The latest on the WordPress fight over trademarks and open-source

In precocious September, Automattic CEO and WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg started a nationalist quality with the hosting supplier WP Engine, calling the institution “a crab to WordPress.” He accused WP Engine of not contributing capable to the WordPress ecosystem and profiting disconnected of trademark confusion. As a result, WP Engine was blocked from accessing WordPress.org’s servers.

Automattic has since sent a cease and desist bid to WP Engine to halt it from utilizing its trademarks, portion WP Engine has followed up with a lawsuit that accuses Automattic and Mullenweg of extortion.

The bid of events person acceptable disconnected a nationalist conflict that calls into question the boundaries betwixt WordPress.com big Automattic, the WordPress open-source project, and the nonprofit that’s down it.

Here’s each the latest quality truthful far.

• Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’

  

  Matt Mullenweg astatine WordCamp 2024 successful Europe.

  Image: WordCamp

  Over the past respective weeks, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg has made 1 happening exceedingly clear: he’s successful complaint of WordPress’ future.

  Mullenweg heads up WordPress.com and its genitor company, Automattic. He owns the WordPress.org project, and helium adjacent leads the nonprofit instauration that controls the WordPress trademark. To the extracurricular observer, these mightiness look to beryllium autarkic organizations, each separately designed astir the WordPress open-source project. But arsenic helium wages a conflict against WP Engine, a third-party WordPress hosting service, Mullenweg has muddied the boundaries betwixt 3 indispensable entities that pb a sprawling ecosystem powering astir fractional of the web.

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  The ‘WordPress’ combat is present a lawsuit

  

  WP Engine said the suit aims to code “abuse of power, extortion, and greed.”

  Image: Cath Virginia / The Verge

  The WP Engine web hosting work is suing WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and Automattic for alleged libel and attempted extortion, pursuing a nationalist spat implicit the WordPress trademark and open-source project. In the federal suit filed connected Wednesday, WP Engine accuses some Automattic and its CEO Mullenweg of “abuse of power, extortion, and greed,” and said it seeks to forestall them from inflicting further harm against WP Engine and the WordPress community.

  WP Engine is simply a large rival to WordPress.com, with much than 200,000 websites utilizing the service. Mullenweg runs Automattic, which owns WordPress.com, a institution that sells a hosted mentation of the open-source WordPress bundle — conscionable similar WP Engine.

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• 

  The messy WordPress drama, explained

  

  Matt Mullenweg astatine WordCamp 2024 successful Europe.

  Screenshot: WordCamp

  WordPress is fundamentally net infrastructure. It’s wide used, mostly stable, and doesn’t thin to make galore splashy headlines arsenic a result.

  But implicit the past week, the WordPress assemblage has swept up into a conflict implicit the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg came retired with a harsh onslaught connected WP Engine, a large WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The connection has cracked unfastened a nationalist statement surrounding however profit-driven companies tin and can’t usage open-source bundle — and if they’re obligated to lend thing to the projects they usage successful return.

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  WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg calls WP Engine a “cancer.”

  In a station connected his blog, Mullenweg called retired the rival hosting work — which is built connected WordPress — for “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” by disabling definite features similar revisions. “What WP Engine gives you is not WordPress,” helium says.

  WP Engine has since responded the post, saying “recent attacks against america are unfair and untrue and intelligibly designed to harm our business.”