The WordPress trademark guides say explicitly that "WP" is allowed to be used by others. Several other parts of the wording the WP Engine uses are also explicitly allowed. So your whole first two paragraphs are mistaken.
It also explicitly says you can't use "Wordpress" in your product names, and WP Engine is doing that. I thought it might be common, but the other big providers do not use WordPress in their product names.
Come now, this seems to be a huge abuse of "trademark" of a term. Wordpress may be open source, but having the actual name of the "Opensource" thing be trademarked by a non-profit (that's also who-knows-how-much controlled by a for-profit entity) seems like such a dick move. I'm gonna start adding it to my list... OpenAI, Mozilla Foundation, Wordpress.
Edit. Side note:
I looked up the Linux trademark usage guidelines. Looks like half the internet is infringing on this one too if you squint. So maybe this all boils down to a case of "Don't be a jerk" that some entities adhere to when it comes to protecting their trademark, whilst others like Automattic use it to bully competitors.
Or it's WP Engine being a jerk, and this is just a way to put some pressure on them.
Look at it this way - WordPress is the #1 platform for websites. It is a free, Open-source, and huge asset to the community. Are you going to shit on the guys who made it and gave it away because you have some sympathy for some overpriced, hosting company?
If the Wordpress team disappeared, it would be a tragedy. If WP Engine disappeared it would be nothing.
> Wordpress may be open source, but having the actual name of the "Opensource" thing be trademarked by a non-profit (that's also who-knows-how-much controlled by a for-profit entity) seems like such a dick move.
I get the "ick" factor here, but there doesn't really seem to be a better alternative. If "OpenSourceWare" isn't trademarked by non-profit "OpenSourceSoft", the options are either a) no trademark, and it's a free-for-all where the biggest marketing budget and SEO teams get the biggest return on mindshare and search results or b) Oracle gets the trademark and nobody else is allowed to use it.
The page you linked applies to trademarks owned by the Linux Foundation. The Linux trademark is actually owned by Linus Torvalds, not by the Linux Foundation; and different rules apply to it, as your link notes.
>For information regarding the Linux trademark, owned by Linus Torvalds, please see the Linux Mark Institute (administered by The Linux Foundation). Your use of the Linux trademark must be in accordance with the Linux Mark Institute’s policy.
Probably (the trademark equivalent of) fair use, because WordPress is what they are selling. If I have a basket of windows disks to sell, I can write Microsoft Windows on my price list because the thing I'm selling is called that.
This analogy came up recently when discussing Elasticsearch. It's flawed.
Free and open source software does not, and has never, required giving up trademark rights. I think the GPLv3 is even explicit about this.
In the Windows case it's fair use of the trademark because you're reselling something you previously bought. That's not applicable here.
WordPress is open source software, but a hosting service has a variety of characteristics unrelated to the nominal software. Besides, WP Engine are disabling key features of the product: of course that's misleading.
if we’re going by the trademark policy, it also says you can’t use the wordpress name in the name of your project or service.
and arguing that “wp” doesn’t mean “wordpress” and therefore is allowed, is exactly the same as me selling “msengine” for microsoft products, and telling everyone “ms” doesn’t mean microsoft. we all know what it stands for for, and if you weren’t sure, you can jut scan the page and see it’s clearly associated with wordpress. if that’s the basis of the legal defense wpengine wants to make in court, they are truly f’d.
Up until this dispute the WordPress trademark policy contained this:
> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.
Now it's been updated to say this:
> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.
It's pretty clear that WP Engine has been in compliance with the old trademark policy and that the new one is acknowledging that they don't have legal standing to demand anything about the WP abbreviation (not least because they waited so long to complain about the usage) so they're instead inserting a petulant and childish slight.
microsoft doesn’t have a trademark on “ms” either. like i said, if wpengine is hoping to go into court and explain that wp is not related to wordpress, while selling wordpress services… i dont think its going to go well for them.
this is going to be just as flimsy of a defense as “mikerowesoft”
> if wpengine is hoping to go into court and explain that wp is not related to wordpress, while selling wordpress services… i dont think its going to go well for them.
Of course not. They will (if it goes that far) point out that their use of WP is explicitly in line with the trademark holder's public guidance on that exact point.
You can't tell everybody that it's fine to use wording like that and then sue them when they do it.
There's also "estoppel by laches", which boils down to "you waited too long". Guarantee that's going to be part of WPE's defense too. Then there's the fact that a8c actually invested in WPE while this supposed infringement was taking place.
