The messy WordPress drama, explained
Matt Mullenweg criticized WP Engine for exploiting the WordPress ecosystem, leading to legal threats and access restrictions for its customers, while the community remains divided over the implications for WordPress's future.
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WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has publicly criticized WP Engine, a major hosting provider, accusing it of exploiting the WordPress ecosystem without contributing back. This conflict has sparked a debate about the responsibilities of profit-driven companies using open-source software. Mullenweg labeled WP Engine a "cancer" to the community during a recent WordCamp event, highlighting its minimal contributions to the WordPress project compared to Automattic, which he leads. The situation escalated with legal threats and access restrictions to WordPress.org's servers for WP Engine customers, complicating their ability to update or install plugins. WP Engine, acquired by private equity firm Silver Lake, claims it invests in the community and has rejected Mullenweg's demands for financial contributions or licensing fees. The WordPress Foundation has updated its trademark guidelines, indicating stricter controls over the use of the "WP" abbreviation, which has led to further tensions. The dispute has divided the WordPress community, with some supporting Mullenweg's stance while others criticize his approach and call for his resignation. The outcome of this conflict could have significant implications for the future of WordPress and its ecosystem.
- Matt Mullenweg criticizes WP Engine for not contributing to the WordPress community.
- The conflict has led to legal threats and access restrictions for WP Engine customers.
- WP Engine claims to invest in the community but has rejected Mullenweg's demands.
- The WordPress Foundation has tightened trademark guidelines amid the dispute.
- The situation has polarized the WordPress community, raising concerns about its future.
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4 commentsIt hasn't kept up with the latest events (like MM disabling WPE's svn access), but the author possibly has a life on weekends, unlike me.
The GPL license (and the FSF) is not against the idea of using GPL'd software for commercial purposes. This is why many GNU/Linux distributions offer paid support, and is how Red Hat and Canonical make money by selling premium support for a product whose source code is available anyway.
In fact, restricting access to the software for reasons such as "you are not allowed to make money with this software", is against the Four Essential Freedoms that the GPL adheres to. Just take a look at the FSF License List [1]. Even if it's for political, commercial or humanitarian reasons, forbidding a group from using the software will mark the entire license as non-free.
They could move to GPLv3, or even to AGPL, which is more appropriate for server-side software that runs over the network anyway. However, as another comment in this thread has pointed out, hosting companies will not appreciate the move and will probably fork to get away with it. And if this happens, then WordPress is doomed, just like other products that have switched licenses in the past such as Redis, Terraform or Elasticsearch [2]. They got tired of being ransacked by other companies that didn't spend resources on the product, but they lost momentum because they were forked and people went with the fork.
This is precisely why at the same time I understand the motives of Matt behind what he's doing, because there is precedent that some companies will just want the glory without the grind. However, there is probably no legal basis for the actions he's taking right now.
[1]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#NonFreeSoftwa... [2]: In fact, ElasticSearch recently announced that they were now adding AGPL as an option, but time will say if this change came too late or not.
>The hosting platform was acquired by the private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018
Being acquired by a private equity firm usually never ends well.
>Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals — it just wants return on capital.
This I believe.
>But WP Engine is ultimately abiding by the rules of WordPress’ open-source license
Since WP is under the GPLv2 and if WP Engine is conforming to the GPL, I agree with this. Maybe WP should move to the GPLv3 ?
>either by paying a licensing fee or making contributions to the open source WordPress project
Is WP Engine not releasing source changes to the public ? If so I think this is a GPL violation.
I guess the outcome is as usual, the users suffer the most.
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Matt Mullenweg criticized WP Engine at WordCamp US 2024 for minimal contributions to WordPress, urging users to consider alternatives, and warned that its practices could harm the WordPress ecosystem.
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Matt Mullenweg criticized WP Engine at WordCamp US, calling it damaging to WordPress. His remarks led to calls for his resignation, raising concerns about his leadership's impact on the community.
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Matt Mullenweg criticized WP Engine at WordCamp US, urging users to stop using their services due to trademark disputes, which could threaten the open-source community and WordPress ecosystem's future.
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Tensions between WP Engine and Automattic escalated into a legal dispute after Matt Mullenweg criticized WP Engine's contributions, leading to revoked API access and concerns about WordPress's future.
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