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WordPress Plugin Vulnerability News

7 Oct 2024

Automattic’s “Trademark Infringement” Discussions With WP Engine Were Actually Discussing a WooCommerce Hosting Partner Program

If you are trying to figure out what really was happening with WP Engine and Automattic ahead Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign, as has been the case with so much else, WP Engine has provided a clear explanation and the other side hasn’t. Looking at both sides’ claims, we found that Automattic had not disclosed key information about what was really going on. What it shows is that there was discussion going on, but it wasn’t about supposed trademark infringement or WP Engine not supporting WordPress enough.

Matt Mulleweg has been asked about the timeline of the events and if he has a paper trail. He hasn’t provided it. You can see him just reading off calendar events in one interview. [Read more]

7 Oct 2024

WordPress Foundation’s Recent Hosting Related Trademark Filings List Automattic Employee as Its Chief of Staff

The recent interview that Matt Mullenweg did with The Verge highlighted his focus on WP Engine having not donated to the WordPress Foundation. It is an odd focus since the WordPress Foundation does almost nothing and he hasn’t explained why it would need more money. There is also an issue that the foundation appears to largely operate as an arm of Matt Mullenweg’s for-profit company, Automattic. That is the entity he has been trying to extort WP Engine through.

As we noted before, the foundation’s blog is being written exclusively by Automattic employees. Those employees claim that they are spending 40 hours a week working on WordPress, which is separate from the WordPress Foundation. They are not alone in that. [Read more]

4 Oct 2024

Matt Mullenweg Can’t Be Removed From the Leadership of WordPress Because He Is the Leadership

We keep seeing news stories and commentary about Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against WP Engine and all the fallout of that, which gets basic details wrong. That is in large part because Matt Mullenweg has been very successful in making it seem that things are different than they are. For example, lots of people have understandably believed that the WordPress website was controlled by the WordPress Foundation, but it isn’t. The foundation has little control over WordPress.

On example of confusion that needs addressing is a post titled, “If WordPress is to survive, Matt Mullenweg must be removed,” which seems to be getting a lot of attention. The important questions to ask in response to that are what Matt Mullenweg would be removed from and how would that happen. [Read more]

3 Oct 2024

Matt Mullenweg Explains How He Personally Puts Automattic Employees in Charge of WordPress

In our post detailing that various different entities that Matt Mullenweg has around WordPress, we quoted an Automattic employee claiming that “the WordPress project is so much more than Automattic and always should be.” But we also noted that “WordPress essentially slots in to Automattic’s organization chart.”

As part of Matt Mullenweg continued posting through his legal trouble, he responded to this question about how someone could apply for a job at Automattic to be the Executive Director of WordPress: [Read more]

3 Oct 2024

Matt Mullenweg Is Claiming His License From the WordPress Foundation for the WordPress Trademark Is All Public, the License Isn’t Public

When we last covered Matt Mullenweg’s claims about the WordPress trademark, we focused on his claim in an interview that the licenses the WordPress Foundation has with Automattic and him are revocable. That runs counter the publicly available license for Automattic, which says that it is “perpetual, irrevocable.” We also noted that the WordPress Foundation hasn’t published any the licenses it has with anyone on their website. The Automattic license is available through the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s website.

That makes a response he provided on the Hacker News after WP Engine filed a lawsuit highlighted his misleading claims about the trademark situation stand out: [Read more]

3 Oct 2024

Automattic is Now Claiming That a Non-Profit Other Than the WordPress Foundation Controls WordPress and WordPress.org

There continues to be confusion over who or what actually owns WordPress and the associated wordpress.org website. Considering what has happened recently, the ownership is a big security issue. Adding to the confusion was a post published yesterday on the website of Automattic, which is headed by Matt Mullenweg. Matt Mullenweg is claiming to personally own WordPress.org. The post by Neil Peretz, an associate general counsel at Automattic is titled WordPress Trademarks: A Legal Perspective. It makes this claim:

The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software. [Read more]

3 Oct 2024

Untangling Matt Mullenweg’s Confusing Web of Automattic, WordPress, WordPress.org, and the WordPress Foundation

Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against a competitor of his-for profit company has led more focus on the web of entities Matt Mullenweg has created and a lot of confusion between them. We are going to try to untangle those in this post. There are three or four central ones and two additional ones worth mentioning. If we have missed something (the web is complicated), please leave a comment so that we can update the post.

Automattic

Automattic is Matt Mullenweg’s for-profit company that has various WordPress focused solutions as well as unrelated ones. The WordPress related solutions include Akismet, Gravatar, Jetpack, Pressable, WooCommerce, WordPress.com service, and WP VIP. They also are investors in other companies in the WordPress space. [Read more]

2 Oct 2024

Who or What is WordPress.org?

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. [Read more]

2 Oct 2024

Why Does Automattic Have So Much Control of WordPress When It Provides So Little of the Pledged Five for the Future Hours?

As part of Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against a competitor of his for-profit company Automattic, has focused on contributions to WordPress measured by the Five for the Future program. That is a program created by him and, based on recent activity, controlled by employees of his company Automattic. Here is how he compared Automattic’s activity to the competitor’s activity on his own blog in a post from September 17:

Compare the Five For the Future pages from Automattic and WP Engine, two companies that are roughly the same size with revenue in the ballpark of half a billion. These pledges are just a proxy and aren’t perfectly accurate, but as I write this, Automattic has 3,786 hours per week (not even counting me!), and WP Engine has 47 hours. [Read more]

2 Oct 2024

Matt Mullenweg’s Claim About the Revocability of the Automattic’s License of the WordPress Trademark is Disputed by the License

In an interview that Matt Mullenweg did over the weekend, which was filled with falsehoods. One false statement he said stood out because of recently uncovered information. That uncovered information is the license that Automattic has for usage of the WordPress Trademark. Matt Mullenweg hasn’t it put out there for scrutiny and it turns out to be more extensive than he had made it sound when he was promoting having moved the license to the WordPress Foundation.

The license agreement states that Automattic has “an exclusive, fully-paid, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, sublicensable right and license.” [Read more]