I found it frustrating that the article highlights Mullenweg’s actions while failing to even briefly describe what WP Engine is, and what actions they took. The story felt very incomplete, perhaps intended for someone who is already familiar with all the details. I have copied below excerpts from the Wikipedia entry on WP Engine because I found it clarifying.
> WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and organizations to build, host, and manage websites powered by WordPress.
> During the week preceding September 22, 2024, Matt Mullenweg—founder of WordPress.com—began speaking negatively about rival WP Engine. Mullenweg gave a speech at WordCamp US 2024 that argued that WP Engine had made meager contributions to WordPress compared to Automattic, criticized WP Engine's significant ties to private equity, and called for a boycott, sparking internet controversy.[30] In response, WP Engine issued a cease and desist against what it characterized as defamation and extortion, attributing his attacks to WP Engine's refusal to pay Automattic "a significant percentage of its gross revenues – tens of millions of dollars in fact – on an ongoing basis" for what it claimed were necessary trademark licensing fees (later clarified as 8% of all revenue, payable in gross or in salaries for its own employees working under WordPress.org's direction, combined with a clause that would've prohibited forking[31]) for the "WordPress" name.[32] Automattic responded by sending its own cease and desist the next day, citing the trademark issue.[33] On October 2, 2024, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for extortion and abuse of power, which the defendants denied.[31]
As a result of the dispute, WordPress.org blocked WP Engine and affiliates from accessing its servers—which include security updates, the plugin and theme repository, and more—on September 25, 2024, a day after its trademark policy was updated[34] to ask against usage of WP "in a way that confuses people", listing WP Engine as an example.[35] Following backlash, access to WordPress.org was temporarily restored until October 1 to allow WP Engine to build its own mirror sites two days later,[36][37] which the company did.[35] On the 12th, WordPress.org replaced the listing of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin on the WordPress.org plugin directory with a fork called "Secure Custom Fields" citing a guideline that empowers the foundation to "make changes to a plugin, without developer consent, in the interest of public safety".[38]
On October 7, 2024, to align the company's stance, Mullenweg announced that 159 employees—8.4% of Automattic—had quit in exchange for a severance package of $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher, with the condition that the resigned would not be able to return.[39] The next week concluded another offer of nine months' salary to attempt to placate those who could not quit for financial reasons,[40] though with only four hours to respond and the added term of being excluded from the WordPress.org community.[35]
WP Engine is definitely using the open source to make money, and is a big competitor to wordpress, but Matt is going scorched earth in a way that seems both embarrassing and ineffective.
It would be better if WP Engine contributed more to the open source project that they make so much money from, but it's not illegal or immoral. Maybe Amoral at worse?
If profiting off of open source without contributing back substantially is amoral, there's such a long list of companies (to say nothing of developers with upper middle-class incomes) who are similarly guilty.
And blocking core contributors with their stupid “Affiliated Checkbox”.
Unfortunately outright lying and saying that “I personally don’t think they voluntarily contribute enough” is “contributes nothing” seems to have been partially successful in seeding the idea.
The tl;dr of the dispute is that, a few months ago, Matt Mullenweg decided to start ratfucking WPEngine, to which they responded by suing to get them to stop ratfucking, and the court yesterday ordered Matt to stop ratfucking, to which he has apparently responded he doesn't want anything to do WordPress if he can't ratfuck WPEngine.
The reason why Matt started ratfucking is somewhat unclear. In the most charitable interpretation, he was unhappy with how little WPEngine was contributing to WordPress, and intended to create a pressure campaign to get them to do more, which backfired considerably. In a less charitable interpretation, this was merely an extortion campaign which turned out to be unsuccessful.
Matt claims that this is all in defense of open source, but I'm disinclined to believe him when the legal filings in his defense essentially amount to WordPress (whether the .com, the .org, the Foundation, the trademarks, the code itself, etc.) is entirely his personal property for him to do whatever the hell he wants with and we're all blubbering idiots for thinking that any action he'd ever taken (like setting up a foundation expressly to keep it from being one person's personal property) could ever change that.
MM was an WPE investor. He sold his stake in WPE a few years back, but I wonder if there was some bad blood in the board room that is the root cause of this public battle.
> WP Engine's main function is allowing businesses and organizations to build, host, and manage websites powered by WordPress.
> During the week preceding September 22, 2024, Matt Mullenweg—founder of WordPress.com—began speaking negatively about rival WP Engine. Mullenweg gave a speech at WordCamp US 2024 that argued that WP Engine had made meager contributions to WordPress compared to Automattic, criticized WP Engine's significant ties to private equity, and called for a boycott, sparking internet controversy.[30] In response, WP Engine issued a cease and desist against what it characterized as defamation and extortion, attributing his attacks to WP Engine's refusal to pay Automattic "a significant percentage of its gross revenues – tens of millions of dollars in fact – on an ongoing basis" for what it claimed were necessary trademark licensing fees (later clarified as 8% of all revenue, payable in gross or in salaries for its own employees working under WordPress.org's direction, combined with a clause that would've prohibited forking[31]) for the "WordPress" name.[32] Automattic responded by sending its own cease and desist the next day, citing the trademark issue.[33] On October 2, 2024, WP Engine sued Automattic and Mullenweg for extortion and abuse of power, which the defendants denied.[31] As a result of the dispute, WordPress.org blocked WP Engine and affiliates from accessing its servers—which include security updates, the plugin and theme repository, and more—on September 25, 2024, a day after its trademark policy was updated[34] to ask against usage of WP "in a way that confuses people", listing WP Engine as an example.[35] Following backlash, access to WordPress.org was temporarily restored until October 1 to allow WP Engine to build its own mirror sites two days later,[36][37] which the company did.[35] On the 12th, WordPress.org replaced the listing of WP Engine's Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin on the WordPress.org plugin directory with a fork called "Secure Custom Fields" citing a guideline that empowers the foundation to "make changes to a plugin, without developer consent, in the interest of public safety".[38] On October 7, 2024, to align the company's stance, Mullenweg announced that 159 employees—8.4% of Automattic—had quit in exchange for a severance package of $30,000 or six months of salary, whichever is higher, with the condition that the resigned would not be able to return.[39] The next week concluded another offer of nine months' salary to attempt to placate those who could not quit for financial reasons,[40] though with only four hours to respond and the added term of being excluded from the WordPress.org community.[35]