Matt Mullenweg vs. WP Engine – How NOT to run a community-based project

Over the past week, Matt Mullenweg (the guy who has final say over everything on the WordPress project – wordpress.com, wordpress.org, WordPress software, etc.) undertook a “scorched earth” (his words) offensive attack on a competing business, WP Engine.

I have zero insider knowledge, but a lot of the context for the attack has been made public through public lawsuit filings, interviews, and commentary (see Resources below).

I’ve read through a lot of this stuff, and a couple of main points stand out:

  1. Matt’s money and Matt’s ego seem to be playing an outsized role in this whole debate.
    • He seems to believe that he deserves to be rewarded financially for his role in the WordPress community.
    • He seems to want personal hype/credit for everything bearing the word, “WordPress” (even when it’s used under “fair use” doctrine of US law).
  2. WP Engine is a billion dollar corporation who seems to want to extract more profit from their enterprise with as little investment possible (good ol’ corporate capitalism!). To that end and without emotion, they’ll push their use of the word, “WordPress”, as far as they can and will ride on the WP community’s hard work (without contributing much back) so long as it makes them a buck.

Resources: