WordPress bans WP Engine from sponsoring or participating in user groups

As Matt Mullenweg and David Heinemeier Hansson feud over FOSS, community worries about the fallout

WordPress has banned its user groups from accepting sponsorship from WP Engine – or even allowing its employees to attend events.

WordCamp Sydney, a forthcoming WordPress event for enthusiasts, advised attendees on Monday that "we've been officially told @wpengine can't sponsor WordCamp Sydney, and its employees are banned from organizing and speaking."

An email seen by The Register, which we understand was sent to known WordPress event organizers, states "Please be informed that, as per our sponsorship rules, WP Engine is no longer eligible to sponsor WordPress events, and individuals employed by WP Engine cannot participate as organizers or speakers."

The moment you go down the path of gratitude grievances, you'll see ungrateful ghosts everywhere

"This decision aligns with point 4 of our sponsorship rules, which states that 'All sponsors are expected to support the WordPress project and its principles, including: Respect the WordPress trademark.'"

The reference to that trademark harks back to the incident that set off the last three weeks of animus between WP Engine and WordPress, after the latter demanded WP Engine license the "WordPress" trademark – by paying for it – to continue its business hosting websites that run the open source content management system.

Matt Mullenweg, co-creator of WordPress and CEO of hosting biz Automattic, accused WP Engine of profiting from the software without making a commensurate contribution to its development and maintenance.

Sydney WordCamp argued that banning WP Engine's participation in events denies the business the chance to make such a contribution.

"They [WP Engine] have given so much to support the Aussie WP community over the past 10 years. It's not just about contributing dev back to core."

FOSS feud flares

The day’s WordPress drama has also seen the feud between Mullenweg and Ruby on Rails creator David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) escalate.

As we reported yesterday, DHH accused Mullenweg of behaving like a "mad king" and argued the WordPress boss is endangering open source.

On Monday, Mullenweg fired back in a post that included personal attacks – possessing a toxic personality, being bad at scaling teams and at realizing the value of open source – and that then offered the following:

I was surprised someone as smart as DHH would fall for WP Engine's lame deferral to make this about 'GPL code' or forking, rather than trademarks. We have no problem with their use of GPL code, our beef is with their trademark abuse.

Mullenweg then pointed out that DHH holds the trademarks for "Rails," "Ruby on Rails," and the Rails logo – and observes that a license would be needed to use those trademarks.

DHH also blogged on Monday, writing: "I beam with pride" when contemplating the many businesses that have become valuable after using Rails.

"But it's also possible to look at this through another lens, and see a huge missed opportunity," he added, asking that Rails created so much value for others "why am I not at least a pétit billionaire?! What missteps along the way must I have made to deserve life as merely a rich software entrepreneur, with so few direct, personal receipts from the work on Rails?"

He then labelled that argument "lethal to the open source spirit."

"The moment you go down the path of gratitude grievances, you'll see ungrateful ghosts everywhere. People who owe you something, if they succeed. A ratio that's never quite right between what you've helped create and what you've managed to capture. If you let it, it'll haunt you forever."

DHH offered an alternative way of thinking: "To let a billion lemons go unsqueezed. To capture vanishingly less than you create. To marvel at a vast commons of software, offered with no strings attached, to any who might wish to build."

Consultants bleed as leaders fight

Another Monday happening saw WordPress reveal that it would allow the WP-Engine-backed ACF plugin to return to the WordPress.com plugin directory "If WP Engine dropped its lawsuits, apologized, and got in good standing with its trademark use, you are welcome to have access to the plugin directory listing."

On the WordPress Subreddit, that's been interpreted as an admission that WordPress's original reason for removing the plugin and replacing it with a fork – security – was spurious. That analysis, and many other opinions about this mess The Register has surveyed, include criticism of Mullenweg.

As does this post from a WordPress consultant, who claims to have lost a $40,000 gig after their client became aware of turmoil around the platform.

"I had a contract signed and ready to go for 2025, where the budget for dev was $40k, and now they've backed out to reconsider the CMS as a whole, as a result of Mullenweg's petty war with WPE," wrote a Redditor with the handle "mccoypauley."

"I have had three other key clients (large % of total revenue) I manage whose sites I built reach out to me for reassurance since WordCamp to ask if the platform is stable going forward," mccoypauley added. "All I could say with honesty is no one knows what the future holds. I can't even reassure them on the platform's stability."

"All because of one terroristic founder who's bent on destroying what shred of good faith is left in his creation. I won't blame them for switching platforms on the next design refresh because of this. But that's a loss of huge potential revenue for me as a single-owner freelancer." ®