Having the last Word(Press)

I have been working with WordPress for over fifteen years and I appreciate the open-source platform as a freelancer, sole-proprietor, and consumer. I am heavily invested, to say the least.

Users can host their websites on their own servers, manage their own files and content without a subscription-based payment system, with no fear of proprietary platform changes that may unexpectedly affect them…

Until now, I suppose.

Now, before I get called out and @’d on social media, please let me state for the record that I am coming at this from an angle of community, choices, and actions versus the complete encyclopedia of legalities and corporate lingo.

In fact, I think that’s a good point to open with when the comments online about this fiasco are also heavily divided between both sides.

But first, let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.

💡 Tip: You may already be a solid fixture in the web development community and know what has happened and who it affects. You can skip this and the following section to jump down to how I feel about the whole ordeal.

The Players

Who is Matt Mullenweg

Matt Mullenweg is one of the two original authors (the other being Mike Little) who created WordPress.

Matt also founded the company Automattic, which operates the managed hosting version of WordPress.com, WooCommerce, Tumblr, and contributes to WordPress.org.

💡 Tip: If you don’t know the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com, you can learn more about it in my WordPress user content for AI training article.

Matt’s personal blog can be found here.

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What is WordPress

WordPress (WP) is a content management system on an open-source publishing platform.

The WP framework is installed on a web server and users can install and switch themes and plugins to change the look or functionality of their website without altering the core code.

WordPress was originally authored by Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little but in being open-source it is updated and maintained by community contributors and the WordPress Foundation.

💡 Tip: Open-source refers to software with source code that is free for anyone to inspect, edit, and build upon. Developers release their work under a license that grants users the rights to use, change, and distribute their software.

WordPress is responsible for running over 810 million websites as of 2024, and their directory offers approx. 60,000 free plugins

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What is the WordPress Foundation

Matt Mullenweg formed the charitable organization, WordPress Foundation, in 2010 to further the mission of its open-source project.

“The point of the foundation is to ensure free access, in perpetuity, to the software projects we support. People and businesses may come and go, so it is important to ensure that the source code for these projects will survive beyond the current contributor base, that we may create a stable platform for web publishing for generations to come.”
–WordPressFoundation.org

The WordPress Foundation also lists responsibility for protecting related trademarks.

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What is WordCamp

WordCamps are official conferences for developers and the community to come together to learn, share, and discuss WordPress. WordCamp is managed by a subsidiary of the WordPress Foundation, WordPress Community Support, PBC.

WordCamps are hosted all over the world by volunteers, in fact, it was one of the very first events I helped sponsor after becoming a freelancer!

WordCamp US took place in Portland, Oregon from September 17-20, 2024.

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What is WP Engine

WP Engine is a company that offers managed hosting for websites running the WordPress framework.

Since its origins, WP Engine has also acquired Studio Press, Flywheel, NitroPack, and Delicious Brains, the company behind several popular WordPress plugins, used on over 4 million websites.

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What is ACF

Advanced Custom Fields is a popular WordPress plugin that has been available for over a decade and is owned and maintained by WP Engine through their acquisition of Delicious Brains.

Timeline of Events

Prior to 2024
WP Engine launched in 2010. Automattic invested a significant amount of money in WP Engine in 2011 and announced a VIP partner program with WP Engine as the launch partner.

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September 2024 (reportedly, from WP Engine’s cease and desist letter)
WP Engine claims that in the days leading up to Matt’s keynote address at WordCamp US, Automattic suddenly began demanding that WP Engine pay Automattic large sums of money, and if it didn’t, Automattic would wage a war against WP Engine.

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09/20/24 – WordCamp US
WordCamp US, was hosted on September 20, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. Matt Mullenweg used some of his keynote to disparage WP Engine on stage.

WP Engine was not only present at the event, it was also a Super Admin Sponsor, alongside Bluehost, GoDaddy, Woo, and WordPress.com. On stage, Matt offered to wire back the $75,000 USD that WP Engine would have paid to sponsor the event.

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09/21/24 – Matt publishes article “WP Engine is not WordPress” on WordPress.org
The next day Matt published an article calling WP Engine a cancer, accusing their investor of not contributing enough to the open-source project, and causing customer confusion with the name of their company.

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09/23/24 – WP Engine sends a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic
This letter requested that both Automattic and Matt retract their comments and stop making statements against WP Engine. They provide text messages from Matt to WP Engine’s board member and its CEO leading up to his talk at WordCamp.

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09/24/24 – Automattic sends a cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine
This letter was sent back to WP Engine in response to their cease and desist letter, requesting that they immediately stop all unauthorized use of WordPress trademarks and pay compensation based on their annual revenue.

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09/25/24 – WordPress Foundation changes its Trademark Policy page
An earlier sentence about ‘WP’ not being covered by WordPress trademarks and being free to use was updated to include additional text and mentioned WP Engine.

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09/25/24 – Automattic removes WP Engine’s access to the WordPress servers
Matt published another blog post announcing that they have banned WP Engine from WordPress.org servers after hearing a rumor that WP Engine was trying to remove the WordPress News widget from admin dashboards.

This causes the inability for WP Engine customers to run updates on WordPress, themes, and plugins through the admin panel.

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09/27/24 – Automattic lifts ban for 3 days; WP Engine regains access until October 1st
WP Engine started remediation for an interim solution, and updated their platform on the 27th when Automattic temporarily restored WordPress access.

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09/30/24 – WP Engine changes the copyright verbiage on their website
The trademark information in the footer of WP Engine’s website is updated to clarify that it is not directly affiliated with Automattic, the WordPress Foundation, Woo, or any other WordPress trademarks.

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09/30/24 – WP Engine announces solution for WordPress prior to Oct 1 cutoff 
Regular workflows were restored and fully deployed, allowing customers to continue updating and maintaining sites as needed.

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10/03/24 – WP Engine lawsuit
WP Engine sues Matt Mullenweg and Automattic accusing them of abuse of power, and extortion.

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10/03/24 – 159 employees leave Automattic
Those staff that disagreed with Matt’s direction of the company took a severance package and left. Almost 80% of the people who left worked in the WordPress division.

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10/09/24 – Matt adds WP Engine checkbox on WordPress.org login screens
Developers who tried to login to their WordPress.org accounts found a new checkbox titled, ‘I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise.’ Some contributors claim they were banned for criticizing the move.

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10/12/24 – WordPress.org takes over ACF plugin and renames it SCF
Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), a very popular plugin that is owned and maintained by WP Engine, is taken over by WordPress.org. It is renamed to Secure Custom Fields. WP Engine can no longer access this free version of the plugin and has to post a notice on their website to direct existing customers to an alternate download.

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10/17/24 – WordPress.org posts offers to entice customers away from WP Engine
In a blog post, WordPress.org published a list of migration and alternative hosting offers for WP Engine customers to use.

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10/18/24 – WP Engine files for an injunction
WP Engine asks the judge to restore their access to WordPress.org, adding that they be allowed to regain control of its plugin. The hearing is set for November 26, 2024.

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10/23/24 – Judge sets first hearing for primary injunction
Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin sets November 26 as the first hearing for primary injunction unless there is an opposition.

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10/30/24 – Matt Mullenweg appears at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024
At TechCrunch’s annual conference this year, Connie Loizos interviewed Matt Mullenweg on the current state of affairs with WP Engine, Automattic, and WordPress.org.

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10/31/24 – Automattic publishes legal response to WP Engine
A day after Matt’s appearance at TC Disrupt, Automattic posted this article outlining a motion to dismiss WP Engine’s complaint filed on October 2, a motion “to strike certain portions of the complaint that focus on Matt’s personal opinions and other comments”, and opposition to the preliminary injunction.

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11/6/24 – Automattic launches wordpressenginetracker.com
Automattic launches a new website entirely devoted to tracking the number of websites that leave WP Engine servers, and lists the top hosting providers they moved to.

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11/9/24 – Matt appears in a fireside chat at Nerdearla
Interviewed by Ariel Jolo, Matt discussed trademark and lawsuit issues. When asked about blocking WP Engine from WordPress.org, Matt said, “They are blocked until they drop their lawsuits.”

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12/10/24 – Court orders Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org
While Automattic has said in a statement that they will keep fighting the case, they have been forced to remove the website they created that listed customers who left WP Engine, remove the checkbox on WordPress.org’s login page about users being affiliated with WP Engine, restore WP Engine’s access to the WordPress.org plugin directory, and return access and control of WP Engine’s original plugin: ACF.

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12/11/24 – Matt changes his username to “gone” on community Slack channel
A day after the court ruling, it is reported that Matt Mullenweg changed his WordPress community Slack username to ‘gone💀’ and posted the following message: “I’m sick and disgusted to be legally compelled to provide free labor to an organization as parasitic and exploitive as WP Engine. I hope you all get what you and WP Engine wanted.”

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09/25/25 – Court rulings offer two victories to Automattic, but WP Engine afforded to proceed
The judge issued a ruling that dismissed two of WP Engine’s claims against Automattic, while granting WP Engine the chance to amend others and allow the rest to proceed. Matt posted a legal win on his blog, but Roger Montti at Search Engine Journal points out the post’s simplification leaves out important details AND what the judge allowed to move forward.

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02/11/26 – WP Engine’s amended complaint alleges Mullenweg and Automattic planned to target competitors
WP Engine recently filed its third amended complaint which includes new allegations that Matt identified additional companies to pursue, including Stripe, who was contacted to persuade them to cancel contracts and partnerships with WPE. SEJ staff writer, Roger Montti, writes ‘Much of the previously redacted material is presented to support WP Engine’s antitrust claims, including statements that Defendants had the power to “destroy all competition.” What happens next is up to the judge.‘

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05/26/26 – WP Engine and Automattic trade accusations of withheld evidence in numerous court filings
WP Engine and Automattic filed at least 20 discovery letters and motions with the U.S. District Court, across at least 6 different disputes, accusing one another of withholding evidence, obstructing the process, and running out the clock. And nearly every single one was joined with a request to seal and make certain court records unavailable to the public.

Rae Morey reported that Mullenweg sat for 21 hours of deposition, with the testimony sealed and designated highly confidential. Even so, WP Engine has motioned for additional deposition time due to Matt’s evasiveness when answering questions.

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06/08/26 – U.S. Court finds Mullenweg was “evasive” in deposition and orders WP Engine to reveal their redacted strategy deck
Judge Krishnan agreed with last month’s complaint that Matt was evasive during his 21-hour deposition, awarding WP Engine 3 additional hours to follow-up with an Automattic designee. The Repository reports, “Krishnan wrote that Automattic “likely should not” redesignate him for topics where he lacked knowledge, and can put forward other witnesses. WP Engine gets an additional 30 minutes with each new witness who hasn’t previously been deposed.”

In regards to the company’s trademark fair use claim, WP Engine’s effort to redact information in their internal strategy deck was also rejected by the judge, granting Automattic’s request to compel WP Engine to search their internal applications for documents re: branding and marketing decisions.

This case is now moving into expert discovery ahead of hearings scheduled for June 24 and 25, with a jury trial set for September 2027.

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07/28/26 – WPEngine files a motion for sanctions
Adding a new entry to their own timeline of events, WPEngine shared their motion for sanctions that “alleges Defendants failed to preserve critical evidence directly relevant to the central issues in the litigation and requests responsive sanctions.” The PDF can be viewed through their website.

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How I feel as a WordPress developer and user

If you’ve been reading along online, comments span attitudes from “everything is fine, you’re all freaking out about nothing” to “Matt needs to be removed as CEO” to “WordPress is dying, find a new solution.”

I find myself somewhere in the middle. 

I’m of the opinion that the choices and actions of one individual has had an ill effect on an entire community. That if this was truly about trademarks and monetary or in-kind donations to the open-source project, that it could have been initiated and managed in a very different way.

The trademark issue

I have a difficult time taking on Matt’s accusations of trademark violations as cut and dry.

Up until four days after WordCamp US, the copy surrounding the use of ‘WP’ was not restricted. In fact, the screenshot below was taken of the trademark policy page on WordPress Foundation’s website as it appeared on September 24, 2024:

Note the highlighted text here: ‘The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.‘

What this tells me is that the trademark violation wasn’t a problem until it was – because according to their own trademark policy that was still online at the time of finger-pointing, ‘WP’ was free to use ‘in any way seen fit’.

WordPress Foundation did inevitably update their page to include new terms for the use of ‘WP’ albeit, it wasn’t done without further referring to WP Engine:

Note the highlighted text here: ‘The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress.‘

Personally, I don’t know that your trademark policy is the best place to continue a spat, but here we are.

I came across this detailed article by Richard Best of WP and Legal Stuff about where WP Engine has changed the use of trademarks on its website. This and several other related articles on his site are definitely worth a read!

“… we need to appreciate that WP Engine will have found itself in a situation where it had been using WordPress-related terms for a long time and in a way commonly deployed across the industry and which, until a week or so ago, had not created the controversy that recently befell it (or at least not publicly).”
-Richard Best, WP and Legal Stuff

At the end of the day, if this isn’t a targeted or special situation, other hosting companies and WordPress service providers may have some significant updates or purchases in their future.

To fork or not to fork

The benefit of open source is the ability to share, edit, grow, and maintain code. It can be a beautiful thing.

As some people have come out criticizing the move of WordPress.org’s takeover of the ACF plugin, others have responded pointing out that “it’s perfectly legal to fork open source work” or “that’s what you get for hosting your plugin on the free directory”.

Frankly, it’s never really been done before. At least I can’t remember a time that an organization just simply took another’s product. To be clear here, I don’t feel like what WordPress.org did was really forking.

If I am misunderstanding this, please do correct me…

But if it was a fork, would the original ACF plugin not remain untouched?

You could fork the code to build on it or use it as a framework to build something new, but this isn’t what happened. Instead, the plugin profile was renamed and the author was changed, removing access to the original author altogether.

It’s giving icky feelings. Especially with the timing.

WordPress removes access to the directory so that WP Engine can’t update their plugin, then WP takes over said plugin because “they can’t update their plugin and it’s a security issue”, all while in a legal dispute…

Look, all I’m saying is that it doesn’t feel like WordPress.org was looking out for my safety or feelings as a consumer, it feels like they are in a playground fight. Now the tire swings are off-limits and that’s totally where I was going to drink my juice box.

The bottom line for me is that I want to feel a level of security in the software and products I use as both a service provider and a consumer. I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I lost some trust in Automattic and WordPress.org here due to their behaviours and choices.

Update: Early in the morning on October 31, the official WordPress account on X quoted a well-known developer, Vinny Green, asking “how are you going to run a fork if you can’t even keep a blog post up?”

Click to view embedded text from screenshot

WordPress posts on X: “Hey @vinnygreen, what happened to the post at (freewp.com)? In fact, your entire site looks pretty broken. How are you going to run a fork if you can’t even keep a blog post up?”

That wasn’t enough though, because an hour later, the official WordPress account also posted this:

Click to view embedded text from screenshot

WordPress posts: “If you aren’t a fork, what are you? We have lots of useful things to do with our funds; sending it to your masturbatory governance and repository work that won’t benefit users at all is a waste. If you’re going to do something useful, spend time there rather than reply-guying every post we make. You’ve been working since… September 28th? What have you shipped of value? How many users do you have?”

As you can imagine, these posts were deleted pretty quickly, but thanks to the internet archives, we have screenshots. (Most of the community is presuming that these posts were made by Matt as they have similar language to his personal posts.)

My opinion? If I saw another company behaving this way, I wouldn’t spend dollars there…

Choosing fear

Reviewing WP Engine’s legal documents and reading the texts that Matt allegedly sent leading up to the time he was on stage for his keynote at WordCamp says a lot, if true. And because his demands weren’t met, he retaliated, like he said he would.

Audience Member: “A lot of people are excited about WordPress and I wanted to share that when you punch down.. and I’m not talking about only singling out a super admin sponsor at WordCamp here, I’m also talking about personally, you’ve in the past, punched down with other people who are less powerful than you…”
Matt Mullenweg: “Well, I would now publicly offer if WP Engine would like their $75,000 back that they paid to be super admin sponsor, happy to wire it back.”
AM: “I’m suggesting that what feel to me as vendettas are really demotivating…” (Audience Applause)
MM: “Yeah, it can be.”

The person in the video above commented at WordCamp, suggesting that Matt could go a better and more positive way about this, and along with the others in the audience who applauded, I agree.

Matt’s actions have directly affected WPE customers, caused alarm for other businesses in the WordPress space, and cautioned developers who spend time working on WordPress and open-source products. Then, it cascades…

While business is business and I understand the hustle, within an hour of Matt’s keynote address, some companies started posting migration and hosting services immediately.

I felt like it was amplifying some of the fear-mongering that was happening online for both WPE customers and the average user by ignoring everything else these comments brought up and simply focusing on a topical service to market.

We’ve done a fantastic job here at making the WordPress platform less intriguing to new developers and consumers presently.

What other companies are doing in the aftermath

On October 28, 2024, WordPress plugin company Paid Memberships Pro, published a blog post titled ‘Leaving WordPress.org: What It Means for Paid Memberships Pro Users’.

“WordPress.org is Matt Mullenweg’s personal website (source: the Automattic account on X.com). Matt is also the owner of our largest competitor, WooCommerce. The conflict of interest was always there, but in the weeks following WordCamp US 2024, Matt crossed several lines that make it crystal clear that he has no intentions of running WordPress.org as an open and fair platform.“
– Jason Coleman, Paid Memberships Pro

Under headline ‘Are you worried that Matt might retaliate somehow?’ he wrote: The fact that we have to even ask this question is why we have to make this move.

This may be the start of a new trend where we see more plugins pulled from the repository, again, out of fear, and due to the choices and actions of an individual. The lack of trust isn’t just impacting customers and consumers, but colleagues – affiliates, partners, developers, and supporters…

WordPress vs WP Engine: where do we go from here?

To me, the WordPress community itself has always felt open, gracious, and supportive. There hasn’t really been drama like this before, certainly not an underlying fear that what we have come to know and love would be put into any kind of jeopardy.

We have to wait to see what comes of the legal matters concerning WordPress vs WP Engine, I know its something I’ll have my alerts on for.

But the bigger picture here, I think, is what does all of this mean for open-source? 

For me, I’ll continue plugging away, curious and optimistic!

Thank you for taking the time to read through my thoughts. I’d appreciate hearing what you think and takeaways on how you’re feeling about WordPress right now.

If you have any feedback, corrections, or comments please send me an email!

Additional Reading and References

• https://techcrunch.com/2024/10/10/wordpress-vs-wp-engine-drama-explained
• https://techcrunch.com/2024/09/23/wp-engine-sends-cease-and-desist-letter-to-automattic-over-mullenwegs-comments/ 
• https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/05/wordpress-ceo-matt-mullenweg-goes-nuclear-on-silver-lake-wp-engine-.html 
• https://ma.tt/2024/09/wordpress-engine/ 
• https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/spoon/ 
• https://wordpress.org/news/2024/10/secure-custom-fields/ 
• https://wpandlegalstuff.com/wp-engine-changes-use-of-trademarks-on-its-website/ 
• https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/wordpress-statistics
• https://wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Cease-and-Desist-Letter-to-Automattic-and-Request-to-Preserve-Documents-Sent.pdf 
• https://automattic.com/2024/wp-engine-cease-and-desist.pdf 
• https://wordpress.org/five-for-the-future/?s=WP
• https://www.paidmembershipspro.com/leaving-wordpress-org/
• https://automattic.com/2024/10/31/legal-response-to-wp-engine/
• https://wpengine.com/blog/ensuring-stability-and-security/
• https://www.therepository.email/wp-engine-files-injunction-to-halt-mullenwegs-attacks-and-regain-access-to-wordpress-org