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by immibis 617 days ago
Actually, it's the person who signed a contract with me to give me a free house.
3 comments

What is the contract that gives WP Engine the free house?
The GPL, and WordPress's trademark policy, which up to a week ago stated " The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit."
On the other hand, the use of WordPress servers is in no way covered by the GPL. WP Engine can pay for their own servers the same way Bluehost used to.
That someone gives you the right to use their code doesn't mean they're required to be a free hosting provider for you.
Using the resources of the non-profit you control to kneecap a competitor to the for-profit you control makes that a bit more complicated.

I think it's obvious WPE wouldn't be in the clear with Matt even if they went and hosted a mirror/cache of the WP.org packages.

wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name. The actual non-profit [1] had expenses of $41k in 2022, which wouldn't come anywhere near paying for wordpress.org infrastructure and personnel. I guess Wordpress is going the RHEL route. You can clone it, but can't use their trademarks or infrastructure.

[1] https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/205...

> wp.org is not a non-profit, despite the name.

Automattic's associate legal counsel begs to differ [1]:

> Let’s apply this to the WordPress trademarks (also called simply “marks”). The WordPress Foundation owns the right to use the WordPress marks for non-commercial purposes. It can also sublicense out this right for particular events (e.g., WordCamps) and to people supporting the WordPress project and community. The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software.

(Take it up with them, not me.)

[1] https://automattic.com/2024/10/02/wordpress-trademarks-a-leg...

WordPress definitely did not sign a contract with WPE to provide free electricity.
Not a lawyer, but I think contracts require consideration to be enforceable.