# WordPress governance faces structural crisis > [!quote] > "At its core, the Automattic-WP Engine dispute has exposed a governance crisis that has been simmering in the WordPress community for years." Two lines: context and use. ## Source - [[3. Resources/Readwise/Articles/WordPress at War WP Engine Claims Automattic Had a Secret Plan to Shake Down 10 Hosting Companies for Royalties]] ## Links - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Trademarking a Commons's Descriptive Terms Converts a Steward Into a Gatekeeper]] — evidence-for: the trademark-opposition filing (2026-07) is this governance crisis continuing to play out in a new venue - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/BDFL Litigation Necessarily Implicates Personal Corporate and Foundation Roles Because the BDFL Has Concentrated Them]] — applies-in: the "structural crisis" this note names is the concentrated-authority failure mode that Permanent describes - [[3. Resources/Permanent Notes/Zet · WordPress governance centralizes around Automattic]] — specifies: the structural crisis becomes concrete when project, corporate, and enforcement authority converge around one company and its founder - Not yet a Literature Note (pending Readwise→Obsidian sync), but directly relevant material deep-read 2026-07-09/10: [WordPress Community Support Recorded a $372,000 Deficit in 2025](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kx6gns0tekws07dj5kjvv6ky) (funding strain as a second governance-crisis symptom) and [Are Declining Plugin Sales the Canary in WordPress' Coalmine?](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kx6gnm1gnanx1s0gt97z0a0r) (ecosystem-health symptom cluster) - [[3. Resources/MOCs/Open Source Governance MOC]] — connects WordPress ecosystem-health signals to the vault's wider study of stewardship, concentrated authority, and commons governance