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graeme10/01/20242 repliesview on HN

1. The shared resources are baked into Wordpress code, and used by wordpress users no matter which host they are with. Does Matt wish webhosts to fork the repository?

2. Nominative use allows companies to refer to things by their name. It isn't obvious that "Wordpress Hosting" or "Wordpress plugin" is a violation or causes consumer confusion. Does Matt wish for all companies in the ecosystem to stop referring to their products as Wordpress Themes, Wordpress Plugins and Wordpress hosts?

It's worth noting that for years Wordpress.org has routinely referred to companies as "Wordpress hosts"

For example: https://learn.wordpress.org/tutorial/migrating-your-wordpres...

They don't seem to find it confusing and I suspect it would be difficult for Wordpress to launch a legal claim given tolerance of and direct use of those terms.


Replies

i_am_jl10/02/2024

>Nominative use allows companies to refer to things by their name. It isn't obvious that "Wordpress Hosting" or "Wordpress plugin" is a violation or causes consumer confusion. Does Matt wish for all companies in the ecosystem to stop referring to their products as Wordpress Themes, Wordpress Plugins and Wordpress hosts?

I think Matt's position is that WP Engine is not Wordpress, so it's not appropriate to call their offerings Wordpress-anything.

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tptacek10/02/2024

So? The GPL doesn't say anything about "baking resources into the code"; the point of the GPL is that you can change the code, and WPE, a gigantic company, should do so.

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