As time has gone on, a central element of Matt Mullenweg’s story of how he got to publicly attacking WP Engine has continued to crumble. That is the timeline of meetings between the two sides over a deal to address what he now claims is trademark abuse. In a post dated October 14, on his own website, he claimed, as he has elsewhere, this was going on for 18+ months, ‘Automattic did not work on a deal with WP Engine for 18+ months because of the GPL, or them using “WP” in their name, it was because of their abuse of the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.’ But looking at another of his statements and something from the company he runs, Automattic, suggests there would have to be a much shorter timeline.
On October 1, Automattic put forward a 20 month timeline of meetings between the two sides. Here the first three items on that: [Read more]