Matt Mullenweg wasn't lying when he said he would go "nuclear" against WP Engine. But his attack expanded beyond WP Engine and now hits the entire WordPress ecosystem.
What has started as an attempt to get WP Engine to pay a trademark license to Automattic already resulted in many contributors leaving the project, Automattic employees resigning, and shattered trust in Matt Mullenweg and Automattic.
The "scorched earth nuclear approach"
(Yes, he actually wrote that to WP Engine, see the lawsuit on page 24)
Since the beginning of this drama 3 weeks ago when Matt gave his talk at WordCamp US, things got crazier nearly every day. After cease and desist letters in both directions and blocked access to WordPress.org, I thought we arrived at the peak of this drama when WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg on October 2nd.
My hope that this public clown show was over quickly vanished, and things were about to take a turn for the worse.
More and more people, including core contributors to the project, are getting blocked by WordPress, Matt, and Automattic on X and banned from the official WordPress Slack. This involves people who organized community events, contributed to core, and more.
And the new mandatory "I am not affiliated with WP Engine in any way, financially or otherwise" checkbox on the WordPress.org login page certainly doesn't help prevent contributors from leaving.
The WordPress account on X even makes fun of contributors who can't log in due to this ridiculous checkbox.
What could have been a legal fight between two companies now looks like Matt destroying the open-source project he created.
WordPress powers over 40% of the web with a gigantic ecosystem that allows everyone to build a website, from individuals and small businesses to big corporations and The White House.
But I don't think this helps much if the people building the software are leaving.
Fork or Takeover?
Things got worse yet another time with WordPress "forking" ACF, an extremely popular plugin by WP Engine.
But wait, let me say hijacked instead of forked. They didn't create their own plugin, they overtook the existing ACF plugin on the WordPress.org plugin repository and changed the name and logo. They even kept the download count currently at 2+ million, the 5-star rating, and forum history.
The screenshot shows the ACF plugin page on WordPress.org and the commit to the ACF plugin by WordPress.org (capture date: October 12th, 23:33).
And not "just" that—they kept the slug at "advanced-custom-fields" which now means that WordPress sites using the ACF plugin are being automatically updated to the new "SCF" plugin by WordPress.org.
After the SCF announcement, the leader of the Core Fields project, Scott Kingsley Clark, stated he was "done making excuses for Matt's actions and will not associate myself with core any longer" (source). Yet another contributor who left the project.
This sets a dangerous precedence. Matt locked a competitor out of the official WordPress plugin repository and overtook their plugin, which is used on millions of sites. And because they have been locked out, WP Engine had no chance to reach the 2+ million sites and inform them how to update to the new ACF version.
Irreversible Damage
WordPress is in an alarming state, Matt and Automattic are harming the project, its community, and open-source as a whole.
I think DHH put it best when he wrote:
"That's the deal. That's open source. I give you a gift of code, you accept the terms of the license. There cannot be a second set of shadow obligations that might suddenly apply, if you strike it rich using the software. Then the license is meaningless, the clarity all muddled, and certainty lost."
This craziness must end immediately. The actions by Matt and Automattic are doing irreversible damage to the WordPress project.
What's next? Another plugin takeover? Attacks against another company? More bans and blocks on Slack and X? More contributors leaving?
Is this the end of WordPress as we knew it?
