Automattic believes that WP Engine’s lawsuit is baseless and that its conduct “poses a threat” to the community

Automatic considers that the complaint filed by WP Engine has been issued “without foundation” and that its conduct “poses a threat to the community” of WordPress users, which is why they have presented a series of documents aimed at discrediting this platform. hosting’, with which he has been at odds for weeks.

WordPress.org is a content management system (CMS), released under the open source general public license and developed by a community of volunteers since 2003.

Not to be confused with WordPress.com, which is a commercial service from Automattic, a platform run by Matt Mullenweg – also the creator of WordPress -, which offers hosting, domain, maintenance and support services for the platform with different pricing plans.

WP Engine It also runs hosting services, has other WordPress-based websites and has access to platform resources (themes, plugins, etc.), but is not linked to the original project of this content manager.

Automattic and WP Engine are currently at odds over differences over their perspective on open source software, with the former accusing the latter of profiting financially. to the detriment of this ecosystem.

The dispute began in mid-September, when the CEO of Automattic accused the hosting firm of “inappropriately” using the WordPress and WooCommerce trademarks; and to violate the intellectual property rights of its clients. For these reasons, it banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, although later had to lift the blockade.

Days later, Automattic called on WP Engine to formalize an agreement in which the latter had to commit to paying it 8 percent of its gross monthly revenue for seven years as a royalty fee for the use of WordPress and WooCommerce.

WP Engine, for its part, sued Automattic in early October for abuse of power, noting that its CEO’s conduct had exposed “significant conflicts of interest and governance issues” that could “destroy” user trust in its open source system, as reported by TechCrunch.

To separate himself from what until recently was his partner, Mullenweg has carried out different movements, such as modification of your trademark policy or the addition of a checkbox in the login interface, which forces users to recognize if they are related to WP Engine.

It also took control of a plugin developed by WP Engine, Advanced Custom Fields (ACF), which it renamed Secure Custom Fields (SCF) with the aim of “eliminating upsells and commercials and solving a security issue.”

For its part, WP Engine filed an injunction on October 18 in a Northern California court seeking to stop Mullenweg’s public attacks and request that its access to WordPress.org be restored. He also noted that both the CEO and Automattic had “participated in a self-proclaimed nuclear war intended to destroy” his business.

Then, it was ordered that Automattic and Mullenweg had until October 30, 2024 to respond to this motion and the judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Araceli Martínez-Olguín, set a hearing to resolve the lawsuit on November 26 of this year.

WP ENGINE, WITHOUT THE RIGHT TO USE WORDPRESS

Now, Automattic has indicated that, “to guarantee the dynamism of the WordPress community” and in view of this court hearing, three documents have been presented: a motion to dismiss the lawsuit of the opposing hosting service, annulment motion -that is, a request in which WordPress requests that the magistrate totally or partially eliminate the opposing party’s allegation before the court- and a declaration of opposition to the precautionary measure that allows WP Engine to continue using the CMS service.

In the first of them, the company indicates that it “vehemently” denies all of WP Engine’s accusations, considering them “mischaracterizations of reality that focus solely on specific events of the last two months,” according to the document.

It also clarifies that WP Engine’s complaint does not acknowledge that the CEO “attempted resolve the dispute privately for the good of the community” before this other company decided to present the complaint formally and publicly.

To justify the annulment motion, Automattic relies on the law against strategic lawsuits against public participation (known as the anti-SLAPP Law), which offers safeguards against abusive procedures brought by individuals or corporations that seek to censor them through long and costly judicial processes. .

With this other document, those responsible for WordPress seek to eliminate certain parts of the lawsuit issued by WP Engine “that focus on Matt’s personal opinions and other comments that have the right to share” on a matter that he considers “of public interest.” In this sense, he clarified that WP Engine “unduly attempts to impose responsibilities without any valid basis.”

A third document notes that WP Engine’s motion “misrepresents that they have been blocked from accessing WordPress software and plugins.” “At no time have they been prevented from accessing these resources” and, despite this, “WP Engine requests that the court force Matt and Automattic to allow it to host and distribute its plugins on WordPress.org for free and in the absence of any imposition that forces them to do so,” they noted in the statement on their website.

With this, he has emphasized that the damage that WP Engine claims it has suffered in its service as a result of this dispute “it’s self-inflicted” and that it is a consequence of its poor service, since “it has never lost the ability to access the WordPress code and plugins on the website.”

“Preserving and maintaining the resources available on WordPress.org requires considerable effort, investment, and a shared sense of mission that the plaintiff does not share,” Automattic’s official statement adds.

Finally, he indicated that these documents show “how Automattic’s actions are simply obfuscations based on the strategy that ‘the best defense is a good attack'”, and that will continue to communicate “transparently” with the community about updates on this case.