Unpacking the WordPress Drama

WordPress is essentially internet infrastructure. It’s widely used, generally stable, and doesn’t tend to generate many splashy headlines as a result.

But over the last week, the WordPress community has swept up into a battle over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg came out with a harsh attack on WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The statement has cracked open a public debate surrounding how profit-driven companies can and can’t use open-source software — and if they’re obligated to contribute something to the projects they use in return.

The conflict has escalated in the days since with a barrage of legal threats and has left swaths of website operators caught in the crossfire of a conflict beyond their control. WP Engine customers were cut off from accessing WordPress.org’s servers, preventing them from easily updating or installing plugins and themes. And while they’ve been granted a temporary reprieve, WP Engine is now facing a deadline to resolve the conflict or again have their customers’ access fall apart once again.

WP Engine is a third-party hosting company that uses the free, open-source WordPress software to create and sell its own prepackaged WordPress hosting service. Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown to become a rival to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service to power their online presence.

“Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals, it just wants return on capital.”

Mullenweg leads two different WordPresses. There’s WordPress.org, the open source project that develops the backbone of the WordPress publishing platform, and then there’s WordPress.com, a company that sells a hosted version of the open-source WordPress software — just like WP Engine. Mullenweg runs Automattic, which owns WordPress.com. Data suggests that around 43 percent of all websites use WordPress, but it’s not clear how many are hosted by WordPress.com or another party.

Along with selling plans on WordPress.com, Automattic contributes a lot of development effort to the open source project, which itself relies on donations and community contributions to run. According to Mullenweg, the team contributes 3,988 hours per week. The company may not have to pay to use WordPress, but it certainly pays to develop and improve it.

WP Engine operates a bit differently. It says it focuses on investing in the community through sponsorships and encouraging the adoption of the platform. The hosting platform was acquired by the private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, and Mullenweg views it as a business that profits off of open-source code without giving anything back.

That frustration came to a head last week when Mullenweg took the stage at WordCamp — a WP Engine-sponsored WordPress conference — and took direct aim at WP Engine. “The company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 million in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals — it just wants return on capital. So, it’s at this point I ask everyone in the WordPress community to go vote with your wallet. Who are you going to give your money to: someone who is going to nourish the ecosystem or someone who is going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?”

Mullenweg followed up this statement with a September 21st blog post, where he lambasted WP Engine for contributing just 40 hours per week to the WordPress.org open source project. “WP Engine is setting a poor standard that others may look at and think is ok to replicate. We must set a higher standard to ensure WordPress is here for the next 100 years,” Mullenweg wrote in the blog. He ripped into WP Engine even more, saying it’s “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” and giving users a “crappier experience so they can make more money.”

“Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals, it just wants return on capital.”

Mullenweg leads two different WordPresses. There’s WordPress.org, the open source project that develops the backbone of the WordPress publishing platform, and then there’s WordPress.com, a company that sells a hosted version of the open-source WordPress software — just like WP Engine. Mullenweg runs Automattic, which owns WordPress.com. Data suggests that around 43 percent of all websites use WordPress, but it’s not clear how many are hosted by WordPress.com or another party.

Along with selling plans on WordPress.com, Automattic contributes a lot of development effort to the open source project, which itself relies on donations and community contributions to run. According to Mullenweg, the team contributes 3,988 hours per week. The company may not have to pay to use WordPress, but it certainly pays to develop and improve it.

WP Engine operates a bit differently. It says it focuses on investing in the community through sponsorships and encouraging the adoption of the platform. The hosting platform was acquired by the private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, and Mullenweg views it as a business that profits off of open-source code without giving anything back.

That frustration came to a head last week when Mullenweg took the stage at WordCamp — a WP Engine-sponsored WordPress conference — and took direct aim at WP Engine. “The company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 million in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals — it just wants return on capital. So, it’s at this point I ask everyone in the WordPress community to go vote with your wallet. Who are you going to give your money to: someone who is going to nourish the ecosystem or someone who is going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?”

FAQs

Q: Who is Matt Mullenweg?

A: Matt Mullenweg is one of the co-founders of WordPress and the CEO of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com.

Q: What is the conflict between WordPress and WP Engine about?

A: The conflict revolves around how profit-driven companies like WP Engine use open-source software like WordPress and if they are obligated to contribute back to the community.

Q: How has the WordPress community reacted to the conflict?

A: The community has been divided, with some supporting Matt Mullenweg’s stance against WP Engine and others questioning his motives and power over WordPress.

Credit: www.theverge.com