This story has been updated throughout with more details as the story develops. We will continue to take action as litigation and disputes are ongoing.
The world of WordPress, one of the most widely used technologies for creating and hosting websites, is very hotly debated. The core issue is a fight between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress.
WordPress technology is open source, free, and powers a huge portion of the internet, approximately 40% of websites. Websites can host their own WordPress instance 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 “the cancer of WordPress.” He accused the host of disabling the ability for users to view and track the revision history of all posts. Mullenweg said he believes this feature is “key to our promise to users about data protection” and that WP Engine is turning it off by default to save money.
He also called out WP Engine investor Silver Lake, saying it wasn’t 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.
legal battle
In response, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic, asking them to withdraw their comments. It also stated that use of the WordPress trademark constitutes fair use.
The company claimed that Mullenweg told it it would take a “scorched-earth nuclear approach” to WP Engine unless it agreed to pay “a significant portion of its revenues to license the WordPress trademark.”
In response to this, Automatically sent on its own A cease-and-desist letter was sent to WP Engine. It violates the WordPress and WooCommerce trademark usage rules.
The WordPress Foundation also changed its trademark policy page and called out WP Engine, claiming the hosting service was confusing users.
“The abbreviation ‘WP’ is not covered by the WordPress trademark, 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, but this is not the case. Despite generating billions of dollars in revenue from WordPress, they have never donated to the WordPress Foundation.” It’s on the updated page.
WP Engine ban and trademark battle
Mullenweg banned WP Engine from accessing resources on WordPress.org. Elements like plugins and themes fall under open source licenses, but providers like WP Engine need to run their services to get those elements, which are not covered by open source licenses.
This has resulted in many websites becoming corrupted and unvisitable. Plugin and theme updates. Additionally, some of them were exposed to security attacks. The community did not like this approach as it crippled small websites.
In response to the incident, WP Engine said in a post that Mullenweg had misused his control over WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to WordPress.org.
WP Engine said, “Matt Mullenweg’s unprecedented and unreasonable actions disrupt the normal operation of the entire WordPress ecosystem, affecting not only WP Engine and its customers, but also all WordPress plugin developers and open source users who rely on WP Engine tools such as ACF.” He said.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, has misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to https://t.co/ZpKb9q4jPh, asserting that he did so because WP Engine filed litigation against https://t.co/erlNmkIol2. This simply is not true. Our Cease &…
— WP Engine (@wpengine) September 26, 2024
On September 27, WordPress.org temporarily lifted the ban.Allow WP Engine access to your resources until October 1st.
Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the fight is only taking place over WP Engine over trademark rights. He said Automattic had been trying to broker a trademark licensing agreement for a long time, but WP Engine’s only response was to “tie us down.”
On September 30, one day before WordPress.org’s deadline to ban WP Engine, the hosting company updated its site footer to make clear that it is not directly affiliated with the WordPress Foundation or owns the WordPress deal.
“WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the WordPress® user community. The WordPress® trademark is an intellectual property of the WordPress Foundation, and the Woo® and WooCommerce® trademarks are an intellectual property of WooCommerce, Inc. The names WordPress®, Woo® and WooCommerce® are used on this website for identification purposes. It merely does 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.,” the site’s updated description reads.
The company also changed the plan names from “Essential WordPress,” “Core WordPress,” and “Enterprise WordPress” to “Essential,” “Core,” and “Enterprise.”
WP Engine said in a statement that it changed these terms to refute Automattic’s claims.
“Like the rest of the WordPress community, we use the WordPress Mark to describe our business. Automattic’s suggestion that WPE needs a license to do this is simply incorrect and reflects a misunderstanding of trademark law. To address the alleged concerns, we have removed several examples provided by Automattic in their letter to us on September 23,” a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.
On October 1, the company posted on X that it had successfully deployed its own solution for plugin and theme updates.
We are pleased to report that our solution has been fully deployed and regular workflow practices have been restored to our customers around the globe. We thank all our customers for their patience and support over the past week. Like so many of you, we love WordPress, and are…
— WP Engine (@wpengine) October 1, 2024
On October 15, TechCrunch reported that Automattic was planning to “define the trademarks associated with good lawyers” starting early this year, according to an internal blog post written by the company’s then-chief legal officer. The post also mentioned the foundation’s strategy of filing more trademark applications, which it eventually submitted in July.
The WordPress community and other projects believe this could happen to them too and want clarification from Automattic, which holds the exclusive license to the WordPress trademark. The community is also calling for clearer guidance on how “WordPress” can and cannot be used.
The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademarks, has also applied for the trademarks “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers and providers are concerned that these trademarks, if approved, could be used against them.
John O’Nolan, founder of open source content management system Ghost, also weighed in on the issue, criticizing WordPress for being controlled by one person.
“The web needs more independent organizations and it needs more diversity. “40% of the web and 80% of the CMS market should not be controlled by any one person,” he said. X post.
On October 9, David Heinemeier Hansson, creator of the web app development framework Ruby on Rails, claimed that Automattic was violating the principles of open source software by requiring WP Engine to pay 8% of its revenue.
“Automattic is dead wrong, and the potential damage to the open source world goes far beyond WordPress. Don’t let the show or its characters make you feel threatened,” he said in a blog post.
On the same day, Mullenweg added a new checkbox to the WordPress.org contributor login, asking people to confirm that they are not connected to WP Engine in any way. This move received criticism from the contributor community. Some contributors said they were banned from the Slack community for opposing the move.
Regarding this, WP Engine stated, “Customers, agencies, users, and the community as a whole are not related to the company.”
Like the rest of the community, we have seen a new checkbox for logins at https://t.co/ZpKb9q4jPh that has created confusion amongst the community as to whether or how they are obliged to answer the question posed next to the checkbox.
We value our customers, agencies, users and…— WP Engine (@wpengine) October 9, 2024
On October 12, WordPress.org took control of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin. This makes it easier for WordPress developers to add custom fields to the editing screen. This plugin was maintained by WP Engine. Because WP Engine lost control of the open source plugin repository, Silver Lake support companies were unable to update their plugins. WordPress.org and Mullenweg said plugin guidance can help organizations take this step.
WP Engine Litigation and
On October 3, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg in a California court, alleging abuse of power. The hosting company also claimed that Automattic and Mullenweg had not kept their promises to run the WordPress open source project without restrictions and give developers the freedom to build, run, modify and redistribute the software.
“Matt Mullenweg’s actions over the past 10 days have exposed serious conflicts of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, risk eroding trust. WP Engine has no choice but to pursue these claims to protect our employees, agency partners, customers, and the broader WordPress community,” it said in a statement to TechCrunch.
The suit also references text messages from Mullenweg potentially hiring WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner. In comments to Hacker News, Mullenweg said Brunner wants to become the executive director of WordPress.org.
In response, Automattic said the case was without merit.
“I was reading WP Engine’s complaint last night and trying to find any merit in it. Everything is without merit and we look forward to consideration of the lawsuit in federal court,” Neal Katyal, the company’s general counsel, said in a blog post.
On October 18, WP Engine filed an injunction in a California court asking a judge to restore access to WordPress.org. A day later, the company filed an administrative motion asking the court to speed up the earlier preliminary injunction hearing.
auto escape
On October 3, 159 Automattic employees who disagreed with Mullenweg’s direction for the company and WordPress in general left the company with severance pay. Almost 80% of those who left worked in Automattic’s Ecosystem/WordPress division.
On October 8, WordPress announced that Mary Hubbard, previously head of governance and experience at TikTok US, would take over as executive director. This position was previously held by Josepha Haden Chomphosy, one of 159 people to leave Automattic. A day ago, one of WP Engine’s engineers announced that he was joining Automattic.
On October 12, Mullenweg wrote in a post that everyone working at Automattic would receive 200 shares of A12 stock as a token of gratitude. These shares are a special class for Automattic employees, can be sold after one year and have no expiration date.
On October 17, Mullenweg posted another adjustment proposal on Automattic Slack with a nine-month severance and a response window of just four hours. But if anyone accepts the offer, they also lose access to the WordPress.org community, Mullenweg said.
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