WordPress is essentially internet infrastructure. It’s widely used, generally stable, and doesn’t tend to generate many splashy headlines as a result.
Technology
The messy WordPress drama, explained
But over the last week, the WordPress community has swept up into a battle over the ethos of the platform. Last week, WordPress cofounder Matt Mullenweg came out with a harsh attack on WP Engine, a major WordPress hosting provider, calling the company a “cancer” to the community. The statement has cracked open a public debate surrounding how profit-driven companies can and can’t use open-source software — and if they’re obligated to contribute something to the projects they use in return.
The conflict has escalated in the days since with a barrage of legal threats and has left swaths of website operators caught in the crossfire of a conflict beyond their control. WP Engine customers were cut off from accessing WordPress.org’s servers, preventing them from easily updating or installing plugins and themes. And while they’ve been granted a temporary reprieve, WP Engine is now facing a deadline to resolve the conflict or again have their customers’ access fall apart once again.
WP Engine is a third-party hosting company that uses the free, open-source WordPress software to create and sell its own prepackaged WordPress hosting service. Founded in 2010, WP Engine has grown to become a rival to WordPress.com, with more than 200,000 websites using the service to power their online presence.
“Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals, it just wants return on capital.”
Mullenweg leads two different WordPresses. There’s WordPress.org, the open source project that develops the backbone of the WordPress publishing platform, and then there’s WordPress.com, a company that sells a hosted version of the open-source WordPress software — just like WP Engine. Mullenweg runs Automattic, which owns WordPress.com. Data suggests that around 43 percent of all websites use WordPress, but it’s not clear how many are hosted by WordPress.com or another party.
Along with selling plans on WordPress.com, Automattic contributes a lot of development effort to the open source project, which itself relies on donations and community contributions to run. According to Mullenweg, the team contributes 3,988 hours per week. The company may not have to pay to use WordPress, but it certainly pays to develop and improve it.
WP Engine operates a bit differently. It says it focuses on investing in the community through sponsorships and encouraging the adoption of the platform. The hosting platform was acquired by the private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018, and Mullenweg views it as a business that profits off of open-source code without giving anything back.
That frustration came to a head last week when Mullenweg took the stage at WordCamp — a WP Engine-sponsored WordPress conference — and took direct aim at WP Engine. “The company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 million in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals — it just wants return on capital. So, it’s at this point I ask everyone in the WordPress community to go vote with your wallet. Who are you going to give your money to: someone who is going to nourish the ecosystem or someone who is going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?”
Mullenweg followed up this statement with a September 21st blog post, where he lambasted WP Engine for contributing just 40 hours per week to the WordPress.org open source project. “WP Engine is setting a poor standard that others may look at and think is ok to replicate. We must set a higher standard to ensure WordPress is here for the next 100 years,” Mullenweg wrote in the blog. He ripped into WP Engine even more, saying it’s “strip-mining the WordPress ecosystem” and giving users a “crappier experience so they can make more money.”
Mullenweg isn’t just defending the ethos of open source — he’s also defending his competing WordPress provider
Mullenweg doesn’t appear to be wrong about WP Engine’s contributions. But WP Engine is ultimately abiding by the rules of WordPress’ open-source license: it’s generally free to use, and WP Engine doesn’t have to give back to the WordPress community just because it’s banking off the open-source code. Of course, it’d be nice if WP Engine did, but nothing requires that it do so.
Complicating this further: Mullenweg isn’t just defending the ethos of open source — he’s also defending his competing WordPress provider. In his blog post, he claims WP Engine is “profiting off of the confusion” caused by the company’s branding. Mullenweg alleges that WP Engine is promising to give customers WordPress but that the company is actually offering a distilled version of the service. He goes on to say WP Engine will need a commercial license for the “unauthorized” use of the WordPress trademark, which is controlled by the WordPress Foundation and later sent a cease and desist letter in an attempt to make the company pay up.
WP Engine isn’t staying silent. It sent a cease and desist letter that tells a very different story of what has been going on behind the scenes. In its letter, WP Engine claims Automattic demanded a “very large sum of money” days before Mullenweg’s keynote at the September 20th WordCamp convention — and if the company didn’t receive it, Mullenweg allegedly threatened to carry out a “scorched earth nuclear approach” toward WP Engine.
WP Engine alleges Mullenweg harassed the company through text messages and calls, with one screenshotted text saying: “If I’m going to make the case to the WP community about why we’re banning WPE I need to do it in my talk tomorrow.” The texts, which Mullenweg confirmed he sent in an interview with Twitch streamer ThePrimeagen, say he prepared several presentation slides for his WordCamp talk, with the working title “How Private Equity can Hollow out and Destroy Open Source Communities, a Story in 4 Parts.”
After WP Engine refused to pay WordPress, the company alleges Mullenweg followed through on his threats. “Mr. Mullenweg’s covert demand that WP Engine hand over tens of millions to his for-profit company Automattic, while publicly masquerading as an altruistic protector of the WordPress community, is disgraceful,” WP Engine’s letter states. “WP Engine will not accede to these unconscionable demands which not only harm WP Engine and its employees, but also threaten the entire WordPress community.”
WordPress.org has now made it clear that it’s going after WP Engine for not only failing to give back to the WordPress project but also for its alleged misuse of the WordPress trademark. Mullenweg now says Automattic has given WP Engine two ways to “pay their fair share”: either by paying a licensing fee or making contributions to the open source WordPress project. “This isn’t a money grab: it’s an expectation that any business making hundreds of millions of dollars off of an open source project ought to give back, and if they don’t, then they can’t use its trademarks,” Mullenweg said.
The WordPress Foundation — the charitable organization that backs the open source WordPress project — is led by Mullenweg and other lesser-known board members who aren’t displayed on its website. It seems the WordPress Foundation has made some tweaks to its trademark guidelines in recent days. As of September 19th, the policy said you are “free” to use the WP abbreviation in “any way you see fit.” But now WordPress has deleted that language, replacing it with a line that says not to use WP “in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is ‘WordPress Engine.’” The updated policy also explicitly states: “If you would like to use the WordPress trademark commercially, please contact Automattic, they have the exclusive license.”
WordPress.org banned WP Engine from accessing its servers free over their “legal claims and litigation” — a move that has made it more difficult for customers to use WP Engine. However, Mullenweg decided to temporarily remove the block just two days later. He’s given WP Engine until October 1st to create their own mirror or resolve the conflict. “Why should WordPress.org provide these services to WP Engine for free, given their attacks on us?” Mullenweg wrote. WP Engine says it only sent a cease and desist order to WordPress and has not yet filed a lawsuit.
When asked about the ban on WP Engine, Automattic spokesperson Megan Fox said in a statement to The Verge that “trademark violations have resulted in the company being blocked from some WordPress resources.” WP Engine pointed The Verge to its statements on X when reached for comment.
The fight has garnered a mix of reactions. On one side, people think WP Engine is in the wrong, with some saying the company should contribute more to the open source project and that its use of “WP” is misleading. On the other, some WordPress community members are calling on Mullenweg to step down and accuse of him abusing his power over WordPress.org and WordPress.com. Others believe the situation could result in a fork of WordPress and brought up concerns about whether WordPress will take action against other companies using the “WP” abbreviation or trademark.
But in a dispute that’s meant to clarify what is and isn’t WordPress, Mullenweg risks blurring the lines even more. WordPress.org and WordPress.com both have a point — but it looks an awful lot like they’re working together to make it.
Technology
Last Hours to Snag up to $600 Off Disrupt 2024 Passes
We’re in the final hours to save up to $600 on TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 tickets! Grab your tickets now and seize this final opportunity for major savings before the countdown to Disrupt 2024 starts. This special discount offer ends tonight at 11:59 p.m. PT.
Join a global community of over 10,000 tech, startup, and VC leaders from October 28-30 at Moscone West in San Francisco. Experience one of the most awaited tech events of the year.
Secure your ticket savings before the offer ends tonight.
Reasons to attend Disrupt 2024
In addition to networking with over 10,000 tech, startup, and VC leaders at Disrupt 2024, you can learn from over 250 industry experts featured on six industry stages and participate in over 200 deep-dive sessions.
Speaker Sneak Peak
- Alex Pall and Drew Taggart from The Chainsmokers, Partners and Co-Founders, MANTIS Venture Capital
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Technology
Arc browser adds security bulletins and bug bounties
Arc creator The Browser Company has officially started a bug bounty program to keep its growing Chromium-based browser’s security in check. The company is also launching a new security bulletin to maintain “transparent and proactive communication” with users and researchers on bug fixes and reports.
These security revisions followed a devastating bug a researcher found and reported to the company that would’ve allowed bad actors to insert arbitrary code into anyone’s browser just by knowing their easily findable user ID.
The problem lived inside the Arc Boosts feature that lets you customize any website with CSS and Javascript. On top of its initial mitigations, the company says it now has disabled Boosts with Javascript by default and added a new global toggle to turn Boosts off completely in Arc version 1.61.2.
The researcher, known as xyz3va, was initially paid a $2,000 bounty for the information. Now, with the new program in place, The Browser Company is upping it to $20,000 retroactively. The vulnerability was patched on August 26th.
With the new program, security researchers can submit reports and get rewards based on the bug’s severity. Low severity findings that are “limited scope” or “hard to exploit” could land up to $500, Medium gets up to $2,500, High up to $10,000, and Critical earns the $20,000 ceiling.
The blog post also outlined new practices to find other vulnerabilities, like development guidelines with additional code reviews, adding security-specific code audits, and hiring new staff for the security engineering team.
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Technology
ChatGPT’s 4o-mini Model Just Got a Big Upgrade – Here Are 4 of the Best New Features
OpenAI has enhanced ChatGPT‘s GPT-4o mini model with a bunch of new features, though surprisingly, it does not have any of the usual fanfare. The smaller, faster version of the GPT-4o model, GPT-4o mini, has lacked many of the features of its larger sibling until now, though by its nature, it has less power to complete the same tasks.
The mini model’s efficiency and speed were already attractive enough to many ChatGPT users. And ahead we’re sharing four of the biggest upgrades that bring it closer to par with GPT-4o.
Image Creation
The 4o-mini model can now generate images based on text prompts like the full GPT-4o model. While functionally, it is the same in terms of making visuals out of text on ChatGPT, the model’s size might speed up the production a bit. Further, it’s unlikely to matter when it comes to the output as they both rely on the DALL-E 3 image generation model from OpenAI.
Browsing
Arguably, one of the biggest limits of the GPT-4o mini model previously was its lack of internet access. Now, you can use the model through ChatGPT to conduct online research faster than with GPT-4o. That means you can get up-to-date information instead of relying solely on its pre-trained knowledge base. It’s crucial to have that option when it comes to fact-checking and comparing information. That brings it up to par with the bigger model but is tied to the speed of the mini model.
Uploading and Understanding
One of the GPT-4o mini model’s most significant limitations compared to the rest of the stable has been its lack of uploading options. Now, ChatGPT users can employ the model to analyze, summarize, and discuss uploaded documents and pictures. The model’s visual processing features let it understand and explain the uploaded images just as it can any texts sent to ChatGPT. This capability makes it easier for users to work with complex visual data for educational or personal needs.
Memory
In case you can’t remember all of the new features or forget one of them, the GPT-4o mini model can help, as it now accesses the memory feature available for other ChatGPT models. That allows it to remember previous conversations with specific users and tailor interactions accordingly. So even after ending a talk with ChatGPT through the 4o-mini model, you can come back and get more relevant answers, follow-ups on earlier discussions, and recognition of your preferences. In other words, being mini doesn’t mean it can’t handle long-term interactions.
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