Matt Mullenweg announced today that WordPress.org is taking a holiday break effectively immediately, shutting down several services, including new plugin and theme submissions, until “sometime in the new year.”
Services no longer available also include new user account registration, new plugin reviews, and photo directory submissions.
In his announcement on WordPress.org, Mullenweg clarified that WP Engine would continue to have full access to WordPress.org because he was “legally compelled to provide free labor and services to WP Engine thanks to the success of their expensive lawyers.”
“In order to avoid bothering the court I will say that none of the above applies to WP Engine, so if they need to bypass any of the above please just have your high-priced attorneys talk to my high-priced attorneys and we’ll arrange access, or just reach out directly to me on Slack and I’ll fix things for you,” said Mullenweg, referring to preliminary injunction last week ordering him to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org after he blocked the hosting company in October.
It’s the first time in WordPress.org’s 21-year history that it has shut down for the holidays, and it’s unclear when the services will resume. Mullenweg said he hoped to find the “time, energy, and money” to reopen WordPress.org fully sometime in the new year.
“Right now much of the time I would spend making WordPress better is being taken up defending against WP Engine’s legal attacks,” Mullenweg said. “Their attacks are against Automattic, but also me individually as the owner of WordPress.org, which means if they win I can be personally liable for millions of dollars of damages.”
The holiday break came as a surprise to WordPress contributors and community members. While some welcomed the break it would give volunteer teams, others questioned why there was no clear date on when services would resume.
After Mullenweg posted his announcement, core committers quickly began disabling the affected services, as noted in WordPress.org meta commits synced with Making WordPress Slack.
While WP Engine has been exempt from the pause to services, it’s unclear how it might impact the hosting company’s customers — and whether the shutdown might potentially conflict with the preliminary injunction, which orders Mullenweg to stop “blocking, disabling, or interfering with WP Engine’s and its affiliates’ access to WordPress.org.”
As some folks in Post Status Slack noted, registering for an account with WP Engine might be one way to gain full access to WordPress.org’s services. However, whether that means sending a request directly to Mullenweg or asking WP Engine to send a request to Mullenweg’s legal team is also unclear.
The decision to enact the holiday break may have been a spur-of-the-moment one. Community Team contributors were quick to point out that closing new user registrations made it impossible for new users to buy WordCamp tickets.
Just this week, WordCamp Europe 2025 tickets went on sale. In January, several WordCamps are happening in India, and WordCamp Asia 2025 is scheduled for February 20-22.
After Emilia Capital’s Joost de Valk raised the issue in WordPress GitHub, lead developer Dion Hulse replied that Mullenweg had already signed off on reopening registrations for WordCamp purposes. In Trac, Hulse detailed new changes to WordPress.org, enabling user account creations when the referer is a WordCamp, adding “per Matt.”
In Post Status Slack, there was further discussion about sponsored contributors who may be unable to continue their work while the services remain offline.
