[swores]

> "Neal has been adverse to Quinn Emanuel a number of times, and won every case."

I don't think I have ever before seen, in an official public statement, a "The lawyer we just hired always beats the lawyer they just hired!" boast, and it seems ridiculous - it's almost even hinting in the direction that they think the case should be decided on quality of lawyer rather than that their case should win on merit.

[nickff]

Selecting a lawyer with a proven record, and expressing confidence in them are not "hinting in the direction that they think the case should be decided on quality of lawyer". They're smart strategies, whether you decide to take the case to court, or seek a settlement (on either side).

[swores]

I agree that it is of course smart to choose a lawyer you think can win, it's the public statement about the lawyer's track record that seems crazy to me, not the hiring decision.

[nickff]

Expressing confidence publicly just seems like a ‘stronger’ way of expressing it (as compared to doing so privately). Perhaps Automattic is trying to get WP Engine stakeholders to press for a settlement?

What about this “seems crazy”?

[swores]

It makes no difference in their battle against WP Engine, who would very quickly discover which lawyers they're going up against with or without this blog post.

That line in the blog post is aimed at public perception, not WP Engine's perception, and from a PR point of view there's not really any benefit to it only downside - I guess their thinking is that some members of public might think "the winning lawyer wouldn't join the losing team so Automattic must be in the right here", but it actually makes them look like their legal defence is weak enough that they need to resort to trying to win through legal skills rather than business facts.

When I call it "crazy" I'm talking from the point of view of someone who has drafted a couple of announcements quite similar to this one, and many others that weren't related to defending legal cases but were still walking tricking lines in PR/comms, and I just can't imagine a line like that being suggested by anyone I've worked with and can't imagine letting it slip into a release I was involved in.

[finnthehuman]

A sentiment that a lawyer is so good they will overcome this challenge rather than conveying that the lawyer will prove the questions of law and fact resolve it in their favor... it just... well... seems like the kind of shit that's for a TV show where it's not about contesting facts and law.

[nickff]

Lawyering is not just about knowing the law and proving facts, for an example of this, I recommend the book about Theranos: “Bad Blood”.

[finnthehuman]

Yeah, ofc, the lawyer skill gradient exists and causes slam-dunk cases to be decided in the "wrong" [0] direction. It's just odd to say you will win because the lawyer is that good, makes it sound like you might be wrong but are going to win simply because you have better council.

[0] There's gotta be a fancy latin-sounding lawyer word for this, right?

[skmurphy]

The audience for this statement is WP Engine's significant customers. WordPress is in a position to do much more damage to WP Engine in the near term, which will reflect poorly on the IT manager for selecting them as a vendor. WordPress is not so subtly encouraging those customers to reconsider their decision and migrate off WP Engine.

If WP Engine decides to fork, it devalues the "just like WordPress but better" value proposition and increases operating expenses as they can no longer inherit improvements from WordPress. A fork may mean they don't hit the growth targets they promised Silver Lake. Selecting this attorney is putting down a marker that WordPress wants a verdict, not a settlement.

The other wild card potentially more damaging to WP Engine and Silver Lake is the discovery process inherent in any lawsuit.

I am not a lawyer, but I don't think most commenters are correctly decoding the relative bargaining power of the two sides.

[snowwrestler]

There’s no world where forcing significant customers off WP Engine works out well for Automattic.

Those customers are not going to migrate their sites to the company that just gave them an operational and security headache (Automattic).

And most big customers do not give a shit about Wordpress per se. They just use it because it’s a free and convenient accelerant for the sites they want to build. If it starts becoming a hassle they will just move to a different CMS. There are plenty of options.

[skmurphy]

If 5-10% leave and WP Engine decides it's better to pay a royalty rather than fork that probably works out well enough. For context see https://www.theregister.com/2024/10/02/automattic_wp_engine_...

"In an email, Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the open source movement who drafted the original Open Source Definition, told The Register, "Let's be clear about WP Engine: It's built on WordPress. There would be no business without WordPress. And it's a large business with big revenue, operated as if it's funded by private equity."

"Private equity always demands big returns, regardless of the harm they do to the business. One of my customers has been completely destroyed by them – they are still operating but on such thin resources that they can't dedicate the time of one engineer to work with me on an open source compliance review, even if I do it for free.

"So, WP Engine is in that situation, and has to increase returns to the investors. What do they do? Cut any voluntary expense, which includes returning any value to the creators of WordPress. I'm told that WordPress asked for eight percent of revenue, which sounds fair to me considering that it's the basis of WP Engine's business.

"But because it's an open source project, WordPress can ask but can't demand that money, so they have to turn to hostile enforcement of their trademark and denying access to their updates."

[cplat]

By that logic, the 30% Apple tax must be "extremely fair" because all iOS apps are built on both the software and hardware built by Apple, which are arguably far more complex than a piece of PHP software. (/sarcasm)

Being "built" on something does not in itself imply value. What has to be taken into account is also "value that is added." If the underlying platform had high intrinsic value in itself, then no value would have had to be built on it to profit from it, which would mean WP Engine would not be the only entity profiting from it.

And to add to the reductio ad absurdum, are PHP engineers required to "donate part of their salaries" to the project just because "they're profiting off of that language?" (/sarcasm)

[skmurphy]

I did not say that what WordPress was doing was "fair" I was trying to explain how their actions can make sense from their side of the table.

As to 30% being "fair" it's a fee structure that is known in advance, you can plan accordingly. I try to deal with the world as it is, not how I would like it to be.

[satvikpendem]

Why would they need to fork? WordPress itself is from B2, hence its licensing being GPL. WordPress cannot adopt the dual licensing of other A/GPL software companies like Cal.com because it's not even their copyright in the first place. Therefore, all WordPress changes must continue to be GPL. The only parts that might need to be replicated are things that are not necessarily part of the core codebase, such as the plugin repository, but it seems people are already starting to move towards a decentralized model for these.

[mthoms]

Or... hear me out... Matt has the legal acumen of a pissed-off pre-teen and he thought this was clever.

Occam's Razor and all that.

[skmurphy]

The lawyer they've hired is a very serious guy who is concerned about his long term reputation. It's unlikely he would hostage his fortune to someone who was a "pissed off-preteen." Reasonable people may differ but I don't believe you have correctly assessed the players and the sum of forces at work in this situation.

[mthoms]

I have sites on WPE and I've worked for a major WP plugin developer. I've been in and out of the community since 2010. I know the players pretty well.

Matt has sabotaged any chance of a good result for him and Automattic no matter how good this lawyer is. And even if he wins in court he's already lost in the court of public opinion. Its over.

[skmurphy]

We have been using and building WordPress sites since 2006. I have no experience with WP Engine but I bear them no ill will. I think the "court of public opinion" is very difficult to assess and dominant players can take a very very long time to die.

Matt may need to step down if your assessment is correct but that's distinct from what happens to Word Press as a platform.

My sense is that the Word Press negotiating position is stronger and WP Engine will either have to fork or make a much larger contribution. But I may be wrong. If that does not happen then I believe that the private equity players will do a lot more damage to open source communities because a "harvesting paradigm" will continue.

[mthoms]

I generally agree except for "the court of public opinion" part. It seems abundantly clear to me that Matt has damaged his name beyond repair.

As I see it, the only way for WordPress to survive is if Matt steps down from the board, and the foundation & dot org mess is reorganized in a manner that makes it accountable to the community. Even then, a lot of damage has been done to the reputation of WordPress.

I won't be surprised if we eventually start seeing mainstream reporting on this case from the WSJ and NYT. Luckily, it's an election cycle so that might not happen for a while.

[mikeyinternews]

I work for an agency that is part of a (very) large holding company. The IT dept for the holding company mandated that all agencies within to host their WordPress sites in WP Engine. I manage the sites for my company and two sister agencies, and just between the three companies there are 18 sites, not including the Dev/Staging variants! There are over 1500 agencies...granted not all have WP sites, but I am certain that many do. So if this reflects on the IT manager who made this call, it would be hugely magnified!

[sourraspberry]

> Neal has taken on sloppy Quinn Emanuel many times, many many times, and each case he has won BIGLY. WP ENGINE IS THE ENEMENY OF THE PEOPLE!

[delfinom]

I mean Quinn Emanuel is sloppy

https://venturebeat.com/business/apple-nokia-win-2m-after-sa...

Lol