I will ask on behalf of the entire Wordpress community - is there any part of the Wordpress cluster of organizations that do not ultimately answer to Matt?
Hi Legitster. I will work with colleagues on a response to your question. It's a broad topic given how many facets there are to the WordPress community.
While I love pronouns, they can lead to misunderstandings if not carefully defined.
Above it was written "I'll take that as a 'no'".
Could you explain what "that" refers to in your statement.
I am asking because, lacking a clear definition of the question, I cannot say whether the answer is Yes, No, or something else.
So you interpret "is there any part of the Wordpress cluster of organizations that do not ultimately answer to Matt?" as being a YES or NO question?
I interpret it as a request for information about what is Matt's role in the ecosystem and I was gathering information to share about that.
However, if you are not interested in factual information, the answer is:
YES, there are various parts of the the Wordpress cluster of organizations that do not ultimately answer to Matt.
come on, Neil... you just published 700 words on the topic. You even made flow charts! Are you now saying you don't actually have a solid understanding of the situation?
So what you're saying is that you "fervently" think your boss should shut up because he is giving his legal opponent fuel for their case against his extortion and other charges? And that he's making you write things that you don't understand or particularly agree with?
I promise you, your integrity (or at least your license to practice law) are worth more than Matt's sinking ship. I hope you can move on to do something meaningful with you practice
Thanks for participating. I have an honest question:
How do you reconcile your post [0] claiming that Automattic controls all commercial aspects of the trademark with Matt's previous claim that "the most central piece of WordPress’s identity, its name, is now fully independent from any company" and that Automattic had "give[n] up control" of the marks? [1]
I appreciate the question and it deserves a lengthier blog post reply that I will work on and share. In the interim, some brief thoughts on the topic that may be relevant.
The WordPress community operates on an open source, non-commercial basis. The community decides what is included in each release of WordPress, how it's tested, what documentation accompanies it, etc.
Because the WordPress Foundation, not Automattic, owns the WordPress trademarks for non-commercial use, Automattic has no control or veto of what code is stamped with the WordPress label.
By contrast, if Automattic retained non-commercial control over the WordPress trademarks it could refuse to affix the WordPress label to work done by and released by core contributor groups.
Did Matt really send you here without even explaining what the conversation was about? And then you didn't even bother to read it for yourself?
The article you wrote claims "The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software."
Matt in his comment claims "All the information in the links you shared is totally wrong. Our lawyers have never said that WordPress.org is a non-profit or owned by the Foundation."
We don't have any questions, but there are possibly several inaccuracies in the post you wrote. At least the information appears to contradict other information provided on your side.
The post has been updated to say that "The Foundation also licensed the name to the website WordPress.org, which facilitates widespread access to WordPress-related software at no charge." Websites presumably can't have trademark licenses. There must be a legal entity. Matt Mullenweg is claiming that he personally has the second license for the trademark [1], so not a website. A graphic included in the post similarly still claims that "Right to use name as part of non-profit activities" went to WordPress. With the arrow coming from the WordPress Foundation. There doesn't appear to be a non-profit.
The post states that "The right to use the WordPress marks for commercial purposes (e.g., selling software, hosting, and agency services) is owned by Automattic." The publicly available license states that Automattic has the right to use the trademark "in connection with the hosting of blogs and web sites [2]." So it looks like Automattic's rights are more limited. Maybe the license has been amended or there is an unstated belief that the license has a wider scope than the plain language of the license suggests. Having the foundation release all licenses agreements it has would help to clear things up, possibility for you, but definitely for everyone else.
In explaining how the license agreement between the foundation and Automattic happened, the post says that 'In order to effect a valid license agreement, there needs to be an actual exchange of value from both sides, which lawyers call "consideration."' But Matt Mullenweg [3] and what appears to be an Automattic employee writing for the WordPress Foundation [4] both stated at the time that Auomattic donated the trademark. Legally, a donation can't involve a consideration [5]. That would suggest there isn't a valid license agreement or there wasn't actually a donation.
We would suggest you consult with a lawyer about all that, but you are a lawyer.
You wrote: "In explaining how the license agreement between the foundation and Automattic happened, the post says that 'In order to effect a valid license agreement, there needs to be an actual exchange of value from both sides, which lawyers call "consideration."
Indeed. And there was a lot of Consideration given in this exchange. Automattic owned 100% of the WordPress trademarks. Automattic's "Consideration" was to give all the non-commercial use of those trademarks to the WordPress Foundation.
Consider a simple, but apt analogy. You own a car. You decide to give someone else the right to drive your car on the weekends, however you retain the right to drive it during the week. Did you provide Consideration for the right to drive the car during the week? Of course - the recipient previously had nothing and you gave them the right to drive your car on the weekend. The only lack of Consideration here was that the person getting the weekend driving rights gave you nothing in exchange for those.
> Indeed. And there was a lot of Consideration given in this exchange. Automattic owned 100% of the WordPress trademarks. Automattic's "Consideration" was to give all the non-commercial use of those trademarks to the WordPress Foundation.
If I understand your comment correctly, you are saying that Automattic is still the owner of the WordPress trademarks, and granted licenses for non-commercial use to the WordPress Foundation?
It's clear from what he's saying that Automattic once OWNED the trademarks, but transferred those trademarks to the WordPress Foundation, and thus Automattic is NO LONGER THE OWNER of said trademarks.
What Automattic has is an exclusive license to use and sell the commercial licenses of the trademark.
>Automattic owned 100% of the WordPress trademarks. Automattic's "Consideration" was to give all the non-commercial use of those trademarks to the WordPress Foundation.
You need to keep reading the rest of what we wrote there. We were not disputing that explanation of a consideration. We are saying there can’t be a consideration in a donation and two employees of Automattic contemporaneously claimed it was donation. Either there wasn’t a donation or there isn’t a valid license agreement.