"In an email, Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the open source movement who drafted the original Open Source Definition, told The Register, "Let's be clear about WP Engine: It's built on WordPress. There would be no business without WordPress. And it's a large business with big revenue, operated as if it's funded by private equity."
"Private equity always demands big returns, regardless of the harm they do to the business. One of my customers has been completely destroyed by them – they are still operating but on such thin resources that they can't dedicate the time of one engineer to work with me on an open source compliance review, even if I do it for free.
"So, WP Engine is in that situation, and has to increase returns to the investors. What do they do? Cut any voluntary expense, which includes returning any value to the creators of WordPress. I'm told that WordPress asked for eight percent of revenue, which sounds fair to me considering that it's the basis of WP Engine's business.
"But because it's an open source project, WordPress can ask but can't demand that money, so they have to turn to hostile enforcement of their trademark and denying access to their updates."
"In an email, Bruce Perens, one of the founders of the open source movement who drafted the original Open Source Definition, told The Register, "Let's be clear about WP Engine: It's built on WordPress. There would be no business without WordPress. And it's a large business with big revenue, operated as if it's funded by private equity."
"Private equity always demands big returns, regardless of the harm they do to the business. One of my customers has been completely destroyed by them – they are still operating but on such thin resources that they can't dedicate the time of one engineer to work with me on an open source compliance review, even if I do it for free.
"So, WP Engine is in that situation, and has to increase returns to the investors. What do they do? Cut any voluntary expense, which includes returning any value to the creators of WordPress. I'm told that WordPress asked for eight percent of revenue, which sounds fair to me considering that it's the basis of WP Engine's business.
"But because it's an open source project, WordPress can ask but can't demand that money, so they have to turn to hostile enforcement of their trademark and denying access to their updates."