In recent days, an important discussion has erupted within the WordPress community. At the center of this debate are Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, and WP Engine. Mullenweg criticized WP Engine at a WordCamp event, describing their ability to profit from WordPress without contributing enough as „a cancer for WordPress.“ This harsh statement raised questions about WP Engine’s contributions to the open-source community, leading the company to respond with a warning letter to defend itself.
Konu Başlıkları
WP Engine countered Mullenweg’s accusations by highlighting its contributions and support for the WordPress community. The company accused Automattic of trying to demand millions of dollars for the licensing of the WordPress trademark. These mutual accusations have created a tense atmosphere of debate between the two companies. 
Latest Announcement from WordPress:
„If WP Engine customers are experiencing issues with their sites, they should contact WP Engine support to resolve the problem.
WP Engine needs a trademark license; they currently do not have such a license. Yesterday, they tried to prevent us from informing the WordPress community about their attempts to disable a core feature of WordPress and profit by locking it down, and I don’t want to bore you with the story of how they broke thousands of customer sites.
What I can tell you is that while waiting for WP Engine’s legal claims and lawsuits against WordPress.org, they no longer have free access to WordPress.org’s resources.
If WP Engine wants to control your WordPress experience, they need to manage their own user login systems, update servers, plugin directory, theme directory, pattern directory, block directory, translations, photo directory, job listings, meetups, conferences, bug tracking system, forums, Slack, Ping-o-matic, and showcase. Their servers will no longer have free access to our servers.
The reason why WordPress sites are no longer hacked as frequently is due to our collaboration with hosting providers to close security vulnerabilities at the network level. WP Engine will have to replicate these security investigations on its own.
In light of WP Engine’s attacks on us, why would WordPress.org provide these services for free?
WP Engine is free to provide its modified, corrupted version of the GPL code of WordPress to its customers, allowing them to experience the WordPress that WP Engine envisions, while reaping all the profits and providing all the services themselves.
If you want to experience the real WordPress, use any hosting provider other than WP Engine. WP Engine is not WordPress.“
Source: https://wordpress.org/news/2024/09/wp-engine-banned/
WordPress has intensified its conflict with hosting provider WP Engine by blocking the company’s servers from accessing WordPress.org resources, potentially depriving them of critical software updates.
WordPress is an open-source content management system (CMS) that can be extended with plugins. Its main hub is WordPress.org, which also hosts resources like themes and plugins for the CMS. There is a vast ecosystem of plugins from countless vendors, but WordPress.org is the primary source for these resources.
Many WordPress users rely on various plugins. Therefore, blocking WP Engine users‘ access to plugin updates is a serious issue; it means that users may not be able to update plugins for security issues or other fixes.
Matt Mullenweg, co-founder and CEO of WordPress, recently referred to WP Engine as a „cancer,“ accusing the company of profiting from WordPress while not contributing enough to the development of the CMS. Mullenweg attempted to demand that WP Engine pay trademark licensing fees, believing that this step would represent a financial contribution proportional to the benefits WP Engine derives from the project.
WP Engine is unwilling to pay this fee.
Mullenweg argues that if WP Engine does not pay, they should not benefit from WordPress.org resources.
„WP Engine wants to control your WordPress experience. They need to manage their own user login systems, update servers, plugin directory, theme directory, pattern directory, block directory, translations, photo directory, job listings, meetups, conferences, bug tracking system, forums, Slack, Ping-o-matic, and showcases,“ Mullenweg stated in a post announcing the ban on WordPress.org. „Their servers will no longer have free access to our servers.“
The service block following the mutual warning letters was logged in the WP Engine event log. „WordPress.org has blocked WP Engine customers from updating and uploading plugins and themes via WP Admin,“ the support-backed web hosting provider wrote on its status page.
In its announcement of the ban, Mullenweg directed WP Engine customers to contact the WP Engine support team if they encounter issues with their WordPress websites.
WP Engine did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For more information on this topic, you may find our previous article on ready-made infrastructure versus custom software on our blog interesting.