WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has sent the WP community into a frenzy with his latest antics. So what happened?
In a surprise to just about everyone, Matt publicly targeted WPEngine, the largest hosting company in the WordPress ecosystem, by claiming [1] they are not contributing back to WordPress in a satisfactory manner and [2] demanding a $32-million ransom payment for alleged misuse of various WordPress trademarks 😳
Initially, this was a high-level corporate disagreement that should have been carried out in private. But Matt made the situation public—and quite ugly—when he blocked all WPEngine sites from the WordPress Theme & Plugin Repository, thereby making those sites unable to update Themes and Plugins.
And from there, things turned into a real mess 😱
But fear not! I’ve been reporting on this incident since it first happened, and I’ve created a video series to walk you through the whole thing (including lots of historical references for perspective):
- Part 1 — What is going on? How did we get here?
- Part 2 — WPEngine’s cease & desist letter to Automattic
- Part 3 — Give back… OR ELSE!
- Part 4 — Automattic’s cease & desist letter to WPEngine
- Part 5 — Matt bans WPEngine sites from the WordPress Repository
- Part 6 — A story about the time I destroyed one of Matt’s lawfare goons
- Part 7 — “Look what you made me do! But see how benevolent I am?”
Bottom line?
- Matt Mullenweg’s actions as the leader of the WordPress community are capricious, chaotic, unprincipled, and have now caused problems for innocent end users who host with WPEngine. That stinks for everyone.
- WordPress is also a distributed system that can easily withstand most of Matt’s antics. In other words, your WordPress sites are safe, and in my opinion, there is no reason to seek out—or even consider—drastic action.
If something should happen in the future that does require drastic action, I will be the first to tell you. And I will also provide you with detailed instructions and sound reasoning for any actions I suggest.
But for now? We’re all good, fam.