Legal win

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Legal Ruling: “Win” or Spin?

  • Many commenters argue the ruling is being misrepresented as a major victory.
  • A lawyer in the thread notes: out of 11 claims, only 3 were dismissed, most with permission to amend; key claims (defamation, trade libel, interference, unjust enrichment, a CFAA claim) remain.
  • The extortion claim was dismissed not because conduct was found lawful, but because California law doesn’t allow a private civil extortion claim of that type; the state could, in theory, still pursue it.
  • Several see this as at best a procedural skirmish, not a substantive win, and expect a long path to trial.

Alleged Conduct and Ethics

  • Commenters recap allegations: threats to “go nuclear” on a hosting company, smear campaigns, blocking access to wordpress.org, loyalty attestations, interfering with a plugin acquisition, account bans, and targeted customer poaching.
  • Some frame this as extortionary behavior; others emphasize that even if the target behaved “unethically” as a free-rider, that doesn’t justify retaliation that may violate law or contracts.

Open Source, “Leeches,” and Licensing

  • One camp argues the hosting company is a parasite on years of WordPress work, contributing little back and echoing hyperscalers’ exploitation of permissive/FOSS licenses.
  • The opposing view: if you release under GPL or permissive terms, you explicitly permit commercial use without obligation to contribute; calling license-compliant users “thieves” is incoherent.
  • There’s extensive side debate about:
    • GPL vs AGPL as responses to SaaS.
    • “Source-available” / “fair source” vs OSI-approved licenses.
    • Whether open source should prioritize developer sustainability or user freedom.

Reputation and Product Choices

  • Numerous commenters say they’ve removed or will avoid WordPress.com and, for some, WordPress entirely due to the drama and perceived bad faith.
  • Others continue to use self-hosted WordPress (often with modern stacks like roots.io) but are uneasy about governance and centralization around wordpress.org.
  • Alternatives mentioned: Statamic, ClassicPress, static site generators, and a Linux Foundation–backed effort (FAIR) to decentralize plugin/theme distribution.

Community and Future of WordPress

  • There’s concern about declining WordCamp attendance and damage to community trust, though some see events and ecosystem as still strong.
  • A few suggest that regardless of legal outcomes, the long-term loss is reputational and may accelerate moves to more decentralized or static approaches.