The world of WordPress, some of the popular technologies for creating and hosting web sites, is experiencing very heated controversy. At the guts of the difficulty is a battle between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts web sites built on WordPress.

WordPress technology is open source and free software, powering an enormous portion of the Internet – about 40% of internet sites. Websites can host their very own WordPress instances or use an answer provider similar to Automattic or WP Engine for a plug-and-play solution.

In mid-September, Mullenweg wrote blog entry calling WP Engine the “cancer of WordPress.” He criticized the host for disabling users’ ability to view and track the version history of every entry. Mullenweg believes this feature is “at the heart of the user promise to protect data” and stated that WP Engine turns it off by default to lower your expenses.

He also called WP Engine investor Silver Lake and said it was not contributing enough to the open source project and that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand had misled customers into believing it was a part of WordPress.

Legal battle

In response, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic, asking them to withdraw their comments. It also found that use of the WordPress trademark falls under fair use.

The company claimed that Mullenweg said it might take a “scorched earth nuclear approach” against WP Engine unless it agreed to pay “a significant portion of its revenues to license the WordPress trademark.”

In response Automattic sent its own stop and desist letter to WP Engine claiming that it did violated the foundations for using WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks.

WordPress Foundation too modified the trademark policy page and called out WP Engine, claiming that the hosting service confused users.

“The abbreviation “WP” shouldn’t be trademarked by WordPress, but please don’t use it in a confusing manner. For example, many individuals think that WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially related to WordPress, which shouldn’t be true. They have never even donated to the WordPress Foundation, though they make billions on WordPress,” the updated page reads.

The ban on the WP engine and the fight for a trademark

Mullenweg then banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources. While items like plugins and themes are open source, providers like WP Engine must run a service to download them, which shouldn’t be open source.

This broke many web sites and made them inoperable updating plugins AND topics. It also exposed a few of them to security attacks. The community didn’t like this approach of leaving small web sites without help.

In response to the incident, WP Engine wrote in a post that Mullenweg had abused his control over WordPress to disrupt WP Engine customers’ access to WordPress.org.

“Matt Mullenweg’s unprecedented and unjustified action disrupts the normal operation of the entire WordPress ecosystem, impacting not only WP Engine and our customers, but all WordPress plugin developers and open source users who rely on WP Engine tools such as ACF,” WP Engine said .

On September 27, WordPress.org temporarily lifted the banallowing WP Engine access to resources until October 1st.

Mullenweg wrote a blog post a proof that the fight is just with WP Engine over trademarks. He said Automattic had been attempting to broker a trademark licensing deal for a very long time, but WP Engine’s only response was to “pull us along.”

On September 30, the day before WordPress.org’s deadline to ban WP Engine, the hosting company updated its site’s footer to make clear that it shouldn’t be directly affiliated with the WordPress Foundation nor does it own the WordPress industry.

“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. The names WordPress®, Woo® and WooCommerce® on this website are 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 WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc.” read the updated description on the web site.

The company also modified the names of its plans from “Essential WordPress,” “Core WordPress,” and “Enterprise WordPress” to “Essential,” “Core,” and “Enterprise.”

WP Engine said in an announcement that it modified these terms to challenge Automattic’s claims.

“Like the rest of the WordPress community, we use the WordPress logo to describe our business. Automattic’s suggestion that WPE needs a license to do this is simply wrong and reflects a misunderstanding of trademark law. To address the concerns she raised, we have eliminated several examples that Automattic provided in its September 23 letter,” an organization spokesperson told TechCrunch.

On October 1, the corporate posted on X that it had successfully implemented its own plugin and theme update solution.

On October 15, TechCrunch reported that Automattic had been planning to define trademarks with “nice notes and notes nice” lawyers since earlier this yr, in accordance with an internal blog post written by the corporate’s then-chief legal officer. The post also mentioned a technique for filing more trademarks, which the inspiration finally did so in July.

The WordPress community and other projects imagine this might occur to them too and wish a proof from Automattic, which holds the exclusive license to the WordPress trademark. The community can be asking for clear guidelines on how they will and can’t use “WordPress.”

The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also registered as a trademark “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers AND suppliers they fear that if granted, these trademarks could also be used against them.

Developers have expressed concerns over-reliance on industrial open source WordPress products, especially when access to them can quickly disappear.

The founding father of the open source content management system, John O’Nolan, also spoke out on the matter and criticized the single-person control of WordPress.

“The network needs more independent organizations and greater diversity. 40% of the network and 80% of the CMS market mustn’t be controlled by one person,” he said post X.

On October 9, the creator of the Ruby on Rails web development platform, David Heinemeier Hansson, expressed the opinion that Automattic was violating open source software principles by asking WP Engine to pay 8% of its revenue.

“Automattic is totally out of touch and the potential harm to the open source world goes far beyond WordPress. Don’t let the drama and its characters turn you away from this threat,” he said blog post.

On the identical day, Mullenweg added a brand new checkbox to the WordPress.org contributor login, asking people to confirm that they usually are not affiliated with WP Engine in any way. This move was met with criticism from the writer community. Some authors said yes forbidden Slack community for opposing this motion.

In response, WP Engine stated that its clients, agencies, users and the community at large usually are not associates of the corporate.

On October 12, WordPress.org took control of the ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin — which makes it easier for WordPress developers so as to add custom fields on the edit screen — powered by WP Engine. Because WP Engine lost control of the open source plugin repository, the Silver Lake-backed company was unable to update the plugin. WordPress.org and Mullenweg said plugin guidelines allow the organization to take this step.

WP Engine i lawsuit

On October 3, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for abuse of power in a California court. The hosting company also alleged that Automattic and Mullenweg did not keep guarantees to run open-source WordPress projects with none restrictions and didn’t give developers the liberty to construct, run, modify and redistribute the software.

“Matt Mullenweg’s conduct over the past ten days has revealed serious conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if unchecked, threaten to destroy this trust. “WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect its employees, agency partners, customers and the broader WordPress community,” the corporate said in an announcement to TechCrunch.

The lawsuit also notes alleged text messages from Mullenweg regarding the potential employment of WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner. In a comment for Hacker News, Mullenweg he said that Brunner desired to develop into the chief director of WordPress.org.

In response, Automattic called the case baseless.

“I stayed up last night reading the WP Engine complaint, trying to find any value in it. The entire case is without merit and we look forward to hearing their lawsuit in federal court,” the corporate’s legal representative, Neal Katyal, said in an announcement. blog post.

On October 18, WP Engine filed a lawsuit in a California court, asking a judge to revive its access to WordPress.org. A day later, the corporate submitted its application administrative request asking the court to shorten the deadline for considering an earlier preliminary injunction.

Automatic exodus

On October 3, 159 Automattic employees who disagreed with Mullenweg’s direction for the corporate and WordPress as a complete took severance pay and left the corporate. Nearly 80% of those that left worked in Automattic’s Ecosystem/WordPress division.

On October 8, WordPress announced that Mary Hubbard, who was TikTok US’s chief executive and experience officer, would begin as executive director. This position was previously held by Joseph Haden Chomphosawho was considered one of 159 people leaving Automattic. The day before, considered one of engineers from WP Engine announced that they’re joining Automattic.

On October 12, Mullenweg wrote in a post that all the things was working An Automattic worker would receive 200 A12 shares as a token of gratitude. These shares are there special class for Automattic employees, which may be sold after a yr and has no expiration date.

On October 17, Mullenweg posted one other customization offer on Automattic Slack – with only a four-hour response window – with a nine-month severance package. However, if any person took up the offer, they’d also lose access to the WordPress.org community, Mullenweg said.