Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg is engaged in a heated legal battle with Silver Lake, the majority owner of WP Engine, over trademark violations and business practices. This conflict threatens to disrupt the typically harmonious WordPress ecosystem.
More than two decades after starting WordPress, Matt Mullenweg finds himself in the most intense battle of his career.
While WordPress' technology is open source, meaning anyone can install it and use it for free, Mullenweg is also founder and CEO of Automattic, a venture-backed startupanywhere from $4 a month to over $25,000 a year for services like ad products, security, customer support and inventory management. In the post, Mullenweg criticized WP Engine for not contributing enough back to the WordPress ecosystem. He said that Automattic contributed 3,786 hours per week to WordPress.org, compared to 47 hours for WP Engine.
On Sept. 20, three days after Mullenweg's initial post, the WordPress founder showed he wouldn't be backing down. "I always thought that was part of WordPress," Perkowitz told CNBC in an interview, referring to WP Engine. "They're misleading, and they don't contribute to the community." "They've been delaying forever," Mullenweg told CNBC. He decided, "I'm going to finally start talking about the evil stuff you're doing unless you talk to me," he said.Far from negotiating, WP Engine on Wednesday filed its explosive lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic.
Wordpress Automattic WP Engine Silver Lake Matt Mullenweg
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