WPF (draft) WordPress TM Policy and Automattic

[hakre]

If you really need to use the WordPress trademark in a product, get permission/pay license.

Erm, I would not give such an advice. First of all I would call my lawyer for more info (and then probably afterwards have a good laugh). It's legal stuff, it's always complicated and has other mechanics as we normally tend to logically think about.

That's why it's problematic with statements that create the impression that something is not allowed when it's only not wanted by someone (well known) and there is no need to get permission for whats-o-ever. Can have the aftertaste of being misleading.

In the end Matt stands with his feet on the legal grounds as well and is like you and me.

The communicating style of the project is from what I can say far away from being precise and predictable. This is a problem for anyone who really wants to deal with the foundation or using the software package. But it is a comfortable situation for those who have their interests backed-up in the status quo.

Trademark is part of it. And as Matt said, it was a great day for him. A sign of the strength of his feelings might be that the statement was worth to get published on three sites in parallel.

The trademark and the policy is just chatter on the sideways. Like the GPL is unfitting to pressure-control a community process, the Trademark is not very helpful either.

In the legal sense, too many mistakes have been made and are not taken care of if you ask me for a comment.

The rest is food for the lawyers. Go feed them. I'm trying to get the licensing situation into order first for myself. I think that's helpful for everybody.