WP Engine Seeks Court Order to Regain Access to WordPress Resources Amidst GrowingFeud with Automattic
San Francisco, CA – The ongoing dispute betweenWordPress hosting provider WP Engine and Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com, has escalated further with WP Engine filing a motion seeking a court order to restore its access to WordPressresources. In a preliminary injunction motion filed on Friday, WP Engine alleges that Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg’s public actions against the company are causing irreparable harmand demands the court intervene to restore the status quo.
The conflict stems from a public clash between WP Engine and Mullenweg, who accused WP Engine of being a cancer on the WordPress community. Following this, WP Engine experienced a14% increase in service cancellation requests between September 26th and 30th. In its motion, WP Engine argues that it is suffering multiple forms of direct irreparable harm due to Mullenweg and Automattic’s actions, including loss of customers, market share, and goodwill.
WP Engine’s motion seeks to compel Automattic to revert the situation to its pre-dispute state, effectively granting WP Engine back control over its plugins and access to WordPress resources. The motion states, Developers are anxious, they wantassurances that they won’t be the next to receive a Mullenweg extortion demand, won’t be his next nuclear war target, and won’t be the next to have their plugin confiscated. It further asserts that Automattic’s actions are increasing the security risk for everyone in the WordPress community.
Thefeud escalated after Mullenweg publicly criticized WP Engine’s services and alleged trademark infringement. Following an exchange of cease and desist letters between Automattic and WP Engine, WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Automattic and Mullenweg, accusing them of abuse of power, extortion, and greed.
Last week, the open-source WordPress.org project, also led by Mullenweg, took control of WP Engine’s ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) plugin. Users of ACF on WordPress.org received an update that migrated them to a forked version of the plugin controlled by WordPress.
This legal maneuver by WP Engine marks a significant escalationin the conflict. The outcome of the court proceedings will have far-reaching implications for the WordPress ecosystem, potentially impacting the relationship between hosting providers and the open-source community.
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