WordPress vs WP Engine

September 26, 2024

The WordPress world has been dealing with a huge dose of drama this past week. Before I get to my thoughts, here’s a rough timeline of recent events.

September 20: On the final day of WordCamp US, Matt Mullenweg was scheduled for an in-person Q&A session. You can watch it on YouTube. He begins by reading a blog post from September 17 to the audience. He then gives his views on a private equity firm called Silver Lake and a specific director named Lee Wittlinger.

September 21: Mullenweg posted this article that reiterates a few points from the Q&A session, but also specifically calls WP Engine “a cancer for WordPress.” It calls WP Engine because there are no post revisions enabled by default.

September 23: WP Engine announces on X that it has sent a cease and desist order to Automattic (Mullenweg’s company). The letter contains screenshots of text messages allegedly sent by Mullenweg. The texts contained payment requests and were sent before Mullenweg started his question and answer session.

Between September 24 – 25: The WordPress Foundation’s trademark policy page has been updated to include language that makes the use of the letters “WP” less clear. The page previously read: “The abbreviation “WP” is not a WordPress trademark and you are free to use it in any way you wish.”

September 25: Automattic responded with a blog post, a cease and desist order and supporting evidence. The blog post and letter accuse WP Engine of infringing on the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks, and the exhibit document provides sample screenshots.

Later the same day, WP Engine customers reported issues accessing the WordPress.org infrastructure. This means that WP Engine users cannot currently get security updates for WordPress or plugins. Mullenweg then posted an article confirming that WP Engine could not access WordPress-provided services.

What a mess. Maybe there is something we don’t see from the outside, but to me this looks like Mullenweg has gone off the deep end. Is this a personal problem with Silver Lake? With Lee Witlinger? If not, any commercial enterprise should be careful of the word ‘WordPress’ in their marketing copy.

I’ve enjoyed using WP Engine for several projects and found it to be a great host. Yes, they disable the revision system by default. But this isn’t a “hack” – WordPress provides a built-in way to configure or disable this system.

While I was digging into this, I also discovered that Automattic had invested in WP Engine. In fact, it was Automattic’s A8c Ventures’ first investment in 2011. At the time, they didn’t seem to have any trademark issues. I’m curious what has changed?

One thing is the trademark policy page I mentioned above. They previously noted that “WP” was fine and anyone could use it. As Kev Quirk points out, there are a number of companies with “WP” as part of their name. Are they in danger now? I really doubt they all have licensing deals with Automattic. Some of the screenshots used in Automattic’s cease and desist letter look quite similar to many other WordPress hosts I’ve seen on the internet.

Why does Automattic, a for-profit company, need money from WP Engine to use the WordPress trademark? Automattic’s WordPress.com product, which is separate from the open source WordPress project, is a direct competitor to WP Engine. I’m not a lawyer, so maybe this makes sense, but from the outside it seems strange.

There are a lot of details missing, but this appears to be a grudge that has become public. Right now, this seems to mainly hurt WP Engine customers, who are now less secure. If WP Engine’s side of the story is true, Mullenweg is acting like a mafia boss. One thing’s for sure: I definitely wouldn’t want to get into the WordPress hosting game right now.