“My Mom [sic] can’t tell the difference between WP Engine and WordPress” – Automattic and Matt Mullenweg put constraints on use of the WordPress trademark and their collaboration to the WordPress.org environment demanding $32 Million from WP Engine”.
The dispute between Matt Mullenweg of WordPress/Automattic and WP Engine continues to rumble on as the company files not just one but three new court motions towards WP Engine showing the dispute which started back in September 2024 is not going away anytime soon.
In the latest legal steps, Automattic the owner of WordPress and company CEO Matt Mullenweg, have placed a motion to the court to dismiss WP Engine’s original complaint filed back on October 2nd 2024, as well as to strike – under anti-SLAPP law – certain portions of the complaint which focused on Matt’s personal opinions and other comments and in addition, a filing to oppose WP Engine request for a preliminary injunction regarding their being blocked from accessing WordPress Software and Plugins.
The company continues to highlight that WP Engine and its private equity owner, Silver Lake does not contribute to the WordPress.org community and ‘continues to expect to profit off the back of others without carrying some of the weight’ in contributing back to the preserving and maintaining of WordPress.org resource.
In their defence, the latest statement on WP Engines’ website shares a timeline of the legal steps they have taken as well as it’s attempts to continue to support customers along the process. They continue to highlight that they are a ‘proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress users’.
How things started
To really understand what is happening here it is best to retrace the steps to what was said at the start, when it all kicked off which was around the time of Matt’s US WordCamp presentation back on the 24th September 2024.
In the session he began by saying that this may be his ‘spiciest’ WordCamp presentation ever and as he shared his thoughts on the latest trends and the potential threat of ‘private equity hollowing out and undermining open-source communities.’
He said that the information he was about to share had come from WP Engine employees directly, who were concerned about the direction of the company under Silver Lake – a Private Equity Firm that in Matt’s words “doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals it just wants return on Capital.” He went on to discuss the fate of other companies Silver Lake has acquired such as Talend – a scalable data platform, Unity – a video game software company and Godot – an opensource Game Engine, who have seen multiple returns on investment in a short space of time, and that this in essence is also the plan for WP Engine.
In short, his gripe is more against the corporations who seek to profit from open-source rather than maintaining and contributing to the community. In his blog, Mullenweg stated: “WP Engine generates over half a billion in revenue on top of WordPress yet only contributes 40 hours a week back to the community, whereas Automattic which is of similar size company, contributes 3,915 hours per week” – in our view, it seems normal that since Automattic are WordPress their contributions would be highest, however, we definitely agree WP Engine could be contributing more.
As a further dig, he then pointed out how the company is misusing the WordPress trademark. “WP Engine sounds like WordPress, its colors are even similar to WP’s blue. There’s brand confusion.” Although, given that the company has existed for some time and he hasn’t done anything about this before it seems an extra addition to put fuel in the fire.
Mullenweg explained that he had ‘attempted to discuss increasing WP Engine’s contributions, but after receiving no positive response, he felt it necessary to call them out publicly. He encouraged users to consider switching to hosts that actively contribute to WordPress when their WP Engine contracts are up for renewal. He also emphasized that WP Engine employees are not at fault and that he supports those who speak out about their company’s lack of participation in the WordPress community.’ – Mullenweg, WordCamp, US, September 2024
After the presentation, WP Engine sent a ‘cease-and-desist’ letter asking Matt to withdraw his comments which in their view was not meant to be intimidating, but a polite request. However, as events unfolded it seemed Matt was not going to let this one go.
Further details emerged about WP Engine practices, such as that users of the platform aren’t allowed to store and go back to past revisions of their posts and content unless speaking to WP Engine directly which in Matts’s press release on the Automattic website on how their practices view are against the community element.
Also later in a rather dirty tactic by Automattic, in November they took over one of WP Engine’s successful plugins ‘Advanced Custom Fields’ – which has over 2 million installations. This move was unprecedented in WordPress’s 21-year history, with no plugin ever being forcibly taken from its creator without consent. However, due to a court ruling, Automattic was forced to reinstate WP Engine’s repository access the following month.
Effects on employees and the WordPress Ecosystem
The dispute has had far-reaching consequences within the WordPress ecosystem. At Automattic, 159 employees (8.4 percent of the workforce) have accepted Mullenweg’s offer to leave with a severance package including some senior staff, expressing their disagreement with his handling of the situation.
An article on medium written by retired ex-Automattic employee Kellie Peterson, shared her correspondence with co-creator of WordPress Mullenweg after he contacted her directly on X in relation to her comments on the matter, despite sharing previously that employers would be safe to express their disagreement of the situation either way. Later, Peterson reflected on her time at the company mentioning that the work environment could be toxic at times and very much at the whim of the CEO and that she was pleased to have left the company a while back.
The conflict is also now spilling into community events, with WP Engine’s sponsorship of WordCamp Sydney being revoked. Additionally, WordPress.org implemented a controversial login checkbox requiring users to confirm they were not affiliated with WP Engine, thus further isolating the hosting company from the community.
Consideration for WP Engine customers and users
“We don’t make software for free, we make it for freedom.” – Automattic
In our view, this ongoing public dispute that has affected many WordPress users surely goes against the company’s own values and principles of a free open-source community accessible to everyone.
As stated in the quote above on Automattics own website, “we don’t make software for free, we make it for freedom”, What kind of ‘freedom’ are the users of WP Engine currently experiencing at the behest of this current legal battle?
There have been many companies benefiting off the back of OpenSource WordPress.org for years, running small agencies providing WordPress services to companies and individuals and doing the exact same thing as WP Engine, but what seems to be the difference here? It seems that the corporate element and the size and greed of Silver Lake has bothered Mullenweg and this seems to be more a war against corporations and unethical financial gains more than anything.
Also, this issue is not new and has happened before, with similar legal issues taken out at domain, hosting and WordPress hosting company, Godaddy and private equity firm, Pantheon, singled out in previous years for similar things – but now on much better terms.
Over the past few months, the company has made it difficult for WP Engine to function and it would be interesting to know what effect this will be having on the business and new users at this time. Of course, all these actions have been intended to drive their business away.
However, since WordPress is supposed to have its values in community, hopefully Matt can bring things back a bit and remember the company’s true values at their core. Maybe some compromise could also be made here if WP Engine were willing to set out a strategy on how they can contribute more to the WordPress community – one of the main issues, as Matt highlights.
Either way, as of the latest legal action this month it looks like this issue is not going away anytime soon.