Matt Mullenweg, founder of Automattic
Source: automatic
Matt Mullenweg turned 40 in January and now spends more than half his time working on WordPress. He had never experienced such a crazy two weeks.
WordPress is known as the leading content management system, Hundreds of millions of websites Currently using its templates, tools and plugins. But the WordPress world is a complex hodgepodge of open source products, nonprofits, for-profit companies, trademarks, and licenses.
A normally quiet but vital part of the web — WordPress powers about 40% of all websites — has suddenly become a major source of drama in the tech industry, threatening to upend an ecosystem long considered a university ecosystem, at least from now on. This is what it looks like from the outside.
While WordPress’ technology is open source, meaning anyone can install and use it for free, Mullenweg is also the founder and CEO of venture-backed startup Automattic Valued at US$7.5 billionas of 2021. pay Fees for services such as advertising products, security, customer support and inventory management range from $4 per month to more than $25,000 per year.
The saga that burst into public view in September featured the usually mild-mannered Mullenweg in a battle with WP Engine, one of the leading WordPress hosting providers. Silicon Valley private equity firm Silver Lake acquired majority stake In 2018, he invested US$250 million in WP Engine and obtained three board seats.
“I’ve been doing WordPress for 21 years and I have great relationships with every other company in the world,” Mullenweg told CNBC this week.
According to Mullenweg, WP Engine’s violations and cease-and-desist order letter His attorneys sent a letter to the company on September 23 regarding years of trademark infringement and WP Engine’s claims that it is bringing “WordPress to the masses.”
“We at Automattic have been trying to reach a licensing agreement with them for a long time and all they have done is lie to us,” Mullenweg wrote in a statement. Posted on September 26 On his personal website ma.tt. “In the end, I drew a line in the sand that they’ve now jumped over.”
Since then, the matter has escalated almost daily. WordPress has taken drastic measures to ban WP Engine from using WordPress resources needed to serve its customers, after WP Engine filed a lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic on Wednesday. Mullenweg later published an article calling WP Engine’s lawsuit “baseless” and announced that he had hired former Acting U.S. Deputy Attorney General Neal Katyal for legal defense.
Tomasz Tunguz, venture capitalist and founder Theoretical Venturessaid the conflict illustrates the eternal challenges facing open source software.
“What are the legal ways to monetize open source? Commercial entities created by authors — how much control should they have over commercialization efforts?” Tunguz said. He added that in this case, “hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue between the two are at risk”.
“Silver Lake just doesn’t care.”
By the time Mullenweg recounted the turmoil, the feud had been brewing for years. He said he had been actively trying to reach a deal since January but eventually grew tired of it.
But to the outside world, it all felt very sudden. Mullenweg mentioned the matter publicly for the first time in a statement on September 17 blog post Leading the charge at WordCamp, the largest annual gathering of WordPress users in the United States. The four-day event takes place on September 17 in Portland, Oregon.
In the post, Mullenweg criticized WP Engine for not contributing enough to the WordPress ecosystem. He said that Automattic contributes 3,786 hours per week to WordPress.org (“not counting me!”), while WP Engine contributes 47 hours per week.
To businesses and developers considering who to support, Mullenweg has this message: “Silver Lake doesn’t care about your open source ideals. It just wants a return on capital.”
A Silver Lake spokesperson said WP Engine is handling all inquiries. A representative for WP Engine pointed to the complaint the company filed on October 2 against Automattic and Mullenweg.
“This is a case of abuse of power, extortion, and greed,” the document begins. “The misconduct involved here is all the more egregious because it occurred in an unexpected place—the WordPress open source software community built on On top of the promise of freedom to build, run, change, and redistribute without barriers or restrictions for everyone.
On September 20, three days after Mullenweg’s initial launch, the WordPress founder made it clear he wasn’t backing down.
In his keynote address at an event that attracted some 1,500 WordPress enthusiasts, Mullenweg forewarned the audience that it would be “probably one of the best WordCamp talks I’ve ever given.” After reading his previous blog post, Mullenweg lashed out at Silver Lake, even calling company partner Lee Wittlinger the man behind WP Engine and likening him to a “school bully.”
Before taking a question, Mullenweg said of WP Engine’s presence in WordCamp, “I don’t think they will be in future WordCamps.”
He’s not done yet.
The next day, in a post titled “WP Engine is not WordPress,” Mullenweg wrote that even his mother didn’t know the difference, saying WP Engine was “profiting from the chaos” and ” A trademark license is required to continue their business.
His mother wasn’t the only one confused.
Bob Perkowitz, president of environmental nonprofit ecoAmerica, told CNBC that he has known Mullenweg for 16 years and is even an investor in Automattic. Perkowitz said he has been a long-time WP Engine customer for many of his organizational and personal websites. He listened remotely and heard Mullenweg’s WordCamp demo.
“I’ve always thought of this as part of WordPress,” Perkowitz told CNBC, referring to WP Engine. “They are misleading and do not contribute to the community.”
Perkowitz said he is in the process of having webmasters migrate all sites to different hosting companies.
Following Mullenweg’s presentation, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic’s legal chief on September 23 due to what the company said was Mullenweg’s self-proclaimed “scorched earth approach.” The letter states that Mullenweg requested a “significant sum of money” before the WordCamp keynote, but WP Engine did not pay.
The letter said Mullenweg’s “false, misleading and defamatory statements are subject to legal action.”
Two days later, Mullenweg wrote on the WordPress.org website WP Engine has been banned, which means it “no longer has free access to WordPress.org resources.” Mullenweg encouraged WP Engine’s thousands of customers to contact the company “and ask them to fix the problem.”
WordPress then temporarily unlocked WP Engine and agreed to the terms of the licensing agreement published by Mullenweg before October 1st. The crux of the deal was that WP Engine agreed to pay Automattic a royalty of 8% of monthly revenue, or commit 8% of revenue “in the form of WP Engine employee salaries” for developing WordPress features for WordPress.org.
No agreement was reached. The ban takes effect on October 1.
To the vast majority of WP Engine’s customers, Mullenweg’s behavior was harsh and clumsy. Mallenweg said what his critics don’t understand is how long it took him to reach a deal.
“They kept stalling,” Mullenweg told CNBC. He decided, “Unless you talk to me, I’m finally going to start talking about the evil things you’re doing,” he said.
counterattack
Instead of negotiating, WP Engine filed an explosive lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic on Wednesday.
WP Engine accuses Mullenweg of defamation and defamation for his public comments, saying the WordPress founder has numerous conflicts of interest in the way he manages the community and company, given the open source nature of the technology.
“For the past two weeks, Defendants have been pursuing a plan to ban WPE from the WordPress community unless it agrees to pay Automattic tens of millions of dollars for purported trademark licenses that WPE simply does not need,” the lawsuit states. “Defendants’ plan is completely baseless. The warning gave WPE less than 48 hours to either agree to repay the debt or face the consequences of being banned and publicly smeared.”
After WP Engine asked for a jury trial in its 61-page lawsuit, Mullenweg fired back, calling the complaint “baseless” and “deficient from beginning to end.”
Mullenweg admitted on his personal website that the ordeal was sparking a huge internal conflict at his company.
“It is clear that a large portion of my Automattic colleagues disagree with me and our actions,” Mullenweg wrote.
He said he decided to offer a buyout package of $30,000 or six months’ salary, whichever was greater, to anyone who resigned early Thursday afternoon. Anyone who accepts the deal will not be eligible for a “boomerang,” a term for rehire.
Mullenweg said 159 people, or 8.4% of the workforce, accepted the offer, while 91.6% chose to stay, rejecting a total of $126 million.
“I feel a lot more relaxed now,” Mullenweg concluded.
“I am grateful and grateful to everyone who took the job, and even more excited to work with those who turned down $126 million to stay,” Mullenweg wrote. “As the kids say, LFG!”
Mullenweg may be publicly enthusiastic and grateful for the employees he still retains, but the WordPress community is a mess. Many WP Engine customers have suffered, and Automattic is preparing legal action against a private equity firm with over $100 billion in assets.
watch: The future of open source
