Automattic vs. WP Engine
And now we have the battle over WordPress, between Automattic and WP Engine, two WordPress hosting companies. I am not privy to all the details, and I don’t want to get into the personalities involved or make judgments about specific actions taken, but it is pretty clear that Automattic is a Maker and WP Engine is a Taker. That is, Automattic is interested in “making” WordPress, i.e. building and contributing to the WordPress project, and WP Engine is interested in “taking” WordPress, i.e. using the free software to make money from WordPress hosting services.
It is not a violation of the WordPress license (GPLv2) to do what WP Engine is doing. It is perfectly legal. In fact, “taking” has been highly encouraged from the very start of the open-source movement. After all, sharing software, and benefiting from shared software, was the whole idea. Free use of software was a desirable outcome of the GPL, though the writers of the license probably didn’t foresee the scale of cloud hosting and the large sums of money that would be involved.
Automattic has taken legal action against WP Engine over trademark violations concerning the use of the name WordPress. (Apparently, the right to use the WordPress trademark for commercial purposes is owned by Automattic.) Certainly, the WordPress trademark has value. I’m not a lawyer, so I don’t know much about how trademarks work, but I do understand the notion of open source. It’s not at all surprising to me that many people who have contributed to open-source software get upset when others take their “baby” and use it to make cash.
