
WordPress is not WordPress.com - ValentineC
https://wpisnotwp.com/
======
kristianc
> Now imagine a company used the name of a non-commercial project you
> contributed to for commercial purposes—the very name you had put your love,
> sweat, and tears into....

Well that's not quite how it happened. Matt of WordPress.org fame and Matt of
WordPress.com fame are the same person, and WordPress.com happened
comparatively early in WordPress' history.

~~~
silverlight
Yeah of all SaaS-and-OSS linked projects, Wordpress strikes me as incredibly
innoffensive. This is like getting mad at Canonical for owning Ubuntu.com and
selling addon services and support contracts.

~~~
nedwin
Does Ubuntu / Canonical force their addons onto users of the open source
project?

~~~
majewsky
Considering the controversy over the Amazon search being added to the Unity
start menu in 2011 or something, I'd say yes.

(The fine print: 1. I don't know any more recent examples and 2. I don't want
to get into an argument about the definitions of "forcing", "their addons",
"users of", and "the open source project".)

~~~
nedwin
I hadn't heard of that, will check it out. Thanks.

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advisedwang
This makes it sound like WordPress.com is doing something underhanded,
stealing the name or tricking users etc. However as far as I can tell
WordPress.com has licensed the name from the WordPress foundation, so its
legit. Endorsed even!

------
urda
I'm not really following the purpose of this. Even from a non-technical
viewpoint it doesn't tell me much.

\- Free software project: Many casual users won't get this.

\- SaaS: same as "free software project", not something the average user will
always get.

\- Trademark: I can't think of too many times when an end user gets really
excited for or against trademarks.

Basically, yes technical folks like HN readers already know what this page is
getting at, but for everyone else, it doesn't really clear anything up.

... so what's the point?

~~~
ztjio
It certainly doesn't help that the writing is bad, the layout is bad, the
communication is... bad. The very first thing any typical English-speaking
reader is going to read doesn't even make sense. The entire paragraph is:

> The domain ending .com is not optional as it is usually—it is a key
> differentiator.

Which means nothing at all. It has insufficient context to carry any meaning
to anyone of any technical level without major guessing and assumptions on the
part of the reader.

And by that point, they've lost basically anyone that might benefit from
this...

------
jsjohnst
Is there a point to this rant over semantics?

~~~
schoen
Maybe it's kind of like the "Wikipedia is not Wiki" issue.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_abbreviate_%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Don%27t_abbreviate_%22Wikipedia%22_as_%22Wiki%22%21)

------
CharlesW
I can understand the criticisms of the article, but also the author's pain.

The confusion is a Real Thing that frustrates people every day. For example,
WordPress-the-Software plug-ins don't work on WordPress-the-SaaS. Or maybe
they do, but you need some special plan? Or maybe only certain plug-ins are
approved, but you also need a paid plan? It's confusing.

So for better or worse, most conversations with new and less-savvy users has
to start with a conversation about whether they're using a "normal" install,
the WordPress.com sandboxed/SaaS product that prevents you from installing
plug-ins, or WordPress on another managed WordPress host that may or may not
limit users to certain plug-ins.

It can be frustrating.

~~~
Torwald
It's not confusing, it's quite logical.

You either use the OSS software on your own server and can do with it whatever
you want. Of course you will have to pay for the server.

Or you get to run an instance of the software running on the server or WP.com
and thus get the software AND the hosting for free. However, the free part is
limited, if you want more you'll have to pay - again for the hosting.

------
TazeTSchnitzel
I'm not sure this is going to be very helpful to a non-technical audience. Do
they know what a “free software project” is?

~~~
bigiain
The line about "just like you can't download Facebook" is good though. I'll
probably use that in future...

------
jordigh
This seems to be hinting at some dispute. What is it? Is it a problem that
someone is commercialising Wordpress and it's not the original authors?

~~~
jdpedrie
No dispute -- just a mistake in naming their SAAS the same as their open-
source project way back when and dooming the world to confusion.

~~~
joe5150
how much confusion is there, really? developers already know the difference
and casual users/bloggers will never care.

------
zelon88
Good, quick, and sure to get the job done. Now I have somewhere to link to
when I get asked to explain the difference.

