[elendee]

Isn't he within legal rights in fact to take away certain public services whenever he does want? Assuming that's the case (and that is an assumption), the fact that WPEngine went all in on a half billion dollar business model dependent on Matt is a big risk they took; I would think it would be absolutely top priority on their part to understand the nuts and bolts of the ecosystem they depend on.

[graeme]

It's very complicated and beyond my ability to analyze accurately.

The court filing is here if you'd like to have a look. Some california law around anticompetitive behaviour applies.

I thought of trying to summarize but don't wish to be inaccurate. Obviously this is under litigation so it remains to be seen which headings they win on if any.

But it definitely isn't as simple as being able to selectively withdraw a public service at any point for any reason. If it were the case would have been dismissed already.

https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Complaint-WP...

[elendee]

I've read some of it and it's actually compelling reading but it bogs down pretty quick in spin, for example wpe claims they invested hundreds of millions "to serve the community". But the community they are referencing is their own customers. They did not invest millions in core maintenance to my knowledge.

I'm more interested in the colloquial understanding than the legalese. The dev community will probably have a more relevant opinion than the judge imho. As I see it, WP core is free and the "public utility" you mention. But the infrastructure running the plugins has very little precedent it seems, and that's the important part. That's what Matt's pissed about. I don't think there is a good analogy in the Linux ecosystem or anywhere else as to such a massive undertaking as WP that is simultaneously non profit and for profit. And that's where I think it's kind of foolhardy to go head to head with the guy who's managed to staple it all together while they're still standing on it.

The thing he withdrew is their plugin repo access which is not a public service afaik. I can see why Matt is going crazy running servers for hundreds of millions of downloads and people treat it like he's legally obligated to do that. It's an ambitious enterprise and people should be sensitive to the fact that they probably work extremely hard keeping that going.