Judge Dismisses Some of WPEngine’s Claims Against WordPress ⇥ courthousenews.com
Just got word that the court dismissed several of WP Engine and Silver Lake’s most serious claims — antitrust, monopolization, and extortion have been knocked out! These were by far the most significant and far-reaching allegations in the case and with today’s decision the case is narrowed significantly. […]
It is hard to believe this absurd dispute has gone on for a year already. Mullenweg frames this as a win because, well, of course he does — and these are pretty serious allegations to have been dismissed. But as Margaret Attridge writes, at Courthouse News Service, the majority of claims have been allowed to stand:
U.S. District Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, a Joe Biden appointee, denied Automattic and Mullenweg’s bid to strike or dismiss claims including defamation, trade libel, unjust enrichment and intentional interference with contractual and economic relations claims.
These are the claims that concern, among other things, the hijacking of the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, which makes this next sentence Mullenweg wrote seem pretty rich:
[…] This is a win not just for us but for all open source maintainers and contributors.
Even if this case ends with a complete victory for Mullenweg and Automattic, his actions have shaken my support of — and faith in — the WordPress ecosystem. The original dispute is something I can understand. Mullenweg’s response, however, remains alarming. Actions do not need to be illegal for them to be wrong.