Fear and loathing in the WordPress world

As corporate feuds go, Automattic vs WP Engine is about as obscure as it gets, and about as vicious. Few non-techies know that a system called WordPress powers nearly half of all websites on the internet (roughly 43% at last count) and even fewer know, or care, what Automattic or WP Engine do. Yet the feud may lead to the disintegration of a global software ecosystem worth tens of billions of dollars.

Many people still think of WordPress as "that blogging thing" but, since its launch in 2003, it has evolved into a flexible and powerful content management system. Hundreds of millions of websites and online shops use WordPress to produce their sites. As its usage has expanded, hundreds of thousands of businesses employing millions of people have sprung up around the software.

Automattic and WP Engine are two of the largest businesses in that ecosystem. They compete with each other to offer paid services built on top of the WordPress software. In particular, they host sites built using WordPress, making them available on the internet.

The feud has been simmering for years, but only hit the headlines when Matt Mullenweg, the co-creator of WordPress, attacked WP Engine publically, calling for the community to "vote with their wallets" and abandon his largest rival.

He also made a point of emphasising his control over WordPress itself. During a press interview, he said that the WordPress Foundation, which effectively owns the software, "belongs to me personally”. When this sabre rattling failed to have the desired effect, Mullenweg cut WP Engine's systems off from vital updates to the WordPress software, disrupting tens of thousands of websites.

The root of this disagreement is, paradoxically, a free software package. A major part of what has made WordPress so enduringly popular is that it is open source – anyone can download its code for free and use and modify it as they see fit. WordPress’ founders bet that letting other engineers and businesses share and collaborate on their project would make it better and more widely used.

No restriction

The bet paid off spectacularly, and Mullenweg became both a darling of the open source world and a very wealthy man. How did he become wealthy while giving away his software? Simple: by offering a turnkey version of the platform for those millions of users who wanted a good website without having to fiddle around with code and servers.

In practical terms, Mullenweg created two different entities – a non-profit foundation (colloquially known as WordPress.org) and WordPress.com, a commercial hosting platform. The foundation would look after the software, and the business would make money out of hosting and other premium services.

This arrangement worked excellently, with a growing community of people contributing to the open source project while making a living building and hosting websites that relied on the same project. The software licence that makes this possible, GNU General Public License or GPL for short, makes WordPress entirely free to download, use and modify. There is no restriction on making money from the software, but it also offers no warranty. Recently, this licence, the bedrock of the WordPress ecosystem, has begun to chafe Mullenweg. His company, Automattic, which owns WordPress.com, is worth over $7 billion, but Mullenweg has grown steadily more resentful of WP Engine. The rival hosting company is now much larger than WordPress.com, with an estimated global market share of 1.8%, comparable to Google's Cloud services.

Mullenweg feels that WP Engine has not contributed sufficiently to the Word- Press Foundation, or at least not at a scale commensurate with how much it has benefited. In private negotiations, he demanded that WP Engine begin paying 8% of its yearly revenues, worth around $32 million, to the foundation. The management of WP Engine, predictably, disagree and point to a decade of advocacy events, educational initiatives and community support.

Mullenweg has contributed much to building the web, but he has radically overreached in this case. By acting like a petty tyrant, he has shaken the faith of the entire WordPress ecosystem. He has personally benefited enormously from the GPL licence, with a net worth of around $400 million. Either WordPress is free and collaborative, or he owns and controls it. If it's the latter, then the ecosystem is likely to gradually disintegrate rather than bend the knee. He cannot have his cake and eat it too.