The logo was transferred to the WordPress foundation nonprofit, which in turn let people build products and services using the trademark free of charge. This is where the "free to use" comes from. Except secretly, the WordrPress trademark was transferred back to Automattic on the very same day.
Imagine I very publicly say "I'm making my tech project open source, you can build on it and use the logo in your projects!". Except on that same day as the announcement I revoke that open license and tell nobody. Then, after a decade and a half, I start claiming infringement and demanding that people pay royalties to use the trademark. Is that valid business practice?
This is one of the reasons why trademarks have to be actively defended to stay viable. This is why companies can be very aggressive and paranoid about use of their trademarks: inaction people infringe on the trademark can lead to the trademark being considered abandoned. In this case, Automattic let WP Engine and others use the trademark for well over a decade. There's as strong case that the trademark was abandoned by Automattic due to this inaction.
> The logo was transferred to the WordPress foundation nonprofit, which in turn let people build products and services using the trademark free of charge. This is where the "free to use" comes from. Except secretly, the WordrPress trademark was transferred back to Automattic on the very same day.
> Imagine I very publicly say "I'm making my tech project open source, you can build on it and use the logo in your projects!". Except on that same day as the announcement I revoke that open license and tell nobody.
I've been around WordPress since it was beta (though I got disillusioned after Gutenberg). Automattic/the Foundation has never let people "build products and services using the trademark free of charge".
Many people in the ecosystem have honoured that and avoided trouble by naming their WordPress products using the "WP" abbreviation.
The problem here is that even though many people have used WP from the start, Matt somehow thinks now that "WP Engine" is confusing enough people [1]:
> 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.
Imagine I very publicly say "I'm making my tech project open source, you can build on it and use the logo in your projects!". Except on that same day as the announcement I revoke that open license and tell nobody. Then, after a decade and a half, I start claiming infringement and demanding that people pay royalties to use the trademark. Is that valid business practice?
This is one of the reasons why trademarks have to be actively defended to stay viable. This is why companies can be very aggressive and paranoid about use of their trademarks: inaction people infringe on the trademark can lead to the trademark being considered abandoned. In this case, Automattic let WP Engine and others use the trademark for well over a decade. There's as strong case that the trademark was abandoned by Automattic due to this inaction.