Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg accuses Wix of copying WordPress for its mobile app, skirting GPL requirements of attribution and public release of code
Anyone who knows me knows that I like to try new things — phones, gadgets, apps. Last week I downloaded the new Wix (closed, proprietary, non-open-sourced, non-GPL) mobile app.
Context & Ripple Effects
In October 2016 Matt Mullenweg published a first-person teardown accusing Wix of building its new closed, proprietary mobile app on copied WordPress code while skipping the GPL's requirements for attribution and public release of source. The post matters because it is the opening move in what becomes a recurring Mullenweg playbook: publicly naming companies he says are taking from WordPress without honoring its license terms.
The arc runs long — five years later Mullenweg was again attacking Wix, this time over its marketing campaign against WordPress and its subscription pricing model, and by 2024 the same enforcement instinct had turned toward WP Engine, where he said Automattic had spent years seeking a licensing deal it felt was being strung along.
First-order effects
- Wix must choose between releasing its mobile app's source under the GPL with attribution or rebuilding the copied portions — either path carries direct engineering cost for a flagship product launch.
- Automattic gains a public-enforcement lever: by documenting the alleged copying, Mullenweg puts Wix's compliance posture on trial in front of the WordPress developer community that supplies themes, plugins, and goodwill.
Second-order effects
- Other closed-source site builders shipping apps derived from WordPress code now face the same exposure, since the accusation establishes that Mullenweg will audit and call out proprietary reuse rather than let it pass quietly.
- Wix's positioning as a simpler alternative to WordPress gets harder to sell to developers, pushing its differentiation further toward hosted convenience — the same 'pay more every year' framing Mullenweg attacks in the 2021 round.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds across the WP Engine dispute and beyond, GPL enforcement functions less as legal housekeeping than as a competitive weapon, letting WordPress's steward extract licensing terms from commercial players built on its ecosystem.
- The episode foreshadows a broader structural question for copyleft software: whether platform owners can sustainably police derivative commercial products through community pressure alone, or whether enforcement eventually migrates into formal licensing deals like the one Automattic sought from WP Engine.
The trend: WordPress's steward is converting copyleft license enforcement into a recurring instrument of competitive control over companies building on the platform.