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Tag Archives: Automattic

21 Oct 2024

Automattic Deleted Blog Post Praising WP Engine, Where WP Engine’s VP of Security Admitted to Not Doing Basic Due Diligence

One question that has come up a lot recently when the situation with Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, is who is the bad guy? Considering that Matt Mullenweg is engaged in a now very public extortion campaign against WP Engine, they are clearly a victim. But that doesn’t mean they are good guys. Sometimes they are the bad guys alongside Matt Mulleweg’s company Automattic.

In July of last year, we covered a situation where WP Engine was falsely claiming that a popular WordPress plugin contained a vulnerability. (Because everything is related, the developer of that plugin has become another victim of the current mess.) The cause of the false claim was that WP Engine didn’t actually vet vulnerability claims. Instead, they used a source well-known to not be a reliable source, WPScan. WPScan is owned by Automattic. [Read more]

21 Oct 2024

Automattic’s Lawyer Didn’t Mysteriously Delete Statement That WordPress.org Is a Non-Profit, Matt Mullenweg Deleted It

On Friday, the law firm representing WP Engine in their lawsuit against Automattic and Matt Mullenweg filed a motion for preliminary injunction. One claim made by the lawyers from Quinn Emanuel in that stood out to us, because they claimed something was a mystery, but it isn’t. It suggests that maybe the lawyers are not doing as good a job as they should be or they were not telling the truth.

Here is the statement with the claim: [Read more]

14 Oct 2024

How Did Automattic Employee Know in Advance of Takeover of Advanced Custom Fields if It Was Done by WordPress Security Team?

On Saturday, Matt Mullenweg announced a takeover of WP Engine’s Advanced Custom Fields plugin. That isn’t really surprising. As we wrote recently, Matt Mullenweg can hold plugin developers’ hostage. Matt Mullenweg claimed this was done by the WordPress security team:

On behalf of the WordPress security team, I am announcing that we are invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines and are forking Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) into a new plugin, Secure Custom Fields. SCF has been updated to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem. [Read more]

10 Oct 2024

Automattic’s Lawyer Falsely Claims Automattic Doesn’t Control What Code is Labeled WordPress

In a couple of previous posts, we have looked at claims coming from an associate general counsel at Automattic. This person is claiming that there is a never before disclosed non-proft that controls the WordPress website, which runs counter the claim by Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg that he owns it. They also are claiming, in direct contradiction to Matt Mullenweg, that the WordPress trademark was not donated to the WordPress Foundation.

Now he apparently is replying on the Hacker News. The responses are strange and you might reasonably believe that it is an impostor. But the account‘s username is the same as his name and is listed as being created in February 2017. [Read more]

9 Oct 2024

Matt Mullenweg Claims the WordPress Trademark Was Donated to the WordPress Foundation, Automattic’s Lawyer Disagrees

The trademark for WordPress plays an important role in Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against WP Engine, and all the security implications that come out of it. What is clear is how unclear things have been with that. Matt Mullenweg has said things that are misleading and in other cases appear to be outright false. One of his own lawyers is disagreeing with him over fundamental issue (it isn’t the only issue they disagree with him). Was the trademark donated to the WordPress Foundation or not?

Matt Mullenweg’s announcement in 2010 said the trademark was donated (emphasis ours): [Read more]

8 Oct 2024

WordPress Documentation On Confusion With WordPress.com Changed to Include Ridiculous Ad Promoting WordPress.com

The voice of WordPress could be a powerful force to help address many problems that exist in the WordPress space. Including lots of FUD about security that gets in the way of focusing on fixing real security issues. Unfortunately, it is increasingly being used to promote the for-profit interests of Matt Mullenweg. That has bled in to the WordPress documentation.

Recently, Matt Mullenweg has been complaining that people confuse WordPress and WP Engine. If this really is a significant issue, then there is a bigger issue that he could address. The confusion between his for-profit WordPress.com and WordPress. There is so much confusion that the WordPress website, WordPress.org, has a post titled “What’s the difference between WordPress.org and WordPress.com?” That page has existed since at least 2015. Since 2015, the page has this as the final section: [Read more]

7 Oct 2024

Automattic Can’t Decide if WordPress.org is a Previously Undisclosed Non-Profit or If It is Just Matt Mullenweg

As part of Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against WP Engine, someone with control of the WordPress website started blocking customers of WP Engine from getting security updates for WordPress software. That makes the ownership/control of the WordPress website as critical security issue to understand. So who owns the WordPress website? It seems it should be a simple question to answer, but even the CEO of Automattic and Automattic are not on the same page on that.

In a post on Automattic’s website published on October 2 (and subsequently updated on October 3), an associate general counsel at Automattic, wrote that the non-profit WordPress “Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software.” That would mean there is a second non-profit besides the WordPress Foundation, which exists, but that people are not aware of. [Read more]

7 Oct 2024

Lack of Clarity Surrounding Scope of Automattic’s Rights to Commercial Use of WordPress Trademark

Last week we noted that a post written on Automattic’s website by an associate general counsel at Automattic, appeared to have a gotten significant detail wrong. As the author claimed that a non-profit owns WordPress.org, despite the CEO of Automattic continually claiming he personally owns it. There is another detail that may not be right that was discussed in that.

In a post on The Repository, written by Rae Morey, noted the issue on the non-profit claimed to own WordPress, but went on to report this: [Read more]

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]