Court orders WordPress parent company to stop blocking WP Engine access

Date:
Wed, 11 Dec 2024 12:00:10 +0000

Description:
A US court has ordered Automattic to restore WP Engines access to the WordPress.org servers as the row continues.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Judge orders Automattic to stop blocking WP Engines access to its servers WordPress owner must also restore access to how it was before the falling out
Automattic CEO has indicated hes unhappy with the decision

In the latest development in what has been a chequered few months for the WordPress hosting platform , the US District Court for the Northern District of California has sided with WP Engine in its battle against Automattic, the parent company of WordPress.com.

The courts order demands Automattic stop, blocking, disabling, or interfering with WPEngines and/or its employees, users, customers, or partners access to WordPress.org and interfering with WPEngines control over, or access to, plugins or extensions.

Judge Martnez-Olgun also criticized Automattics defense, which argued WP Engines reliance on WordPress.org resource was self-imposed, noting Automattics targeted actions specifically against WP Engine exacerbated the harm. WP Engine comes out victorious?

The dispute began when Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg accused WP Engine of being a cancer for taking more than it gives to the open source project.

Mullenweg later banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.orgs resources for free after days of tit-for-tat arguments.

Apart from blocking WP Engines access to WordPress.org servers, WP Engine
also accused Mullenweg of seizing control of its Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin. In response to Automattic's drastic measures, WP Engine took legal action.

Judge Martnez-Olgun confirmed that Automattics conduct is designed to induce breach or disruption.

The court also heard WP Engine experienced a 14% increase in the average number of daily cancellation requests between September 26 and 30, and an increase of 17% in cancellation requests between October 1 and October 14, as compared to September 1 through September 25.

The Judge also demanded Automattic [restores] WPEngines and Related Entities access to WordPress.org in the manner that such access existed as of
September 20, 2024, including to functionality and development resources,
data resources, security resources and support resources.

A WPEngine spokesperson told TechRadar Pro, "We are grateful that the court has granted our motion for a preliminary injunction. The order will bring
back much-needed stability to the WordPress ecosystem. WP Engine is focused
on serving our partners and customers and working with the community to find ways to ensure a vigorous, and thriving WordPress community.

Weve reached out to Automattic for their responses to the court ruling, but did not immediately receive a response - however, Mullenweg did share another users X post seemingly indicative of his disagreement. It reads: Agree with him or not, the court is forcing an open source maintainer into providing services to a user. You might also like Heres our choice of the best
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/pro/court-orders-wordpress-parent-company-to-stop-bl ocking-wp-engine-access


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