WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg is trying to force WP Engine to surrender part of its revenue to his company, Automattic, and the feud's repercussions are rippling throughout...
The argument centering on server costs would be logical, but the actual legal battle going on, and Mullenweg’s stated justification behind asking for 8% of WPEngine profit, is claims of misuse of copyrighted names.
Meanwhile the WordPress license explicitly cedes copyright over the name WordPress and the initialism WP.
WordPress on its own is very bare bones, you’re almost certainly going to want to install plugins, which by default can only be done from the builtin connection to WP servers.
WP without plugins doesn’t even have basic things like gallery light boxes. Honestly it seems deliberate, since the easiest way to get a lot of basic features that should be in core is to install the automattic(the company that owns wordpress) jetpack extension, that also installs a bunch of data harvesting connections to their proprietary SaaS.
I don’t know, but I guess the reason why it isn’t done yet is because nobody perceives it as a problem.
It would require a repository plugin to install plugins I think.
But it all comes down to plugin distribution and deployment. Mostly if you want something outside the default repository you can just upload it to your own install / stack. If a developer provide alternative download ways. Like a github release for example.
Can you use the WordPress software without the WordPress servers?
Of course. You can host Wordpress just about anywhere that offers a recent enough version of php and access to a database
Then why does WP engine need access to this specific database?
Because Wordpress is also hosting 1000s of plugins that WP engine users can install.
I’m not sure what the license regarding those things is, WP engine could probably just mirror it -
But they basically got locked out of the default ecosystem infrastructure.
I feel like mirroring the plugins would resolve this issue, since the argument seems to be centered on server costs.
The argument centering on server costs would be logical, but the actual legal battle going on, and Mullenweg’s stated justification behind asking for 8% of WPEngine profit, is claims of misuse of copyrighted names.
Meanwhile the WordPress license explicitly cedes copyright over the name WordPress and the initialism WP.
Not easily, honestly.
WordPress on its own is very bare bones, you’re almost certainly going to want to install plugins, which by default can only be done from the builtin connection to WP servers.
WP without plugins doesn’t even have basic things like gallery light boxes. Honestly it seems deliberate, since the easiest way to get a lot of basic features that should be in core is to install the automattic(the company that owns wordpress) jetpack extension, that also installs a bunch of data harvesting connections to their proprietary SaaS.
Can only be done by default … also means there are other options.
Matt disappoints but their plugin repository isn’t a vendor lock in like Apple denying other app stores (without acts enforcing it etc).
I’m not aware of any method to add a third party plugin repository. (Is the software that runs the plugin repository even open source?)
I don’t know, but I guess the reason why it isn’t done yet is because nobody perceives it as a problem. It would require a repository plugin to install plugins I think. But it all comes down to plugin distribution and deployment. Mostly if you want something outside the default repository you can just upload it to your own install / stack. If a developer provide alternative download ways. Like a github release for example.