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In late September, Automattic CEO and WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg started a public dispute with the hosting provider WP Engine, calling the company “a cancer to WordPress.” He accused WP Engine of not contributing enough to the WordPress ecosystem and profiting off of trademark confusion. As a result, WP Engine was blocked from accessing WordPress.org’s servers.
Automattic has since sent a cease and desist order to WP Engine to stop it from using its trademarks, while WP Engine has followed up with a lawsuit that accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion.
The series of events set off a public battle that calls into question the boundaries between WordPress.com host Automattic, the WordPress open-source project, and the nonprofit that’s behind it.
Here’s all the latest news so far.
Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’
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Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp 2024 in Europe. Image: WordCamp
Over the past several weeks, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has made one thing exceedingly clear: he’s in charge of WordPress’ future.
Mullenweg heads up WordPress.com and its parent company, Automattic. He owns the WordPress.org project, and he even leads the nonprofit foundation that controls the WordPress trademark. To the outside observer, these might appear to be independent organizations, all separately designed around the WordPress open-source project. But as he wages a battle against WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, Mullenweg has muddied the boundaries between three essential entities that lead a sprawling ecosystem powering almost half of the web.
The ‘WordPress’ fight is now a lawsuit
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WP Engine said the lawsuit aims to address “abuse of power, extortion, and greed.” Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge
The WP Engine web hosting service is suing WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Automattic for alleged libel and attempted extortion, following a public spat over the WordPress trademark and open-source project. In the federal lawsuit filed on Wednesday, WP Engine accuses both Automattic and its CEO Mullenweg of “abuse of power, extortion, and greed,” and said it seeks to prevent them from inflicting further harm against WP Engine and the WordPress community.
WP Engine is a major rival to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service. Mullenweg runs Automattic, which owns WordPress.com, a company that sells a hosted version of the open-source WordPress software — just like WP Engine.
The messy WordPress drama, explained
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Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp 2024 in Europe. Screenshot: WordCamp
WordPress is essentially internet infrastructure. It’s widely used, generally stable, and doesn’t tend to generate many splashy headlines as a result.
But over the last week, the WordPress community has swept up into a battle over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg came out with a harsh attack on WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The statement has cracked open a public debate surrounding how profit-driven companies can and can’t use open-source software — and if they’re obligated to contribute something to the projects they use in return.
WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a “cancer.”
In a post on his blog, Mullenweg called out the rival hosting service — which is built on WordPress — for “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” by disabling certain features like revisions. “What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress,” he says.
WP Engine has since responded the post, saying “recent attacks against us are unfair and untrue and clearly designed to harm our business.”