This story has been updated throughout with more details as the story has developed. We will continue to do so as the case and dispute are ongoing.

The world of WordPress - perhaps the most popular technology for creating and hosting websites - is witnessing a very heated controversy. Underpinning this controversy is a fight between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg, and WP Engine, the company hosting those websites on WordPress.

Being open-source and free, WordPress powers a pretty huge chunk of the internet-40% of websites. Either the websites choose to host their own WordPress instance or one of the solution providers like Automattic or WP Engine in the market offers a plug-and-play solution.

In mid-September, Mullenweg wrote a blog post he described as "cancer to WordPress." He criticized the host for disabling the ability for users to see and track the revision history for every post. Mullenweg believes this feature is at the "core of the user promise of protecting your data" and said that WP Engine turns it off by default to save money.

But this time around, he targeted WP Engine investor Silver Lake for not doing enough for the open source project and questioned WP Engine for using the "WP" brand, confusing some customers into believing it is WordPress.

The legal battle
WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic, demanding they retract the statements. The company also asserted that its use of the WordPress trademark qualified as fair use.

The company further alleged that Mullenweg told him that he'd take a "scorched earth nuclear approach" against WP Engine unless it agreed to pay "a significant percentage of its revenues for a license to the WordPress trademark.".

A counter-attack in the form of a cease-and-desist letter was leveled by automattic against WP Engine for having breached trademark usage rules when referring to WordPress and WooCommerce.

In addition, the WordPress Foundation revised the page on Trademark Policy and also sent a letter to WP Engine, accusing the hosting company of having led users astray.

"The abbreviation 'WP' is not among the WordPress trademarks, but please don't use it in a manner that leads people astray. For instance, lots of people presume WP Engine is indeed 'WordPress Engine' and officially affiliated with WordPress, which it is not. They never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, although raking in billions of revenue on top of WordPress," the updated page says.

WP Engine ban and trademark battle
He also blocked WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org's resources. Elements like plug-ins and themes are under open source license, but providers, such as WP Engine, have to run a service to fetch them, which is not covered by the open source license.

This caused the shutdown of many sites and deprived them of the opportunity to update the plug-ins and themes. Further, it also made some of them more susceptible to malicious attacks. The community did not take too kindly to this act of rendering small sites powerless.

In response to this incident above, WP Engine stated in a blog that Mullenweg had abused his control of WordPress to block WP Engine's users from accessing WordPress.org.

This unprecedented and unwarranted action disrupts the normal functioning of the entire WordPress ecosystem, affecting not only WP Engine and our customers but also any and all WordPress plugin developers and open source users reliant on WP Engine tools like ACF,," WP Engine said.

https://twitter.com/wpengine/status/1839246341660119287
WordPress.org it lifted the blockade on September 27 to allow WP Engine access resources until October 1.

Mullen serves an update by pointing out that the battle is only against WP Engine on the trademark. He states that a trademark licensing deal has been in the pipe line for a while; however, WP Engine only keeps stringing them along.

So on September 30, a day ahead of the self-imposed deadline set by WordPress.org to ban WP Engine, the hosting company updated the footer on its site to indicate it is not directly related or owns any stake in the WordPress Foundation or the WordPress trade.

"WP Engine is a proud member and supporter of the community of WordPress® users. The WordPress trademark is owned by the WordPress Foundation. The Woo and WooCommerce trademarks are owned by WooCommerce, Inc. The WordPress, Woo, and WooCommerce names in this site are for identification purposes only. The use of the WordPress, Woo, and WooCommerce names shall not imply or be deemed to be a recommendation from WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc. The new description on the website said WP Engine "is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by, or connected to, the WordPress Foundation or WooCommerce, Inc."

The company also changed the names of its plans from "Essential WordPress," "Core WordPress," and "Enterprise WordPress" to "Essential," "Core," and "Enterprise."

WP Engine said in a statement that it changed the terms to moot Automattic's claims.

"We, like the rest of the WordPress community, use the WordPress mark to describe our business. Automattic's suggestion that WPE needs a license to do that is simply wrong, and reflects a misunderstanding of trademark law. To moot its claimed concerns, we have eliminated the few examples Automattic gave in its September 23rd letter to us," a company spokesperson told TechCrunch.

On the 1st of October, in a post on X, the company says it has rolled out its in-house solution for updating of plugins and themes
https://twitter.com/wpengine/status/1840910240801316924
On October 15, TechCrunch reported that Automattic would stake out trademarks since early this year involving "nice and not nice" lawyers, according to an internal blog post by the company's then chief legal officer. The post also makes reference to a plan to file more trademarks, which the foundation did in July.

Community Impact
The WordPress community and others feel the same way, hoping that Automattic-an exclusive licensee of the WordPress trademark-provides clarification. The community wants clear guidance on how they may and may not use "WordPress."

The WordPress Foundation also filed to trademark "Managed WordPress" and "Hosted WordPress." Developers and providers are scared to death that if these trademarks are granted, they'll be used against them.

Developers are concerned about relying on commercial open source products related to Wordpress, particularly when their access can disappear quickly.

Another figure – the founder of the open-source content management system Ghost, John O'Nolan, too reacted with his opinions and attacked the fact that WordPress is controlled by just one person.

"The web needs more independent organizations, and it needs more diversity. 40% of the web and 80% of the CMS market should not be controlled by any one individual," he said in a post on X. 

October 9, creator of the web app development framework Ruby on Rails David Heinemeier Hansson wrote that Automattic is violating the principals of open source software when it asks WP Engine to pay 8% of its revenues.

"Automattic is utterly out of line and the potential damage to open source far exceeds what's reflected in WordPress. Don't let drama or its cast get in the way of your understanding of that threat," he blogged.

On the same day, Mullenweg added a check box to the WordPress.org contributor login: Confirm that you are not an employee, contractor, or agent of WP Engine. A lot of critics arose in this move from the contributor community. Contributors stated that they were removed from the community Slack for talking against the move.

WP Engine responded by saying that its customers, agencies, users, and the community in general are not its associates.
https://twitter.com/wpengine/status/1844078545603092691
On October 12, WordPress.org took control of ACF-the plug-in, or Advanced Custom Fields that makes it easier for WordPress developers to add customized fields on the edit screen. WP Engine had maintained this as an open-source plug-in repository. With the loss of control, the Silver Lake-backed company did not take the opportunity to update the plug-in. WordPress.org and Mullenweg said that plug-in guidelines allow the organization to take this step.

WP Engine lawsuit and
On October 3, WP Engine filed an abuse of process suit against Automattic and Mullenweg in a California court. The company hosting also accused Automattic and Mullenweg of breach of promises to run WordPress open-source projects without any constraints and to give developers the rights to create, run, modify, and redistribute software.

"Matt Mullenweg's moves of the last ten days exposed deep-seated conflict of interest and governance issues that, if left unchecked, could ultimately destroy that trust," a company spokesperson wrote to TechCrunch in response to our inquiry. "WP Engine has no other choice but to stand up to these claims against its people, agency partners, customers, and broader community of WordPress users.".

It also indicates that some texts by Mullenweg on possibly appointing WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner as an executive director of WordPress.org.
According to reports, Automattic stated this case as meritless. 

"Last night, I stayed up reading WP Engine's Complaint, trying to find any merit anywhere to it. The whole thing is meritless, and we look forward to the federal court's consideration of their lawsuit," said Neal Katyal, the company's legal representative in a blog post.

On October 18, WP Engine filed an injunction to a court in California, asking for it to have its access to WordPress.org to be restored.

Automattic Exodus
On October 3, 159 Automattic employees who did not agree with Mullenweg's direction of the company and WordPress generally accepted a severance package and departed the company. Nearly 80% of those who left were workers in Automattic's Ecosystem / WordPress division.

WordPress announced on October 8 that Mary Hubbard is transferring in from TikTok U.S. as the head of governance and experience to serve as executive director effective January 1. The post of executive director had been vacant since Josepha Haden Chomphosy stepped down; she is one of 159 Automattic employees who are departing. One day prior to this announcement, an engineer at WP Engine vented on social media, revealing that he has joined Automattic.

He published in a blog post on 12 October that every working Automattic employee would receive 200 A12 shares as appreciation. The "A12" shares are an exclusive class for Automattic employees that they can sell after one year and do not expire at all.

On October 17, Mullenweg posted another alignment offer on Automattic Slack — this time with only a four-hour response window, and with a nine-month severance. But if any person took the offer, they'd also forfeit standing in the WordPress.org community, Mullenweg said.