|
|
|
Happy Friday! It's November 1 and we're covering WP Engine's lawsuit, takeover threats, WordCamp social accounts, TechCrunch Disrupt, and more.
|
|
|
|
|
This Week's Headlines
|
|
|
|
|
1. Automattic and Mullenweg Move to Dismiss Majority of WP Engine's Claims in Lawsuit
Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, have responded to WP Engine's lawsuit and preliminary injunction, asking a U.S. court to dismiss most of the claims in the case and strike out parts of it related to Mullenweg's public attacks.
|
In a series of filings submitted to a Northern California court yesterday, Automattic and Mullenweg requested that all but two of the 11 claims filed against them be dismissed, citing a lack of evidence. They also claim that Mullenweg's commentary about WP Engine is protected under California's anti-SLAPP law, which protects freedom of speech.
|
|
They also opposed WP Engine's motion for a preliminary injunction and suggested that if it's granted, WP Engine should be ordered to pay $1.6 million for WordPress.org's maintenance and operations over the estimated two-year duration of the court case.
|
|
|
|
2. Mullenweg Threatens to Take Over Paid Memberships Pro
Matt Mullenweg has threatened to take over Paid Memberships Pro (PMPro) in the WordPress.org plugin repository, according to private messages between the WordPress co-founder and PMPro CEO Jason Coleman.
|
Coleman, who showed the messages to The Repository during a video call, said he sought legal advice before deciding not to respond to Mullenweg's messages. Mullenweg later emailed Coleman to check that he had seen the Slack messages, but Coleman also chose not to reply.
|
Mullenweg's threat came a day after PMPro was permanently closed in the WordPress.org repository on October 17. "Hopefully, he'll realize there's no point in pursuing it further," Coleman said. "But if he does, we're ready, we're able to continue serving PMPro without disruption to our customers."
|
Replying to Coleman's announcement on X about leaving WordPress.org, DocsBot AI creator Aaron Edwards posted, "Brave." Consultant Russell Aaron added, "I agree. If you ask real people in the WP Community few years ago if they ever thought something like this would occur, we would have all laughed about it and shrugged it off. Then went back to hallway camp."
|
|
PMPro is among several plugins that have been pulled from the WordPress.org plugin repository in recent weeks amid growing concerns that WordPress.org is no longer a secure place to host plugins.
|
|
|
|
|
|
3. WordCamp Sydney Organizer Pressured to Delete Posts or Face Removal
Sharwood's story also details how WordCamp Sydney organizers were reprimanded for publishing two now-deleted posts about WP Engine that "don't align with the Community team's view."
|
In another email to WordCamp Sydney organizer Wil Brown, which The Repository has verified, Automattic-sponsored contributor Felipe Santos asked him to delete two posts on X, adding that if he didn't comply, "you will need to step down from the organizing team."
|
The tweets in question included one that stated WP Engine's logo had been removed from WordCamp Sydney's website without the permission of event organizers, and another that named the WP Engine employees who had been banned from participating.
|
The Repository reached out to Brown, who declined to comment on the emails. He said he'd been managing WordCamp Sydney's social account since 2014. WordCamp Sydney 2024, which kicks off tomorrow, will be Brown's fifth and final WordCamp as the lead organizer, he said, after being "quite ill with stress over the past few weeks."
|
A source familiar with the event's operations told The Repository they were angry for being "censored over something so petty" and that Brown—who had brought together organizers from all over the country for WordCamp Sydney, ahead of a possible, but now unlikely, WordCamp Australia—had been threatened with removal "after all he's done for the Aussie WP community."
|
|
Meanwhile, Morten Rand-Hendriksen has posted about the first-ever developer-focused WordPress event held in 2011, which he says almost didn't happen after an email from WordCamp Central two weeks out from the event asked for it to be canceled.
|
|
|
|
|
|
4. Mullenweg Joins TechCrunch Disrupt, Blames WP Engine for Community Backlash
After promising to "refrain from personally commenting on the WP Engine case until a judge rules on the injunction" on his blog last week, Matt Mullenweg joined TechCrunch Disrupt this week for a half-hour interview with Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos to, you guessed it, comment on the WP Engine case.
|
As reporter Ivan Mehta recapped in his article for TechCrunch, Mullenweg repeated a lot of stuff from the past month about his trademark fight with the rival hosting company but also talked about Automattic's staffing issues and financials, and how the company's second buyout flushed out a leaker.
|
Loizos pressed him on the community backlash since Mullenweg's WordCamp US keynote address, which he attributed to WP Engine, claiming the company had rallied the community against him. He said the situation had impacted him personally, and key industry figures and investors had provided support, helping him to stay grounded.
|
"Honestly, it's been hard watching people turned away from this community or told their contributions are no longer valued. There's still plenty of good, talented people working really hard in WordPress, but it's hard not to notice the leadership/vision vacuum we're now in," posted Brian Coords, an educator and Technology Director at HDC.
|
|
And Delicious Brains has been caught up in WP Engine's WordPress.org ban. The WP Engine-owned brand is urging users of its free plugins in the repository, including Better Search Replace, WP Migrate Lite, WP Offload Media Lite, and WP Offload SES Lite to update to versions available in its own repository.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Bluehost Cloud →
When performance is a priority try Bluehost Cloud! With 100% uptime, incredible load times, and 24/7 WordPress priority support, your sites can handle even the highest traffic spikes. Get started today.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
In Other News
|
|
|
WordPress Project
|
> A second release candidate for WordPress 6.7 is now available for testing. The final release is due out November 12 (WordPress.org News)
|
> The WordPress Community Team has paused swag shipments for WordPress events, WordCamps, and meetups due to a lack of contributors (Make WordPress Community)
|
> Birgit Pauli-Haack hosted a Hallway Hangout this week, showcasing the current capabilities of DataViews and DataForm, and discussing plans for future extensibility and integration within WordPress admin (Make WordPress Core)
|
|
|
|
WordPress Community
|
> Emilia Capital's Marieke van de Rakt and Joost de Valk argue that WordPress marketing is a collaborative effort driven by the many brands and people who have advocated for software, sparking a global movement that has enabled its success (joost.blog)
|
> HeroPress founder Topher DeRosia has been heavily promoting HeroPress's 10th birthday for good reason: he needs help funding the project to keep it going (Post Status)
|
> Eric Karkovack advocates for a consortium-style collaboration among hosting companies, similar to the enterprise Scale Consortium. He says by working together, hosts could enhance WordPress's security, performance, and usability, benefiting the whole ecosystem (The WP Minute)
|
> Aaron Reimann from the Georgia Department of Education and Keith Osburn from ClockWP discuss how they've successfully rolled out community-focused sites and specialized platforms for the state's educational staff (WP Tavern)
|
> Taco Verdonschot talks about his education, family, and maintaining Yoast's culture after Newfold Digital acquired the company in 2021 (Seriously, Bud?)
|
|
> Nathan Wrigley has launched a new podcast, At The Core, featuring Birgit Pauli-Haack (WP Builds)
|
|
|
|
Business, Enterprise & Acquisitions
|
> Woo's Chief Marketing Officer Tamara Niesen unveiled the company's new logo during her State of the Woo address at WooSesh (Do the Woo)
|
> Over 200 small media outlets in the U.S. that mostly use WordPress will share in $20 million in funding from Press Forward, an initiative aimed at reinvigorating local news (KinshiPress)
|
> Brandon Ernst (Gaucho Plugins) and Ben Townsend (LayerWP) have launched ideaswp.dev. They're asking folks to submit ideas for plugins, which they'll build for free and offer a cut of the profits (ideaswp.dev)
|
|
> Rocket.net CEO Ben Gabler says his hosting company is scaling rapidly while reinforcing its commitment to the WordPress community through increasing its contributions (rocket.net)
|
|
|
|
Plugins, Products & Themes
|
> There's a lot of buzz around Calbin Alkan's new CommandUI, which promises instant access to everything in WordPress (X)
|
> WordPress.com has released Studio Assistant, an AI-power chatbot integrated within its Studio local development app (WordPress.com) | Matt Medeiros unpacked how Studio Assistant works (YouTube)
|
|
> GoDaddy is launching a reseller program for businesses that want to leverage the hosting company's new Website Builder API (GoDaddy)
|
|
|
|
Security
|
|
> Patchstack is urging LiteSpeed Cache users to update to the latest patched version following the disclosure of another vulnerability (Patchstack)
|
|
|
|
Conferences & Events
|
> WooSesh wrapped up this week with the announcement of this year's Seshies winners, including Katie Kieth (Advocate of the Year), Kathy Darling (Developer of the Year), Saucal (Agency of the Year), WooCommerce Product Filters (Extension of the Year), Inspiring (Store of the Year) and Rotake (Innovation Award). Free access to WooSesh's recordings is available until midnight PDT today (WooSesh)
|
> Voting is open for the fourth annual Monster's Award 2024, celebrating the best products and services across 25 categories (TemplateMonster)
|
> Core Days, a next-gen event for core developers will be held on November 8-9, 2024, in Rome (Core Days)
|
|
> WordCamp Europe organizers are calling for teams interested in hosting the 2026 event. Applications close on November 15 (WordCamp Europe)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Classifieds
|
|
|
Make your online store unstoppable with Omnisend! Send emails and texts to your customers, automate your tasks, and watch your revenue grow. Start making sales.
|
Guildenberg helps WordPress-focused product companies grow through improving monetization, accelerating adoption, and standardizing compatibility. Let's build a better ecosystem.
|
|
Help diverse voices in WordPress be heard! Support Inclusion in Tech removes barriers for speakers at WordCamps. Donate and empower SiNC.
|
|
|
Got a something to promote? Our classifieds are seen by the most influential people in WordPress each week.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Meanwhile...
|
|
|
👏🏼 Mike Little features in a new book, What I Believe (X)
|
👻 John O'Nolan on how Ghost is democratizing publishing (John O'Nolan)
|
🦋 Matt Mullenweg on the connection between open source and kindness (Why Kindness?)
|
🤔 Sam Sidler on the lawyers, judges, and timing in Mullenweg vs WP Engine saga (delta.blog)
|
⛔ The anti-Matt Mullenweg website Bullenweg and an associated GitHub account have been taken down following threats of legal action (bullenweg.com)
|
|
📉 Zachary Hamed on how private equity has impacted Drupal's main commercial backer, Acquia (blog.zmh.org)
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Repository is a weekly email for the WordPress community by Rae Morey. Mike Johnston is our proofreader. A big thank you to Kinsta, our hosting sponsor, and MailPoet, our email sponsor.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
