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The Verge, an IT news site, has published an interview with Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, which manages the commercial trademark of the content management system WordPress, about the ongoing dispute with WP Engine, a web hosting service, over the WordPress trademark.
Matt Mullenweg: ‘WordPress.org just belongs to me’ – The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/10/4/24262232/matt-mullenweg-wordpress-org-wp-engine
CEO Marenweg and Mike Little developed WordPress as a fork of b2/cafelog. After dropping out of college in 2004, CEO Marenweg continued developing WordPress and founded Automattic in December 2005. As part of its monetization of WordPress, Automattic offers WordPress.com as a managed web hosting service as its main product.
Meanwhile, WordPress itself continues to be developed as an open source content management system, and its development project is operated as ‘WordPress.org’. The non-profit organization that manages WordPress.org is the WordPress Foundation, which was founded in 2010 by CEO Mullenweg and others.
Mullenweg’s titles are ‘CEO of Automattic, the company that develops the for-profit service WordPress.com,’ ‘owner of the open source project WordPress.org,’ and ‘leader of the WordPress Foundation.’
Mullenweg has criticized WP Engine, a WordPress-based web hosting service , calling it a ‘cancer for WordPress ,’ and has announced that it will block access to WordPress.org from WP Engine . WP Engine has filed a lawsuit in court demanding that Mullenweg retract his remarks and that the company stop blocking access.
In an interview with The Verge, CEO Mullenweg said, ‘WordPress.org is owned by me personally. As the owner of WordPress.org, I do not want to have people threatening me with legal action and promoting companies that use the WordPress trademark. That’s why I have cut off WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org.’
CEO Mullenweg is the founder of the WordPress development project and the leader of the WordPress Foundation, so there is no doubt that CEO Mullenweg will have ownership of WordPress.org. The Verge states that ‘WordPress.org is a non-profit platform independent of Automattic, but is not a neutral, independent arbiter of the entire WordPress ecosystem.’
CEO Marenweg criticized WP Engine for not investing enough time and money into the development of the WordPress ecosystem, saying, ‘It’s like catching Al Capone with a tax. I mean, if a company makes $500 million on WordPress and they’re only donating $100,000 a year, you’re going to want them to donate more. That’s why we’re using legal means to pressure them. Yes, we’re putting pressure on them.’
The Verge pointed out that WP Engine’s decision to block access to WordPress.org puts other WordPress projects in a precarious position. WordPress is open source and free to use, with no obligation to give back. However, this sets a precedent that if a project is successful, it must contribute a certain amount to WordPress.org or it will be blocked from access by WordPress.org.
‘I’m happy to give WordPress.org to literally every other host out there, with no obligation to give back. WordPress will always be open source, so there’s never a legal obligation to give back. But it’s better for WordPress if they give back,’ said CEO Marenweg.
The Verge states, ‘The dispute between Mullenweg and WP Engine is blurring the lines between WordPress.org, the WordPress Foundation that supports it, and the Automattic-owned commercial division.’
Regarding the voices within the company questioning CEO Mullenweg’s actions, he commented in his blog , ‘WP Engine and its parent company Silver Lake’s attacks on me and Automattic, while unfounded, were effective. It has become clear that many of my colleagues at Automattic are opposed to me and our actions.’ He then revealed that he had notified the company that ‘if you leave Automattic by 20:00 on October 3, 2024 (GMT), you will receive $30,000 (approximately 4.5 million yen) or six months’ salary, whichever is higher.’ As a result, 159 employees, or 8.4% of Automattic’s employees, have left the company.
