WordPress vs. WP Engine – What’s Really Happening?

There’s a lot of noise right now about Matt Mullenweg, the man behind WordPress. People are calling him names like "a cancer to his own community" and accusing him of having "main character syndrome." It’s hard to miss the drama if you’re following the recent controversies around WordPress and its commercial arm, Automatic.

But what’s actually going on? Is Matt Mullenweg really a tyrant losing his mind, or is he a hero fighting for open-source freedom? Let’s break it down.

WordPress - A Global Giant

WordPress powers over 40% of the websites on the internet. It’s a massive open-source project that allows people—both developers and non-developers—to easily build websites using plugins and themes. The reason WordPress is so popular is that it offers great flexibility through its ecosystem of plugins and themes, which can turn any site into anything from a blog to an online store.

The platform itself is free under the GNU General Public License, but the WordPress name and logo are protected trademarks owned by the WordPress Foundation. This means you can modify and use WordPress, but you can’t freely use the "WordPress" name for your commercial products without permission.

The Battle with WP Engine

A couple of weeks ago, things got heated when Automatic, the company that Matt Mullenweg founded and that owns the WordPress trademark, demanded millions of dollars in royalties from WP Engine, one of the most popular WordPress hosting companies. WP Engine makes money by offering WordPress hosting services but doesn’t contribute much back to the open-source community, according to Mullenweg.

Automatic’s demand was for 8% of WP Engine’s revenue, which amounts to millions of dollars every month. WP Engine refused, and that’s when the drama really took off.

Harsh Words and Legal Battles

On September 21st, Matt Mullenweg publicly called WP Engine "a cancer to WordPress" during a presentation at a WordCamp event. He accused WP Engine of profiting off WordPress without giving back to the community and claimed they were hurting the user experience by "strip-mining" the WordPress ecosystem.

WP Engine wasn’t happy with these remarks and immediately sent a legal notice accusing Mullenweg of making false and damaging statements. Automatic responded with their own legal notice, claiming WP Engine was misusing the WordPress trademarks.

Then, things escalated even further when WordPress.org banned WP Engine from its platform, preventing their users from getting updates and adding new plugins directly from the WordPress repository. This is a huge deal because it impacts WordPress developers and users who host their sites on WP Engine.

The Checkbox Controversy

In a strange turn of events, WordPress.org introduced a new login checkbox that users had to tick, stating they are not affiliated with WP Engine. People started joking about it online, and many felt it was a petty move by Mullenweg and his team.

This led to even more talk about whether WordPress, as we know it, could get forked—meaning someone could take the open-source code and create a new version of it. The whole situation is becoming a classic example of how there are no real winners in a fight like this.

So, Who’s the Bad Guy?

It’s hard to say who’s in the right here. On one side, you have Matt Mullenweg, who’s been with WordPress from the start and wants to protect its open-source values. On the other side, you have WP Engine, a company trying to make money from WordPress but accused of not giving back to the community.

In the end, it’s the WordPress users who suffer. Whether this drama will cause long-term harm to WordPress remains to be seen, but for now, the community is left in a state of confusion.

What do you think? Is Matt Mullenweg the hero of open-source, or has he taken things too far? One thing’s for sure—the WordPress drama is far from over.