David Bridges
The feud between WP Engine and Matt Mullenweg, WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO, just lately got here to a head when the webhosting service sued the latter, accusing him of “abuse of energy, extortion and greed.” In a brand new weblog submit, Mullenweg mentioned his opponent’s assaults on him and his firm have been efficient sufficient in order that “a very good chunk of [his] Automattic colleagues disagreed with [him and his] actions.” As a response, he created a “buy-out bundle” that supplied staff $30,000 or six months of wage, whichever is increased, in the event that they resign. A complete of 159 folks, or 8.4 p.c of the corporate, took the supply.
A lot of the staff who left got here from the corporate’s Ecosystem / WordPress enterprise, whereas the remaining got here from the division engaged on apps like Tumblr and Cloudup. As TechCrunch notes, Mullenweg gave the occasion a constructive spin and exclaimed that “the opposite 91.6 p.c gave up $126 million of potential severance to remain!”
Mullenweg known as WP Engine a “most cancers to WordPress” and accused the corporate of violating WordPress’ logos. He mentioned they supplied WP Engine the choice to “pay a direct licensing charge, or make in-kind contributions to the open supply mission,” however the firm refused. WP Engine argued that its use of the WordPress trademark was authorized. In response, the WordPress Basis modified its trademark coverage web page to say that the “WP” abbreviation is certainly not lined by the WordPress trademark, however to please not use it “in a manner that confuses folks.” It named WP Engine outright and even mentioned that the corporate has “by no means as soon as even donated to the WordPress Basis, regardless of making billions of income on prime of WordPress.” The WordPress co-founder additionally banned WP Engine from accessing a few of WordPress’ plug-ins and themes, which broke a number of the web sites it is internet hosting.
WP Engine accused Mullenweg of demanding eight p.c of the corporate’s month-to-month income as royalty and of libel, slander, in addition to of violations of the Pc Fraud and Abuse Act and IRS fraud. In a press release, Automattic’s lawyer Neal Katyal mentioned he stayed up all evening studying the criticism and located the entire thing “meritless.” He added that he is wanting “ahead to the federal courtroom’s consideration of [the] lawsuit.”
Replace October 4, 2024, 1:57PM ET: We up to date the submit to attribute the quote on the finish to Automattic’s lawyer.
Daniel Mercer
Brandon Fletcher
