This story has been updated throughout with more details as the story develops. We will continue to act as the case and dispute continues.
The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites, is facing a heated debate. The main issue is the battle between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress.
WordPress technology is open source and free, and it powers a large portion of the internet – about 40% of websites. Websites can host their own WordPress for example or use a solution provider like Automattic or WP Engine for a plug-and-play solution.
In mid-September, Mullenweg wrote a blog post calling WP Engine a “cancer on WordPress.” He criticized the host for disabling users’ ability to see and track the review history of all posts. Mullenweg believes this feature is “core to the user’s promise to protect your data” and said WP Engine automatically turns it off to save money.
He also called out WP Engine’s investors, Silver Lake, saying that they are not contributing enough to the open source project and that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand confused customers into believing it was part of WordPress.
A legal battle
In response, WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic, asking them to retract their comments. It also claimed that its use of the WordPress trademark was covered under fair use.
The company said Mullenweg said it would take a “hot nuclear approach” against WP Engine unless it agreed to pay “a significant percentage of WordPress trademark licensing revenue.”
To answer, Automattic sent yours cease and desist letter to WP Engine, saying they had violated WordPress and WooCommerce trademark usage rules.
The WordPress Foundation also changed its Brand Policy page and called out WP Engine, accusing the hosting service of confusing users.
“The ‘WP’ acronym is not included in the WordPress trademarks, but please do not use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think that WP Engine is ‘WordPress Engine’ and is officially associated with WordPress, which it is not. They have never once donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of money off of WordPress,” the updated page reads.
WP Engine ban and trademark war
Mullenweg then blocked WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources. Although features such as plug-ins and themes are covered under an open source license, providers such as WP Engine must run a service to download them, which are not covered under the open source license.
This has broken many websites and banned them updates plug-ins and themes. It also left some of them open to security attacks. The community was not happy with this way of leaving small websites helpless.
In response to the incident, WP Engine said in a post that Mullenweg abused his control of WordPress to disrupt WP Engine customers’ access to WordPress.org.
“Matt Mullenweg’s unprecedented and unauthorized action disrupts the normal functioning of the entire WordPress ecosystem, affecting not only WP Engine and our customers, but all WordPress plugin developers and open source users who rely on WP Engine tools like ACF,” says WP Engine.
On September 27, WordPress.org temporarily lifted the banallowing WP Engine to access resources until October 1st.
Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the battle is only against WP Engine over trademarks. He said Automattic has been trying to sell a trademark license agreement for some time, but WP Engine’s only response has been to “shut us up.”
On September 30th, the day before WordPress.org’s WP Engine ban deadline, the hosting company updated its site’s footer to clarify that it is not directly affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or in charge of the WordPress trade.
“WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the WordPress® user community. The WordPress® trademark is the intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation, and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are the intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. Use of the words WordPress®, Woo®, and WooCommerce® on this website is for identification purposes. only and do not imply endorsement by the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. WP Engine is not endorsed by, owned by, or affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc.,” an updated statement on the site read.
The company also changed its plan names from “Essential WordPress,” “Core WordPress,” and “Enterprise WordPress” to “Essential,” “Core,” and “Enterprise.”
WP Engine said in a statement that it changed the terms to reflect Automattic’s claims.
“We, like the rest of the WordPress community, use the WordPress logo to describe our business. Automattic’s suggestion that WPE needs a license to do so is wrong, and shows a misunderstanding of trademark law. To alleviate its concerns, we have removed several examples provided by Automattic in its September 23 letter to us,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.
On October 1, the company posted on X that it has successfully deployed its solution for updating plug-ins and themes.
On October 15, TechCrunch reported that Automattic planned to define trademarks earlier this year involving “good and notable” lawyers, according to an internal blog written by the company’s chief legal officer at the time. The post also mentioned a plan to file for more trademarks, which the foundation finally did in July.
The WordPress community and other projects feel that this could also happen to them and want clarification from Automattic, which has an exclusive license to the WordPress trademark. The community is also asking about clear guidance on how they can and cannot use “WordPress.”
The WordPress Foundation, which owns the mark, has also trademarked “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers and suppliers are concerned that if these trademarks are given away, they can be used against them.
Developers have it expressed concern about relying on open source commercial products related to WordPress, especially if their access can be quickly moved.
Open source content management system The founder of Ghost John O’Nolan also examined this issue and criticized the control of WordPress by one person.
“The web needs independent organizations, and it needs more diversity. “40% of the web and 80% of the CMS market should not be controlled by one person,” he said. post X.
On October 9, the web application development framework Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson suggested that Automattic is violating the principles of open source software by asking WP Engine to pay 8% of its revenue.
“Automattic is completely out of line, and the potential damage to the open source world goes beyond WordPress. Don’t let the drama or its actors distract you from that threat,” he said on his website.
That same day, Mullenweg added a new checkbox to the WordPress.org contributor login, asking people to confirm that they are not associated with WP Engine in any way. This action was criticized by the donor community. Some contributors said they were banned from the Slack community for protesting this action.
In response, WP Engine said that its customers, agencies, users, and the general public are not partners of the company.
On October 12, WordPress.org took control of the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plug-in – which makes it easy for WordPress developers to add custom fields to the edit screen – which was maintained by WP Engine. Since WP Engine lost control of the open source plug-in environment, the company behind Silver Lake could not update the plug-in. WordPress.org and Mullenweg said the link guidelines allow the organization to take this step.
WP Engine case and
On October 3, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for abuse of power in a California court. The holding company also alleged that Automattic and Mullenweg did not keep their promises to run WordPress open source projects without restrictions and give developers the freedom to build, run, modify, and redistribute the software.
“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the past ten days has exposed serious conflicts of interest and management issues that, if left unchecked, threaten to destroy that trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its people, partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” the company said in a statement sent to TechCrunch.
The lawsuit also notes alleged documents from Mullenweg regarding the hiring of WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner. Commenting on Hacker News, Mllenweg said Brunner wants to be the executive director of WordPress.org.
In response, Automattic called the lawsuit frivolous.
“I stayed up late last night reading the WP Engine Complaint, trying to find any help with it. “This whole thing is without justification, and we look forward to the court hearing their case,” said the company’s legal representative, Neal Katyal, in a blog post.
On October 18, WP Engine filed an injunction in a California court, asking the judge to restore its access to WordPress.org. A day later, the company filed an administrative petition asking the court to shorten the hearing period of its previous sentence.
Automatic exit
On October 3rd, 159 Automattic employees who disagreed with Mullenweg’s direction of the company and WordPress as a whole took a severance package and left the company. About 80% of the people who left are working in the Automattic Ecosystem/WordPress category.
On October 8, WordPress said Mary Hubbard, former head of governance and experience at TikTok US, will be starting as executive director. The position was previously held by Josepha Haden Chomphosy, who was one of 159 people who left Automattic. The day before this, one of WP Engine’s developers announced that he would be joining Automattic.
On October 12, Mullenweg wrote in a post that every active Automattic employee will receive 200 A12 shares as a token of appreciation. These shares are a special class of Automattic employees that can be sold after one year and have no expiration date.
On October 17, Mullenweg sent another offer to sync Automattic Slack — with a response window of just four hours — with a nine-month waiver. However, if anyone takes the offer, they will also lose access to the WordPress.org community, Mllenweg said.
You can contact this reporter at im@ivanmehta.com or at Signal: @ivan.42
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