The WordPress fight is heating up.
Case file: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/25237665/wp-engine-injunction.pdf
For anyone with a passing interest in this, it’s about whether a for-profit company should be able to leech off an open source software project that their entire business model is built around without giving anything back to the project that is the lifeblood of their profits.
Took me like 4 articles deep to find what the hell this drama is supposed to be about. Seemed super mundane at first blush but it raises a good question that I guess we’ll get to see played out in court, probably. Could have real consequences for the future of open source projects.
Not really “leech off”, it’s just standard use. How many companies do you think uses Linux? How many of them contribute back to the Linux foundation?
Using an open source project without giving back is not only the norm, it is also perfectly legal.
On top of that, the guy picking the fight is in charge of both the .org foundation and the .com competitor to WP Engine itself, so the argument isn’t purely altruistic.
Quite messy.
That’s what it started out as, yeah, but to be honest it’s gone way further than that to the point where I, personally, no longer believe WordPress is in the right here. Were they right to assert that WP Engine should pay their piece? Yes, absolutely, and we need more of that in Open Source. What we do not need more of is the insane, spur-of-the-moment nuclear options that WordPress went for the moment they didn’t get exactly what they asked for the first time around. I think this video does a good job explaining where we’re at now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grZg-BEhKMI
Lol. “Give us free access to your resources so that we can make money”. The court should tell WP Engine to fuck off.
