Dirty WordPress drama, explained

WordPress is essentially the infrastructure of the internet. It’s widely used, generally stable, and rarely generates blue-chip headlines as a result.

But in the past week, the WordPress community has been embroiled in a war over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg came out with a scathing attack on WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” on society. The statement opened a public debate about how profit-driven companies can and cannot use open source software – and if they are forced to contribute something to the projects that use it in return.

The conflict has escalated in the days since a number of legal threats and has left dozens of website operators caught in a conflict that is beyond their control. WP Engine customers are cut off from accessing the WordPress.org servers, preventing them from easily updating or installing plugins and themes. And although they were granted a temporary reprieve, WP Engine now faces a deadline to resolve the conflict or their customers’ access will be disrupted again.

WP Engine is a third-party hosting company that uses free, open-source WordPress software to create and sell its pre-packaged WordPress hosting service. Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown into a competitor to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service to power their online presence.

Mullenweg leads two different WordPress. There is WordPress.org, an open source project that develops the core of the WordPress publishing platform, and then there is WordPress.com, a company that sells a managed version of open source WordPress software – such as WP Engine. Mullenweg uses Automattic, which owns WordPress.com. The data suggests that about 43 percent of all websites use WordPress, but it is not clear how many are owned by WordPress.com or another group.

Along with commercial programs on WordPress.com, Automattic devotes a lot of development effort to the open source project, which itself relies on donations and community contributions to run. According to Mullenweg, the group contributes 3,988 hours per week. A company may not pay to use WordPress, but it certainly pays to develop and improve it.

WP Engine works differently. It says it is focused on investing in the community by sponsoring and promoting the adoption of the platform. The hosting platform was acquired by private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, and Mullenweg sees it as a business that profits from open source code without giving anything back.

That frustration came to a head last week when Mullenweg took the stage at WordCamp — a WordPress conference sponsored by WP Engine — and took direct aim at WP Engine. “The company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 million in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t give you a chance about your open source ideas – they just want the money back. So, right now I’m asking everyone in the WordPress community to vote with your wallet. Who will you give your money to: someone who will feed the ecosystem or someone who will extract every part of its value until it withers?”

Mullenweg followed up this statement with a September 21st blog post, in which he lambasted WP Engine for devoting just 40 hours a week to the WordPress.org open source project. “WP Engine sets a minimum standard that others can look at and think is okay to replicate. We have to set the bar high to make sure WordPress is here for the next 100 years,” Mllenweg wrote on the blog. He came out on WP Engine even more, saying it’s “stripping the WordPress ecosystem” and giving users “the worst experience to make more money.”

Mullenweg doesn’t seem to be wrong about WP Engine’s offerings. But WP Engine finally complies with WordPress’ open source license rules: it’s generally free to use, and WP Engine doesn’t. be giving back to the WordPress community simply because the bank releases the open source code. Of course, it would be nice if WP Engine did it, but there is no requirement for it to do so.

To make this even more difficult: Mullenweg isn’t just defending the open source ethos — he’s also defending his competing WordPress provider. In his blog post, he says that WP Engine is “profiting from the confusion” caused by the company’s brand. Mullenweg says WP Engine promises to offer customers WordPress but the company actually offers a distilled version of the service. He goes on to say that WP Engine will require a commercial license for “unauthorized” use of the WordPress trademark, which is controlled by the WordPress Foundation and later sent a cease-and-desist letter in an attempt to make the company pay.

WP Engine doesn’t sit still. It sent a cease-and-desist letter that tells a very different story of what was going on behind the scenes. In its letter, WP Engine says that Automattic demanded “a large sum of money” days before Mullenweg’s keynote speech at the September 20 WordCamp meeting — and if the company didn’t get it, Mullenweg allegedly threatened to go “hot nuclear.” ” towards WP Engine.

WP Engine alleges that Mullenweg harassed the company through text messages and phone calls, with another tweet saying: “If I’m going to make a case for the WP community about why we’re closing WPE I have to do it in my speech tomorrow. ” The documents, which Mullenweg confirmed he sent in an interview with Twitch streamer ThePrimagen, say he prepared several presentation slides for his WordCamp talk, with the working title “How Private Equity Can Bend and Destroy Open Source Communities, A Story in Parts 4. “

After WP Engine refused to pay WordPress, the company says Mllenweg followed through on his threats. “Mr. “Mullenweg’s secret demand that WP Engine give tens of millions to his for-profit company Automattic, while publicly posing as a selfless defender of the WordPress community, is disgraceful,” the WP Engine letter said. “WP Engine will not agree to these unreasonable demands that not only harm WP Engine and its employees, but also threaten the entire WordPress community.”

WordPress.org has now made it clear that it is going after WP Engine for not only failing to restore the WordPress project but also for misusing the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg now says that Automattic has offered WP Engine two ways to “pay their fair share”: either by paying license fees or making contributions to the open source WordPress project. “This is not extortion: the expectation is that any business that makes hundreds of millions of dollars on an open source project has to give back, and if they don’t, they can’t use their trademarks,” Mllenweg. said.

The WordPress Foundation – a charity that supports the open source WordPress project – is led by Mullenweg and other lesser-known board members who are not featured on their website. It seems that the WordPress Foundation has made some tweaks to the trademark guidelines in recent days. As of September 19, the policy stated that you are “free” to use the WP acronym “in any way you see fit.” But now WordPress has removed that language, adding a line saying don’t use WP “in a way that confuses people.” For example, many people think that WP Engine is ‘WordPress Engine.’” The revised policy also clearly states: “If you would like to use the WordPress trademark for commercial purposes, please contact Automattic, they have an exclusive license.”

WordPress.org blocked WP Engine from accessing its servers for free due to “legal claims and claims” – a move that made it difficult for customers to use WP Engine. However, Mullenweg decided to temporarily remove the block two days later. He gave WP Engine until October 1 to create their mirror or resolve the conflict. “Why should WordPress.org offer these services to WP Engine for free, if they are attacking us?” Mullenweg wrote. WP Engine says it has only served a cease-and-desist order on WordPress and has not filed a lawsuit.

When asked about the WP Engine ban, Automattic spokeswoman Megan Fox said in a statement The Verge that “trademark violations have resulted in the company being banned from other WordPress services.” WP Engine pointed out The Verge in its statement to X when available for comment.

The fight received mixed reactions. On the other hand, people think that WP Engine is wrong, some say that the company it should contributing heavily to an open source project and that its use of “WP” is misleading. On the other hand, some members of the WordPress community called for Mullenweg to step down and accused him of abusing his power over WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Some believe that this situation may lead to a fork of WordPress and raises concerns that WordPress will take action against other companies using the “WP” abbreviation or trademark.

But in a debate aimed at defining what is and isn’t WordPress, Mullenweg risks blurring the lines even more. WordPress.org and WordPress.com both have a point – but it looks awfully like they’re working together to succeed.