiple plugins, the process of performing manual updates would be too onerous and time consuming to be workable. Id. Moreover, even if WPEngine’s workaround did not present the difficulties Prabhakar describes, the costs associated with its implementation, as necessitated by Mullenweg’s conduct, supports the issuance of injunctive relief.

Ouch. The court is basically saying that they need to implement the preliminary injunction for the wider public good. Rather puts the lie to several assertions by Mullenweg.

In fact, it's not at all looking good for Mullenweg or Automattic.

valunord• 2 years ago

It feels as if Automattic doesn't do a complete paradigm shift and become truly open with their software everyone is going to give up on them entirely - at least everyone with significant talent and investment.

anon7000• 2 years ago

I agree with you that Automattic needs a paradigm shift (massive leadership change, probably), but I don’t think the openness of their software is the problem.

Just because they have a huge number of OSS projects. Most of it is open source, even things that really don’t see 3rd party contributions (like https://github.com/Automattic/vip-go-mu-plugins, https://github.com/Automattic/wp-calypso, https://github.com/Automattic/redvelvet-lib, https://github.com/Automattic/newspack-plugin, https://github.com/Automattic/pocket-casts-ios)

Automattic has other issues (leadership, especially!!) but software development happens largely in the open. Just look at the GH issues and PRs in the WP-calypso and Gutenberg repositories, and you’ll see even a lot of technical discussion and planning happening completely public. You can even chime in if you want :)

Automattic has lots of issues. But they simply have much more open software development practices than nearly any other tech company (most of which are completely private and closed source). I just don’t think this is the core problem.

throw646577• 2 years ago

Ehh. I speak as a pretty long-term WP-oriented developer who is no fan of WP Engine for reasons that are defined by having used their product when I say:

This was the only sensible and just outcome.

The "Secure Custom Fields" thing is one of the most egregious things to happen in open source for at least a decade. Just crazy.

Hopefully Matt understands he has become self-limiting and steps back from some of his positions/takes off one of his too many hats.

anonymousab2• 2 years ago

restoring WPEngine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org in the
...
slack.wordpress.org); and

That is going to be a very awkward slack channel.

RegnisGnaw2• 2 years ago

Anyone taking bets if he will obey the injunction? My feeling is that his ego will not let him do so.

ceejayoz2• 2 years ago

That's a good way to find that judges also have fairly hefty egos, and the ability to jail you for impacting it.

barkingcat• 2 years ago

I'm taking bets matt will just do a "I bet you my ego is bigger" and end up going to jail for contempt of court for 10 years.

And then the day he gets out he'll continue the feud.

spankalee• 2 years ago

Can anyone here summarize the legal principle involved here?

Why does Matt legally have to provide services to people he doesn't want to, even if he's morally wrong or generally being an asshole?

To my non-lawyer and only-watching-from-the-sidelines self, the ACF situation seems more clearly actionable, but the other things are very interesting.

crowcroft• 2 years ago

I get the impression this injunction is really just saying that WPEngine's legal case has some veracity, and Automattic's actions seem to be retaliatory and/or not legal (depending on the eventual outcome of the actual case), and so is saying everything needs to be set back to where it was, while the courts work through an actual legal decision.

ImPostingOnHN3• 2 years ago

It's not a long document, but to take one of the example torts mentioned: torturous interference with a business contract is illegal, even if you own the means of interfering.

Could matt/automattic/wordpress.org/wordpress.com (they all act as the same entity: matt) have withdrawn services in a way that didn't tortiously interfere with a business contract? Of course. But he didn't, because tortiously interfering with WPEngine's customer contracts was his primary goal. His complaints about cost were secondary at best, and seem to have been entirely a pretext.

To add more perspective: withdrawing services from everybody usually requires one to simply stop working and/or paying bills. To withdraw services from WPEngine, matt had to consciously expend time/effort/money, just to interfere with WPEngine's customer contracts. Doing nothing would have been less work and cost matt less.

sonofhans2• 2 years ago

“Tortious interference” is wrongful interference in others’ contractual or business relationships. Wordpress does not have to provide free services to anyone in particular, only to honor their legal agreements and treat their users equally. In this case they did not; they took action specifically to damage WPEngine.

Matt may even be morally correct in some ways, but that doesn’t give him the right to use his position as Wordpress leader to damage the business of someone who competes with Automattic.

lesuorac• 2 years ago

remove the purported list of WPEngine customers contained in the “domains.csv” file linked to Defendants’ wordpressenginetracker.com website (which was launched on or about November 7, 2024) and stored in the associated GitHub repository located at https://github.com/wordpressenginetracker/wordpressenginetra....

Considering the only changes [1] [2] have been to add more sites to the list I guess there's going to be a second hearing to enforce the injunction.

[1] https://github.com/wordpressenginetracker/wordpressenginetra...

[2] https://github.com/wordpressenginetracker/wordpressenginetra...

Crosseye_Jack• 2 years ago

Within 72 hours, Defendants are ORDERED to:

So they can add sites to the tracker GH right up to the 71 hour, then remove it and still be in compliance with the order.

edit: as the WPEngine checkbox has been removed from https://login.wordpress.org/ since the order, I don't see why they won't also follow the order regrading the site tracker.

rnewme• 2 years ago

Removed 5min ago hmmmhm

dzonga• 2 years ago

matt is one of those inspirational people - like dhh, jason cohen people who built products from scratch and bootstrapped them. so it's sad seeing him go ape shit like that.

uncomplexity_• 2 years ago

- https://ma.tt/2024/10/on-dhh/

- https://x.com/dhh/status/1845887043748221421

awful

WPEngine, Inc. vs. Automattic– Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction

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