And it just happened a few days ago in WordCamp US. Matt Mullenwerg, the co-founder of WordPress, came on stage and singled out WP Engine’s contribution to WordPress. As similar-sized companies doing half a billion dollars of revenue yearly, Automattic’s contribution to the WordPress project dwarves WP Engine’s (or WPE for short).
As you can expect, things went south pretty quickly. WP Engine issued a cease-and-desist letter, and Automattic followed suit. Matt has since appeared in interviews, giving us a clearer picture of what happened behind the abrupt announcement at WordCamp US.
I think Matt has a point, though the execution could be better. By naming WP Engine and bringing out slides of Lee Wittlinger of Silver Lake, many attendees felt Matt was overstepping his boundaries.
WP Engine made it worse by saying Automattic suddenly demanded 8% of WP Engine’s revenue (backup copy of WP Engine’s letter). But is this true?
In the YouTube video by PrimeTime above, Matt clarified that he had contacted WP Engine over the years, but nothing was done (starting from the 17:45 mark). Furthermore, it is not sustainable for Automattic to keep funding WordPress.org’s servers and have a competitor take what they want for free, even more so as WP Engine has lawyered up.
How will this pan out, and will I still use and promote WordPress? I will follow up with another article soon.
How will this pan out? It depends on whether both parties can resolve. Going to court will not help WordPress, WP Engine, or Automattic, as the end user will be caught in between. It also doesn’t make sense for WP Engine to either mirror the WordPress repository or fork WordPress into WPEPress.
While WP Engine isn’t obligated to give back to WordPress, it should. We should encourage and apply social pressure for WP Engine to contribute, as calling them out is a disastrous PR campaign. Brian Coord says this well in his article.
