[gustavorg]

After reading all these comments, I started to worry and even panic because it seemed to me that I was on the wrong side. HN, which side are we on?

[poisonborz]

I think views are mostly uniform around here. Matt had a few valid points but they are overall meritless. WPE would have been nice to contribute more, but they are absolutely not required to. Rug-pulling an open-source project and making defamation like this is a very dangerous example, and as we will see, also illegal. Would be interested in your arguments, I haven't read much if any in his support.

[belorn]

Does google just have that much better lawyers that they can get away with Rug-pulling products and services? I know several examples, from youtube plugins to search optimization, that had their company being pulled from existence because google decided to remove or change their free services or api's. The google graveyard sits alongside a much larger graveyard of companies who got caught when the rug was pulled.

[conartist6]

It couldn't matter less whose "side" you are on is kind of the point.

You could like Matt and think he's basically right about freeloaders, yet you would still be horrified and absolutely powerless as you watch him shred his once-whole community into halves, then quarters, then eighths as he doubles down and doubles down some more...

[jcarrano]

If you run a business on open source, you have to expect that some actors will contribute less than you would like. It is the price to pay for the advantages open source provides (contributions, widespread adoption etc).

The matter is that this "freeloading" is subjective as the GPL license does not really place any contribution requirements. Matt says it is about trademarks but the court stated TMs were not violated either. Dura lex sed lex, he will have to deal with it.

[Sebb767]

This is a faceted issue where both sides have valid points. Also, HN is not a single entity.

[thanksgiving]

Personally, I am now clear that both sides, matt and wp engine are wrong. Matt is more wrong than wp engine but that doesn't mean wp engine is right.

This is just my personal opinion.

[nperez]

The preamble of the GPLV2 begins with: "The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. "

I don't think Matt should ever be required to provide the live services of wordpress.org, but as for WP Engine, the license is supposed to be free for them and that's pretty clear.

[claudiulodro]

That's Matt's whole argument, no? That anyone can grab it from e.g. Github, but he's not compelled to provide access to the wordpress.org servers or the WordPress trademarks under the GPL.

[ChocolateGod]

It's possible to agree with both stances that WPEngine gets a free ride on a bunch of volunteers and that Matt's behaviour is disgusting