WordPress.org temporarily lifts its ban on WP Engine

WordPress.org has lifted its ban on hosting provider WP Engine until October 1, after placing a block earlier this week. Block Many sites are blocked from updating their plugins and themes and expose them to potential security risk.

WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg More than a week of struggle with WP EngineHe blamed WP Engine’s private equity investor, Silver Lake.

“I have heard from WP Engine customers that they are frustrated with WP Engine’s inability to run updates, plugin directory, theme directory, and Openverse on their sites. It saddens me that they are negatively impacted by Silver Lake’s business decisions,” Mullenweg said. on the WordPress.org blog.

“WP Engine was well aware that we could remove access if they chose to ignore our efforts to resolve our differences and sign a commercial license agreement. Heather Brunner Lee Wittingerand their Board of Directors chose to take that risk. “WPE was also aware that they were placing this risk squarely on WPE customers,” he added.

After Mullenweg banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org resources, many WordPress society criticized The sudden move affected many websites.

Last week Mullenweg called WP Engine “The Cancer of WordPress” and I warned them not to contribute to the WordPress ecosystem. WP Engine posted a cease and desist letter We requested that Mullenweg and Automattic, which owns WordPress.com and has an exclusive commercial license for the WordPress trademark, retract these comments. In response, Automattic sent the following: Cease and desist letter to WP Engineaccusing them of trademark infringement.

This fight impacts the larger ecosystem because WordPress technology is open source, free, and powers a large portion of the internet (about 40% of websites). Websites can host their own WordPress instances or use a provider like Automattic or WP Engine for a plug-and-play solution.

Over the last few days, Mullenweg has said that her fight is against WP Engine and is primarily about trademarks. But the WordPress community in general was uncertain about how they could use WordPress in their services and whether Automattic or Mullenweg would follow suit.

WordPress Foundation, which owns the WordPress trademark We applied for two new trademarks, “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress” in Julyy. Developers And providers are concerned that these trademarks could be used against them if granted.