As Matt Mullenweg continues his extortion campaign against WP Engine, he continues to confirm that there is an extortion campaign occurring. A new post on Automattic’s website starts this way:

One of the many lies in Silver Lake and WP Engine’s C&D was their claim that Automattic demanded money from them moments before our CEO Matt Mullenweg gave his keynote at WordCamp US.

That is not true. Automattic asked for a verbal agreement that WP Engine would give some percentage of their revenue back into WordPress, either in the form of a trademark agreement or employee hours spent on core WordPress.

The cease and desist (C&D) letter came from “litigation counsel for WP Engine,” not from Silver Lake. (Matt Mullenweg seems to have an obsession with bringing up Silver Lake at every turn.)

Giving a “percentage of their revenue” is a monetary demand, since revenue is money.

Also provided in the post is a term sheet that Automattic claims was provided WP Engine. There are some troubling aspects, including this restriction on forking software:

Prohibition on “Forking.” WP Engine will cease and desist from forking or modifying any of Automattic’s,
WooCommerce’s, or its affiliates’ software (including, but not limited to plugins and extensions) in a
manner that disrupts any partnership between Automattic and its commercial partners. For example,
WP Engine will refrain from changing attribution codes included in any software by Automattic

Matt Mullenweg portrays himself as an advocate of open source software, which is belied by him trying to extort a competitor to agree to not take advantage of rights granted by open source licenses. (The claim of changing attribution codes is claim that was also made when Matt Mullenweg was attacking GoDaddy, the claims doesn’t seem to have been backed up with evidence in either case.)

What stands out most is a key detail that Matt Mullenweg has notably been silent on. He has claimed that WP Engine could pay money to Automattic or contribute time to WordPress. Why couldn’t they pay money to the WordPress Foundation if they could also donate time to WordPress, which could presumably be spent on whatever they wanted? Unless time spent would be controlled by Automattic. The term sheet explains that they wouldn’t be contributing time as they see fit. Instead, they would do that work “directed by WordPress.org:”

Commit 8% of its revenue in the form of salaries of WP Engine employees working on WordPress
core features and functionality to be directed by WordPress.org. WP Engine will provide Automattic
a detailed monthly report demonstrating its fulfillment of this commitment. WordPress.org and
Automattic will have full audit rights, including access to employee records and time-tracking.

What is WordPress.org? If you go to the About page on wordpress.org, which is the website for WordPress. There is no mention of WordPress.org, just WordPress. Here is an example of that:

WordPress is designed for everyone.
We believe great software should work with minimum set up, emphasizing accessibility, performance, security, and ease of use. The basic WordPress software is simple and predictable, offering powerful features for growth and success.

The separate WordPress Foundation also refers to the project as WordPress, not WordPress.org as well:

The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project

The term sheet doesn’t define who or what WordPress.org is.

As we mentioned in a previous post, Matt Mullenweg appears to be WordPress.org or at least owns wordpress.org. Here is another example of that. On Twitter, this question was posed to him:

Do you really individually own http://WordPress.org?

Not Automattic? Not a different LLC or something? No employees? No board of directors?

His response was:

Just me.