The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites, is going through a very heated controversy. The central theme is the fight 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 powers a large part of the Internet: around 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 a “cancer for WordPress.” He criticized the host for disabling users' ability to view and track the revision history of each post. Mullenweg believes this feature is “at the core of the user's promise to protect their data” and said WP Engine turns it off by default to save money.
He also called out WP Engine investor Silver Lake and said they don't contribute enough to the open source project and that WP Engine's use of the “WP” brand has confused customers into thinking it's part of WordPress. .
The legal battle
In response, WP Engine sent a cease and desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw their comments. It also said that use of the WordPress trademark was covered by fair use.
The company claimed that Mullenweg had said he would take a “nuclear scorched earth approach” against WP Engine unless it agreed to pay “a significant percentage of its revenue for a license to the WordPress brand.”
In response, Automattic sent theirs cease and desist letter to WP Enginesaying that they had violated WordPress and WooCommerce trademark usage rules.
The WordPress Foundation too changed their Trademark Policy page and called out WP Engine, claiming that the hosting service has confused users.
“The abbreviation 'WP' is not covered by WordPress trademarks, but don't 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 it is not. “They haven’t even donated a single time to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions in revenue on top of WordPress,” the updated page reads.
WP Engine Ban, Community Impact, and Brand Battle
Mullenweg then banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources. While things like plugins and themes are under an open source license, providers like WP Engine must run a service to retrieve them, which is not covered by the open source license.
This broke many websites and prevented them updating plugins and topics. It also left some of them exposed to security attacks. The community was not happy with this approach of leaving small websites helpless.
In response to the incident, WP Engine said in a post that Mullenweg had misused his WordPress control to interfere with WP Engine customers' access to WordPress.org.
“Matt Mullenweg's unprecedented and unjustified action interferes with the normal functioning 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 the WP Engine tools like ACF,” WP Engine 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 banallowing WP Engine to access resources until October 1st.
Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the fight is only against WP Engine for the brands. He said Automattic has been trying to negotiate a brand licensing deal for a long time, but WP Engine's only response has been to “cajole us.”
The WordPress community and other projects feel that this could happen to them too and want clarification from Automattic, which has an exclusive license to the WordPress brand. The community is also asking for clear guidance on how they can and cannot use “WordPress”.
The WordPress Foundation, owner of the brand, has also filed as a registered trademark “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress”. Developers and suppliers They fear that if these trademarks are granted, they could be used against them.
The developers have expressed concerns Relying too much on commercial open source WordPress-related products, especially when access to them can quickly disappear.
The founder of open source content management system Ghost, John O'Nolan, also weighed in on the issue, criticizing one person's control of WordPress.
“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 individual,” he said in a post.