Matt Mullenweg says WP Engine no longer has free WordPress.org access and directs WP Engine customers having trouble with their websites to WP Engine support

WordPress on Wednesday escalated its conflict with WP Engine, a hosting provider, by blocking the latter's servers …

The Register 2024-09-26 Thomas Claburn

Context & Ripple Effects

The server block turned a dispute over WP Engine’s relationship with the WordPress ecosystem into an operational issue for the host and its customers. It followed WP Engine’s cease-and-desist demand over Mullenweg’s public remarks and Mullenweg’s assertion that Automattic had sought a licensing arrangement with the company.

The conflict subsequently moved from access to software stewardship, with WordPress forking WP Engine-developed Advanced Custom Fields, and then into court as WP Engine sought restoration of repository access. That sequence makes this access cutoff a pivotal escalation rather than a standalone support incident.

First-order effects

WP Engine loses free WordPress.org access for its servers, putting the immediate burden of resolving resulting website problems on WP Engine support.
Customers experiencing disruption are directed away from WordPress.org and toward their hosting provider, making WP Engine the immediate operational point of accountability.

Second-order effects

A hosting provider’s dependence on WordPress.org services becomes a commercial and legal pressure point, raising the stakes of the parties’ licensing dispute.
The cutoff helps explain why WP Engine later asked a court to restore its repository access, shifting the disagreement from public claims and support operations toward judicial intervention.

Third-order effects

If access to shared open-source infrastructure can be withdrawn during commercial disputes, major ecosystem participants may seek clearer terms, technical contingencies, or governance safeguards around that access.
The episode exposes tension between centralized control of project infrastructure and the expectations of businesses built on it; its legal outcome could shape how that boundary is contested, though the corpus does not establish a resolution.

The trend: This is one instance of commercial disputes over open-source ecosystems increasingly being fought through control of essential project infrastructure and access rights.

Discussion

@runakog Runako Godfrey on threads
The way this is written makes WordPress look bad. Petty management, opaque accusations, the whole thing. I don't know what went down, but this does not look like a mature reaction from the organization that powers 40%(?) of websites. https://wordpress.org/...
@wordpress @wordpress on x
Pending their legal claims and litigation against https://wordpress.org/, WP Engine no longer has free access to https://wordpress.org/'s resources. https://wordpress.org/... #WordPress
@bgardner Brian Gardner on x
I want to share: https://wordpress.org/ has blocked @wpengine customers from updating and installing plugins and themes via WP Admin—disrupting essential work for #WordPress users, agencies, freelancers, and plugin developers. Please read: https://wpenginestatus.com/...
@jbenton Joshua Benton on x
This is getting very ugly.
@bgardner Brian Gardner on x
My heart is breaking. 💔
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@deviorobert ... They do, they just don't want to spend it. It will cost them a lot more than the 8% deal they turned down.
@benjmay Ben May on x
Wondering if this is a new option lol [image]
@mgeheren Michael Geheren on x
Not being able to do @WordPress updates because of the @photomatt/@wpengine fight is infuriating. For a small nonprofit, being caught in the middle of this could be costly if we need to migrate our sites to a new host. That money/time should be used for our mission.
@stshank Stephen Shankland on x
The fight between @WordPress and @wpengine just got orders of magnitude uglier, with the latter's paying customers now unable to update their site plugins (which is to say secure their websites). WordPress statement: https://x.com/...
@rmccue Ryan McCue on x
For the continued health and vibrancy of the WordPress project, WP Engine must win. https://journal.rmccue.io/...
@shendison Scott Hendison on x
It took @wpengine support chat over 20 minutes to tell me that “this is a known issue”, and they'll update me by email, but NOW I know that it's an issue for ALL websites you host? WTF?!? Why not tell your support chat? Is this related to the @photomatt criticism / drama from [im…
@joshmanders Josh Manders on x
Automattic was an investor in WPEngine's Series A round. They had zero issues with what WPEngine has been doing until now. Imagine if I convinced Vercel to invest in my series A for Primcloud because I was going to have specialized hosting for Next.js and then a decade later
@itsdavemartin Dave Martin on x
I shared my thoughts on Matt's recent comments. Here's my summary of the primary issue: WPEngine extracts a great deal of value from the WordPress ecosystem without giving much back to the WordPress commons in return. You can read my full thoughts here: https://davemart.in/...
@thespacedmonkey @thespacedmonkey on x
My thoughts on WP Engine drama. I feel like saying that WPE doesn't contribute to WordPress and WordPress ecosystem seems a little disingenuous. WPE, has sponsored countless WordCamps and local meetups. There bought and kept open source plugins like ACF & wpgraphql
@thedannorris Dan Norris on x
Big test happening now for Open Source CMS tech. It's always been confusing to me what was allowed and what wasn't. We named WP Curve pretty much because we saw @wpengine and others use that wording and assumed it was OK, but it's always been a grey area.
@dcurtis Dustin Curtis on x
Automattic's bizarre, unconvincing fight with WP Engine is bad for Wordpress, bad for open source software, and bad for the web. There has to be more to the story than a petty fight over disabling revision history. It makes no sense.
@wpdavidv David Vogelpohl on x
Schools, governments, emergency service websites, churches, non profits, healthcare websites. These are just some of the types of important websites Mullenwonka is exposing to security risks by blocking their sites from accessing .org. DANGEROUS, SHAMEFUL, WRONG.
@taraclaeys Tara Claeys on x
@LilJimmi @photomatt Massive panic and confusion coming from my clients who own their own accounts at WPE but have no idea what that means. It will cost them money to move, and cost us many hours to access their DNS and help move their sites to ... possibly the next company that …
@danielcid Daniel Cid on x
To all WordPress and Linux users out there. Image how would react if Ubuntu (for example) blocked your servers from receiving updates and installing new packages because you never contributed back or donated to Ubuntu. If they found the IP ranges for all your servers and got it
@seldo Laurie Voss on x
Meanwhile over in Wordpress land things are escalating wildly. You can't power 40% of the web and act this way, people will fork your shit.
@pressable @pressable on x
If you're not happy with your hosting at WP Engine but you bought into an annual contract, we want to help set you free. Check out our special offer here: https://pressable.com/...
@viewfromthebox Jacob Martella on x
Today in Matt destroys the WordPress community: you can't add plugins directly from the .org repo if you have a WP Engine site. And I can confirm that this is happening. https://www.reddit.com/... [image]
@williamsba Brad Williams on x
This now affects all of us. This is no longer anti-WPE, this is anti-WordPress. This hurts us all. Unreal.
@raymmar_ @raymmar_ on x
This is absolutely bonkers. I've been a @wpengine customer for almost a decade and now I'm being punished arbitrarily by a so called “open source” platform. This is a sad day for the WordPress community.
@slexaxton Alex Sexton on x
genuinely have no clue about this wordpress drama but I feel compelled to say that I was on the board of the jQuery foundation during some of the glory years and @photomatt was the ~largest donor. definitely puts his money where his mouth is in supporting dependent oss.
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@TaraClaeys @LilJimmi No other company has attacked https://wordpress.org/, so you should be fine.
@deviorobert Robert DeVore on x
@DuaneStorey @schutzsmith “they have full access to the GPL code. they just need to host and run it themselves” - @photomatt I'm no mathematician, but I think Silver Lake may have enough money to clone https://wp.org/ and run an independent repository of the themes and plugins + …
@tealou Téa Smith on x
This is an absolutely disgusting move from @WordPress So in order to maintain continuity for clients, I need to eat the time sent on manual updates or migrate away from an excellent hosting provider. Not good enough. I stand with @wpengine
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@hashim_warren ... WP Engine controls the code on your site, as they demonstrated by blocking the meetups widget. They should be able to copy all the GPL code in the repository and provide it to their customers.
@bgardner Brian Gardner on x
More info: https://wordpress.org/ has also blocked @heyflywheel customers from updating and installing plugins and themes via WP Admin—disrupting essential work for #WordPress users, agencies, freelancers, and plugin developers. Please read: https://status.getflywheel.com/ ...
@bgardner Brian Gardner on x
Many things out of my control, but some are not. I will continue to: ✴︎ Advocate for #WordPress. ✴︎ Make myself available to you. ✴︎ Create for the community. Please reach out if there is any way I can support you or your business.
@automattic @automattic on x
Automattic is deeply committed to open source, and we will continue to safeguard its ideals and the community that supports it. We want to make this clear: Using “WP” is not a trademark issue.
@carlhancock Carl Hancock on x
For the record, if someone sued me I'd stop supporting them too unless I was compelled to do so by a judge. Just saying.
@ozskier Dave Amirault on x
This is absolutely insane and such a disgusting abuse of power by @photomatt. I have clients using @wpengine and now they can't easily install plugins or update themes. #WordPress [image]
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@bgardner @wpengine Happy to unblock you, drop your legal claims and get a trademark license.
@davidtaggart @davidtaggart on x
This Wordpress vs WP Engine mess is the dumbest damn thing I have ever seen. Whatever the backstory ends up being @photomatt just shot the WP ecosystem in the stomach. It will see a slow and steady death. Right now like 40% of sites are on WP. In 10 years it will be 20% or
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@init_sh Nope! None of them have publicly attacked me and https://wordpress.org/.
@vinnysgreen Vinny Green on x
Let's triage the obvious problem before we start concerning ourselves with anything that appears as problem. WP Engine and Silverlake have never been in position to screw up WordPress as bad as Matt is screwing it up now.
@patchstackapp @patchstackapp on x
All @patchstackapp users with protection turned on at #WPengine will continue to receive virtual patches to all of the latest security vulnerabilities as usual. Meanwhile, we hope the situation resolves soon and users are able to update to patched versions ASAP.
@fjzeit @fjzeit on x
Imagine if every large open source initiative went daggers at the commercial operations that profit from it without suitable financial support in return. Sure, the WP drama has other angles around appropriate conduct wrt impact upon users but the fundamental issue is solid.
@keithdevon Keith Devon on x
@WordPress Some of my clients use WP Engine. You're hurting them. You're hurting my business. You're hurting the WordPress community.
@mrlanphear @mrlanphear on x
This latest stunt by Matt Mullenweg is unconscionable. You're not harming @wpengine. You're harming their customers. WordPress' customers. My agency's customers. You're about to make my life as a developer a living hell. Fix this before you can't undo the damage. @photomatt
@tomfrankly Thomas Frank on x
This is absolutely the wrong way to handle this dispute. All my sites were previously on WP Engine. If I hadn't moved them a couple years back, I'd be feeling pretty screwed right now. Even though I did, I'm still pretty angry on behalf of all the site owners who did nothing
@t3dotgg Theo on x
WordPress will never die, but today they killed the trust their community had in them.
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
@DavidTaggart Let's check back in ten years! I set my calendar.
@timbouchard Tim Bouchard on x
Matt's out of line. If he wants to waste money chasing bogus legal claims he should do it without affecting the people. Absolute insanity #WordPress
@tmeister Enrique Chavez on x
I totally agree with this take. Not only must #WPEngine win, but Matt should be removed from any position with decision-making power on any #WordPress entity (.org, .com and the foundation).
r/Wordpress r on reddit
Is it time for a fork? A reasonable roadmap for a way forward
r/webdev r on reddit
WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org
@photomatt@mastodon.social Matt Mullenweg on mastodon
WPE & Trademarks — I've been writing and talking about WP Engine a lot in the last week, but I want to be crystal clear about the core issue at play. In short, WP Engine is violating WordPress' trademarks. Moreover, they have been doing so for years. …
@photomatt Matt Mullenweg on x
I tried to summarize the @wpengine and WordPress issue: https://ma.tt/...
@wpengine @wpengine on x
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, has misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers' access to https://wordpress.org/, asserting that he did so because WP Engine filed litigation against https://wordpress.org/. This simply is not true. Our Cease &

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