The reference is to this, where Matt has replied to a query about what constitutes "affiliation" by saying he could not answer that and the person should consult an attorney.
Read that whole thread from the earlier tweets too. People are getting banned from the Slack channel for asking what the checkbox means. This isn't just drama from OP.
That’s a pretty meaningful mistake, given that the nature of the non-profit entanglement is fundamental to several claims. It seems like you were as confused as the community was, which sure doesn’t help any of Matt’s claims about everything being “open” and “transparent” all along.
Well, I guess this thread answers the question of “how can Matt’s lawyer possibly be encouraging this?”
And from Javier's thread, Matt is gaslighting people by telling them to consult attorneys to decide the meaning of "affiliated" in a checkbox HE introduced.
Can we now agree that Matt has lost his marbles and his ego is leading him to burn the entire Wordpress ecosystem down? These are megalomaniacal and dictatorial actions.
This is actually one of my favorite uses for contemporary AI technology. It very much can (and does) catch this type of spelling error. Google Docs does this for me quite often. It's not always right -- but it often prompts me to review exactly this type of situation. It's pretty amazing, really.
The issue here is that Mullenweg is on record everywhere (including on HN) saying that the "WP" is not the trademark problem; it's "Wordpress" and "WooCommerce".
But a cursory glance at Google results for "Wordpress hosting", "woocommerce hosting", or "managed wordpress hosting" will lead you to hundreds of results from a plethora of web hosting companies that have been doing this, many for more than a decade.
The Wordpress Foundation (that owns the "Wordpress" trademark) has not taken any legal action against any of these companies for precisely the same use it's accusing WPEngine of. A judge could well rule that they have not defended their trademark and this claim holds no water.
Again, IANAL, but it's generally not the case that you are required to go after all infringers of your trademark (I imagine because that would be overly burdensome requirement, as someone nefarious could spin up even a blatantly offensive use in some remote town in Alaska for example and go "ha-haw you failed to defend"). You just have to not never defend it.
it is absolutely the case that you are required to go after infringers if you want to be able to enforce your trademark. A trademark isn't just another word for copyright. It's a signifier of a brand with consistent quality. If you let thousands of sites slide for a decade+, then it no longer conveys a consistent level of quality and when you try to enforce it the judge is likely to shut you down.
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