WordPress internet hosting service WP Engine on Monday despatched a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic after the latter’s CEO Matt Mullenweg known as WP Engine a “most cancers to WordPress” final week.
The discover asks Automattic and Mullenweg to retract their feedback and cease making statements in opposition to the corporate.
WP Engine, which (like Automattic itself) commercializes the open-source WordPress mission, additionally accused Mullenweg of threatening WP Engine earlier than the WordCamp summit held final week.
“Automattic’s CEO Matthew Mullenweg threatened that if WP Engine didn’t conform to pay Automattic – his for-profit entity – a really giant sum of cash earlier than his September twentieth keynote tackle on the WordCamp US Conference, he was going to embark on a self-described ‘scorched earth nuclear strategy’ towards WP Engine throughout the WordPress group and past,” the letter learn.
“When his outrageous monetary calls for weren’t met, Mr. Mullenweg carried out his threats by making repeated false claims disparaging WP Engine to its workers, its prospects, and the world,” the letter added.
The letter goes on to allege that Automattic final week began asking WP Engine to pay it “a major proportion of its gross revenues – tens of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} actually – on an ongoing foundation” for a license to make use of emblems like “WordPress.”
WP Engine defended its use of the “WordPress” trademark underneath honest use legal guidelines and stated it was in step with the platform’s tips. The letter additionally has screenshots of Mullenweg’s textual content messages to WP Engine’s CEO and board members that seem to state that Mullenweg would make the case to ban WP Engine from WordPress group occasions in his discuss at WordCamp if the corporate didn’t accede to Automattic’s calls for.
Automattic didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Mullenweg, who co-created WordPress, final week criticized WP Engine for raking in income with out giving a lot again to the open supply mission, whereas additionally disabling key options that make WordPress such a strong platform within the first place.
Final week, in a weblog publish, Mullenweg stated WP Engine was contributing 47 hours per week to the “5 for the Future” funding pledge to contribute sources in the direction of the sustained progress of WordPress. Comparatively, he stated Automattic was contributing roughly 3,900 per week. He acknowledged that whereas these figures are only a “proxy,” there’s a giant hole in contribution regardless of each corporations being the same measurement and producing round half-a-billion {dollars} in income. (WP Engine pushes again in opposition to that characterization in its C&D letter.)
In a separate weblog publish, he additionally stated WP Engine provides prospects a “low cost knock-off” of WordPress.
Notably, Automattic invested in WP Engine in 2011, when the corporate raised $1.2 million in funding. Since then, WP Engine has raised over $300 million in fairness, the majority of which got here from a $250 million funding from personal fairness agency Silver Lake in 2018.
