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Tag Archives: WordPress.org

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]

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]

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]

30 Sep 2024

Who Owns The WordPress Website and wordpress.org?

Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against WP Engine has serious security implications. Especially over the possibility that access to the WordPress website might be blocked to certain groups, as has now happened, or it could shut entirely. What seems like it should be a simple to answer question is who owns the WordPress website and the related wordpress.org domain name. It turns out there is understandable confusion over that. The kind of confusion that Matt Mullenweg seems rather concerned about between WordPress WP Engine, but the kind of confusion it turns out he often engages in. It appears that Matt Mullenweg owns those, which we will get in to more detail, after looking at the confused information out there.

WordPress Foundation Owns It?

If you were to search Google to try to figure out the answer, the snippet for one of top results, which is from the Awesome Motive owned WP Beginner, says “To summarize, WordPress.org and the WordPress trademark are owned by the WordPress Foundation”: [Read more]