For a mediocre CMS system, WordPress sure punches above its weight…when it comes to drama, that is.

You’ve been following the story here and elsewhere:

• Mullenweg, Former Part Owner of WP-Engine, and His WordPress Checkbox of Doom
• Automattic’s $32 Million Annual Demand: The High Stakes of Using the WordPress Trademark
• WordPress v. WP-Engine Thermonuclear War, and Every Linux Box is About to be Hacked

The standout moment in still Mullenweg reading an anti-WP-Engine screed to a jazz accompaniment.

He followed up by creating a site allegedly tracking how many sites have “left WP Engine and found a new home since Sep 21, 2024”.  Hilariously, Attomatic crows about 35,510 defctors (as of this writing) people who’ve left WP-Engine…as if that’s some kind of big number.

He also cut WP-Engine off from some Attomatic services, but a court slapped him across the face and told him to knock it off.  He quit the community Slack in a huff as a way of…something.

I mean, there’s jumping the shark…and then there’s jumping sharks with freakin’ lasers on their heads.

The Latest

So after all these screeching, a couple community members started talking about maybe forking WordPress.  They’re not the first – people have been forking the hell out of it for a decade or more.  But now there’s fresh community impetus.  You have a madman at the wheel, so people are putting some serious thought behind finding new leadership.

In response, Mullenweg yesterday wrote the most passive-aggressive, sarcasm-laden, manboy-screaming-for-attention post you’ve ever read.

Just to align reality for a sec: Mullenweb is a multi, multi, multi-millionaire.  He also used to own part of WP-Engine before selling it for millions.

In the post, he calls out a couple contributors, Joost de Valk and Karim (last name? not stated) in the most tacky way possible.  Joost worked for Attomatic, and Mullenweb says

I think we would both agree in those 5 months he was not effective at leading the marketing team or doing the work.

Well that’s certainly catty.  Karim is dismissed as someone who “leads a small WordPress agency…and employs ~50 people” while contrasted with the army of thousands Mullenweg commands…though they’re jumping ship as fast as they can.  8% of them resigned after his jazz screed.

Now read some of these teenage comments:

However in Joost and Karim’s new project, they don’t need to follow our process or put in the hours to prove their worth within the WordPress.org ecosystem, they can just lead by example by shipping code and product to people that they can use, evaluate, and test out for themselves. If they need financial or hosting support is sounds like WP Engine wants to support their fork…

He also threatens to stop working on the WP core to match what he perceives as WP-Engine’s lack of contributions:

In the meantime, on top of my day job running a 1,700+ person company with 25+ products, which I typically work 60-80 hours a week on, I’ll find time on nights and weekends to work on WordPress 6.8 and beyond. Myself and other “non-sponsored” contributors have been doing this a long time and while we may need to reduce scope a bit I think we can put out a solid release in March.

What We All Hope Will Happen

Here is what should happen with WordPress:

• A new fork is created and it gains traction.
• The services that Automattic provides are replicated onto free platforms.  Really, it’s downloading the plugins…and the world is lousy with downloading platforms.  You don’t need Automattic to download npm packages or Debian updates.
• Mullenweg loses his fortune in a crypto scam, gets a job flipping hamburgers, and learns some humility.

We’ll see.

• Author
• Recent Posts

raindog308

Dread Lord of LowEnd Content at LowEndBox

I'm raindog308, techno polymath and long-time LowEndTalk community Administrator. My technical interests include all things Unix, perl, python, golang, shell scripting, vintage operating systems such as MVS, and relational database systems such as Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.

I also enjoy using LEBs! I have an empire of little guys for VPNs, larger guys for apps, and big guys for databases and storage. When I'm not in front a screen I'm into German Shepherd dogs, quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop roleplaying games, and forest hiking.

I enjoy writing technical articles here on LowEndBox to help people get more out of their systems. You can find me on LowEndTalk @raindog308

Latest posts by raindog308 (see all)

• Has Matt Mullenweg of WordPress Actually Lost His Mind? - January 12, 2025
• Virtarix is Starting 2025 Off With Some Great Deals on Cheap, High RAM Systems in South Africa, Dallas, or Frankfurt! - January 11, 2025
• Bonus Code Friday!Get Extra Entries to Win RackNerd’s Arcade Game Machine or Other Prizes! - January 10, 2025