WordPress is essentially web infrastructure. It’s widely used, generally stable, and doesn’t generate many eye-catching headlines because of it.
But last week, the WordPress community was embroiled in a debate over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg launched a blistering attack on major WordPress hosting provider WP Engine, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The announcement sparked a public debate around how profit-driven companies can and cannot use open source software and whether they are obligated in return to contribute to the projects they use.
In the days since, the conflict has escalated with a series of legal threats, resulting in a large number of website operators being caught in the crossfire of conflicts beyond their control. WP Engine customers are blocked from accessing WordPress.org’s servers, preventing them from easily updating or installing plugins and themes. While they received a temporary reprieve, WP Engine now faces a deadline to resolve the conflict or else access for customers will crash again.
WP Engine is a third-party hosting company that uses free, open-source WordPress software to create and sell its own pre-packaged WordPress hosting services. Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown into a competitor to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service to enhance their online presence.
“Silver Lake doesn’t care about your open source ideals, it just wants a return on capital.”
Mullenweg leads two different WordPress ones. There’s WordPress.org, an open source project developing the backbone of the WordPress publishing platform, and WordPress.com, a company that sells hosted versions of the open source WordPress software – just like WP Engine. Mullenweg runs Automattic, the company that owns WordPress.com. Data shows that approximately 43% of websites use WordPress, but it is unclear how many websites are hosted by WordPress.com or other parties.
In addition to selling plans on WordPress.com, Automattic contributes significant development work to the open source project, which itself relies on donations and community contributions to operate. According to Mullenweg, the team contributes 3,988 hours per week. Companies may not need to pay to use WordPress, but developing and improving it is certainly worth it.
WP Engine works slightly differently. The company said its focus is on investing in the community through sponsorship and encouraging adoption of the platform. The hosting platform was acquired by private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, which Mullenweg views as a business that profits from open source code without giving anything in return.
This frustration came to a head last week when Mullenweg took the stage at WordCamp, a WordPress conference sponsored by WP Engine, and took direct aim at WP Engine. “The company is controlled by private equity firm Silver Lake, which has $102 million in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t care about your open source ideals — it just wants a return on capital. So now I’m asking the WordPress community to Everyone votes with your wallet. Who will you give your money to: those who want to nourish the ecosystem, or those who want to squeeze every ounce of value out of the ecosystem until it wilts?
Mullenweg published a blog post on September 21, lambasting WP Engine for only contributing 40 hours a week to the WordPress.org open source project. “WP Engine sets a poor standard that others may see and think can be copied. We must set a higher standard to ensure WordPress can survive for the next 100 years.” He went on to criticize WP Engine more harshly , saying it “strip mines the WordPress ecosystem” and provides users with “a worse experience so they can make more money.”
Mullenweg not only defends the open source ethos, but also rival WordPress vendors
Mullenweg doesn’t seem wrong about WP Engine’s contribution. But WP Engine ultimately abides by the rules of the WordPress open source license: it is generally free to use, while WP Engine does not have Give back to the WordPress community simply because it is leveraging open source code. Of course, it would be nice if WP Engine did this, but there’s nothing requiring it to do so.
To make matters more complicated: Mullenweg not only defends the open source ethos, but also defends rival WordPress providers. In his blog post, he claims that WP Engine is “profiting from the confusion caused by the company’s brand.” Mullenweg claimed that WP Engine promised to provide customers with WordPress, but the company actually provided a stripped-down version of the service. He went on to say that WP Engine needed to obtain a commercial license for “unauthorized” use of the WordPress trademark, which is controlled by the WordPress Foundation, and later sent a cease-and-desist letter in an attempt to get the company to pay.
WP Engine has not remained silent. It sent a cease-and-desist letter that tells a completely different story about what happened behind the scenes. WP Engine’s letter alleges that Automattic demanded “significant amounts of money” just days before Mullenweg’s keynote speech at the WordCamp conference on September 20 – and Mullenweg allegedly threatened to “take action” if the company didn’t receive the money. Scorched Earth Core Approach ” towards WP Engine.
WP Engine claims Mullenweg harassed the company via text messages and phone calls, with one screenshot of the text reading: “If I’m going to explain to the WP community why we banned WPE, I need to do so in a presentation tomorrow.” Mullenweg confirmed he was speaking to Twitch Anchor ThePrimeagen sent these text messages during the interview, saying that he had prepared several presentation slides for the WordCamp talk, tentatively titled “How Private Equity Hollowed Out and Destroyed Open Source Communities, a 4-Part Story.” “
After WP Engine refused to pay WordPress, the company claimed Mullenweg followed through on his threat. “It is shameful that Mr. Mullenweg secretly demanded that WP Engine hand over tens of millions of dollars to his for-profit company, Automattic, while publicly pretending to be a selfless protector of the WordPress community,” WP Engine stated in the letter. “WP Engine will not comply with these unreasonable demands, which not only harms WP Engine and its employees, but also threatens the entire WordPress community.”
WordPress.org has now made it clear that it is going after WP Engine for not only failing to contribute back to the WordPress project, but for allegedly misusing the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg now says that Automattic offers WP Engine two ways to “pay its fair share”: either paying a license fee or contributing to the open source WordPress project. “This is not a money grab: it’s an expectation that any company that makes hundreds of millions of dollars from open source projects should give back, and if they don’t, then they can’t use their trademarks,” Mullenweg said.
The WordPress Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports the open source WordPress project, is led by Mullenweg and other little-known board members, whose names do not appear on its website. The WordPress Foundation appears to have made some adjustments to its trademark guidelines in recent days. As of September 19, the policy states that you are “free” to use the WP abbreviation “in any way you see fit.” But now WordPress has removed that language and replaced it with a line that says “Don’t use WP,” “which is confusing people.” For example, many people think of WP Engine as the ‘WordPress Engine’.
WordPress.org has banned WP Engine from free access to its servers, citing “legal claims and litigation,” making it more difficult for customers to use WP Engine. However, just two days later, Mullenweg decided to temporarily remove the block. He gave WP Engine until October 1st to create its own mirror or resolve the conflict. “Given the attacks on us by WP Engine, why should WordPress.org provide these services to them for free?” Mullenweg wrote. WP Engine said it has only issued a cease-and-desist order to WordPress and has not yet filed a lawsuit.
When asked about the WP Engine ban, Automattic spokesperson Megan Fox said in a statement edge “Trademark infringement resulted in the company being banned from using certain WordPress resources.” WP Engine noted edge See its statement on X when reached for comment.
The fight drew mixed reactions. On one hand, people think WP Engine is wrong, with some saying the company should Contribute more to open source projects, and using “WP” is misleading. On the other hand, some members of the WordPress community have called for Mullenweg to step down, accusing him of abusing his power over WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Others believe the situation could lead to a WordPress fork and raise concerns about whether WordPress will take action against other companies using the “WP” abbreviation or trademark.
But in a debate aimed at clarifying what WordPress is and isn’t, Mullenweg may blur the lines even further. WordPress.org and WordPress.com both make sense, but it looks very much like they are working together to make this happen.
