🤯 Matt Mullenweg vs. WPEngine [Part 2]  ## Metadata - Author: [[Chris Pearson]] - Full Title: 🤯 Matt Mullenweg vs. WPEngine [Part 2] - Category: #articles - Document Note: Short Summary for [🤯 Matt Mullenweg vs. WPEngine [Part 2]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM) by [Merlin](https://merlin.foyer.work/) "Alleged Ransom Payment Demands in WordPress Community Rivalry" [00:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=5) Matt Mullenweg's demand for a large sum of money from WP Engine caused controversy. [02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=132) Mullenweg accuses WP Engine of demanding a license fee for using WordPress trademarks. [04:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=249) Matt Mullenweg threatens WP Engine before keynote address [05:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=353) Issues with support and employee treatment at WP Engine [07:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=455) Allegations of trademark misuse by WP Engine [09:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=563) WPEngine's Contribution to the WordPress Community [11:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=670) Hosts modify WordPress for better support and service consolidation. [13:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=781) Limiting post revisions to optimize database performance for hosting multiple clients. --------------------------------- Detailed Summary for [🤯 Matt Mullenweg vs. WPEngine [Part 2]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM) by [Merlin](https://merlin.foyer.work/) "Alleged Ransom Payment Demands in WordPress Community Rivalry" [00:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=5) Matt Mullenweg's demand for a large sum of money from WP Engine caused controversy. - Mullenweg threatened WP Engine with a 'scorched Earth' approach if they didn't pay before his keynote address at WordCamp US. - Allegations were made that Mullenweg demanded a ransom payment and waged war against WP Engine. [02:12](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=132) Mullenweg accuses WP Engine of demanding a license fee for using WordPress trademarks. - WP Engine's use of trademarks is permitted under trademark law and WordPress guidelines. - Mullenweg threatened to smear WP Engine's name and ban them from WordPress community events if they didn't pay. [04:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=249) Matt Mullenweg threatens WP Engine before keynote address - Matt sent threatening messages to WP Engine CEO and board member about keynote address views and promotion. - Despite the threats, WP Engine did not pay up, leading Matt to publicly criticize them for not contributing to the WordPress ecosystem. [05:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=353) Issues with support and employee treatment at WP Engine - Matt Mullenweg questions the support for WordPress and hints at potential mistreatment of employees by WP Engine management. - Mullenweg suggests that WP Engine customers should not renew contracts and that switching to a different host might offer faster performance. [07:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=455) Allegations of trademark misuse by WP Engine - He alleges WP Engine is misusing the trademark, which is denied by WP Engine based on a 15-year history of the WordPress ecosystem. - Matt's change in attitude towards WP Engine after being an investor and blessing the use of 'WP' in their name raises questions. [09:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=563) WPEngine's Contribution to the WordPress Community - WPEngine has contributed tens of millions of dollars through events, sponsorships, and educational resources for the WordPress community. - They actively maintain multiple open source projects like ACF and WP graphql. [11:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=670) Hosts modify WordPress for better support and service consolidation. - Hosts modify WordPress to set up their environment with specific tools for customer support and to simplify their jobs. - The WordPress core team built in functionality like must-use plugins to accommodate hosting companies' modifications and demands. [13:01](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM&t=781) Limiting post revisions to optimize database performance for hosting multiple clients. - Hosts restrict the number of post revisions to manage server performance and speed for all clients. - For most companies, limited revisions won't matter, but WP Engine can make exceptions for specific needs. - Summary: Is there an adult in the room? Does Matt need a wellness check? 🤣🤡 It just gets worse and worse in such a "little man gets big mad" kinda way (I don't care how tall he is) - URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3oibk2UEpM all right let's take a look at this uh this cease and desist from WP engine to automatic and Matt mull so Matt mullenweg threatened that if WP engine did not agree to pay automatic his for-profit entity a very large sum of money before his September 20th keynote address at word word Camp us he was going to embark on a self-described scorched Earth nuclear approach toward WP engine within the WordPress community and Beyond what hold we got we got to read that again not the whole thing but like he's demanded that WP engine pay automatic a for-profit company a very large sum of money fam that is called a ransom payment what are we doing isn't this open source what's going on let's move on uh Mull's covert demand the wp engine had over had to hand over tens of millions to his for profit company automatic while publicly masquerading as an altruistic protector of the WordPress Community is disgraceful well I will agree that if these allegations are true and that if Matt mull Weg demanded a ransom payment and I don't really care whether that Ransom payment was demanded to automatic or to the WordPress Foundation it's still a ransom payment there's not like anything in the bylaws there are no bylaws there not any any precedent for this what what are we doing a ransom payment for what let's move on in this one it says that uh automatic suddenly began demanding that WP engine pay them large sums of money and if it didn't automatic would wage a war against WP engine this demand was accompanied by allegations against WP engine's business that were not only basis but also bore no rational relation to the payment demanded during calls on September 17th and 19 for instance automatic CEO Mark Davies told a WP engine board member that automatic would go to war if WP engine did not agree to pay its competitor automatic that's important too a significant percentage of its gross revenues tens of millions of dollars in fact on an ongoing basis now it's a freaking tax what is happening what is happening Mr Davies suggested the payment ostensibly would be for a license to you use certain trademarks like WordPress even though WP engine needs no such license so I did mention the trademarks earlier so just more more detail here WP engine's use of those trademarks to describe its services as all companies do in this space are fair uses under settled trademark law and are consistent with wordpress's own guidelines again these were the guidelines that were established in the wake of my incident in 2010 and were concomitant with the upstart of um word camps and WordPress community you know in real life WordPress Community meetups moving on uh Mullen WG embarked on a series of harassing text messages and calls to WP engine's board member and also to its CEO threatening that if WP engine did not agree to pay up prior to the start of Mr Mullen wag's live streamed keynote address at word Camp us he would go nuclear on WP engine including by smearing its name disparaging its directors and corporate officers and banning WP engine from WordPress community events like really if he doesn't get his Ransom payment he's going to stomp his feet and try to ban WP engine wherever he can and smear them that's super important as well uh the smearing thing I I may not cover it in this video but I will definitely cover it in in another one if it if it doesn't make this one but uh the effects of this are real and you actually have to examine the way people respond to this psychological to like really get a feel for how this works and how Insidious it is uh I have dealt with that a couple times in my own life at thanks to Matt Mullen wag and so I I feel probably know that better than most to certainly the energy of that situation but uh can't be can't be overstated here how how ugly that is anyway we'll move on to the next page so after mullenweg text message and email WP engine and while he was waiting for a response he emailed the wp engine CEO and a board member and making threatening uh references about his the keynote address he was about to give he said we've got a few thousand viewers on the live stream and the videos on YouTube can get millions of views when we promote them so he's saying this to threaten them to like get them to pay up before he goes on stage he says if they if they pay up and uh you know do what he wants them to do if they bend the knee before he goes on stage he won't crucify them in front of the world who does this guy think he is it's actually I mean if you can read this stuff without laughing you're crazy crazy uh it's it's clownish of course WP engine did not pay up before Mullen wg's keynote so here's what he decided to do he claimed that WP engine is a company that just wants to feed off the WordPress ecosystem without giving anything back I already mentioned how W WP engine buys up distressed themes and plugins and keeps them alive and they've done this with quite a few of these little mini ecosystems that lots of people who use WordPress rely on but according to Matt that's not good enough and not only is that not good enough it actually is not even worth mentioning and therefore he should just smear them and say they don't do anything it's worth nothing to Matt that this happens next Point here Matt suggested that WP engine employees may be fired for speaking up supporting Mullen wag or supporting WordPress and offering to to provide support for them in finding a new job if that were to happen my God that sounds like Trump supporters like getting ousted for for being in favor of Trump he's so weird right like what is this I don't care what direction these types of allegations and behaviors are pointed they're wrong they're wrong every time this direction that direction this guy that guy it doesn't matter if you do this you're wrong please understand this please understand this my goodness see you know talking about that's so grimy and dirty suggesting that employees like like WP engine Management's out there we're going to get them you know like the freaking uh like they're rooting out spies or something my god get know this is this is soft internet software nobody cares this isn't like the CIA bro all right next up he states that every WP engine customer should watch his speech should watch Matt's speech you know his his talk at word camp and then not renew their contracts when those contracts are up for Renewal and again I mentioned earlier I want to do another video where we talk about the psychological response of actual people to these types of situations this will come up because uh there's quite a few examples of people already lapping up whatever milk Matt mull is pouring out there they they lining up to do what he says I just don't get it the Yes Men mentality it's gross but it's real moving on mat claimed that if W current WP engine customers switch to a different host they quote unquote might get faster performance this hilarious he used similar tactics on me back in 2010 this is like an old part of his Playbook you know might maybe he likes to say that oh this is not necessarily better it's just different that's what he'll say like if if you have technology that's clearly Superior he say it's not Superior it's just different dude's a politician I don't I don't know why he's still in WordPress he should be uh in politics he alleged that WP engine is misusing the trademark including by using wpn its name patently false ridiculous based on a 15year history of the WordPress ecosystem and just a it represents a total about face in Matt's attitude towards this whole thing he gave them money he gave them startup Capital he's investor for Christ's sake and then he gave them the blessing to use WP in the name he gave the whole Community the blessing to use WP in product names everybody modified their stuff based on this information back in 2010 2011 it was a big deal at the time everybody knows this everybody who was around knows this and now why did it take 14 years for this trademark usage to become a problem you have to ask yourself that why now what changed what's different the only thing different is something piss mad off I guess hopefully we'll find out what it is uh it's got to be something more real than this though this is ridiculous and then he claimed I I include this last one just because this is classic nap he claimed that WP engines investor doesn't give a dang dang about open source ideals he famously put a uh piece of code in WordPress called capital P dang it it's a filter and he was so annoyed that people would write WordPress with a lowercase p that he created a filter to go through your content and capitalize that P wherever it found the word WordPress being used but on the first iteration of that it actually corrected the word WordPress and URLs and screwed up people's sites and they had to do it again anyway dang it grow up dude just cuss good lord well this page is a little more boring this is just WP engine uh defending itself they said they've uh contributed tens of million dollars and ongoing support for the broader community Through events sponsorships and the development of educational resources including sponsorship of word camps worldwide and producing decode I think it's a conference or something uh educating and empowering the WordPress community Through well whatever boring content they actively maintain multiple open source projects uh ACF Advanced custom fields which a lot of developers use WP graphql f.j uh a lot of people use though I mean I I don't care about those things but the reality is those are free resources that they maintain that the community uses so you just can't if you're going to smear you got to be more specific like this is just a a sloppy smear from Matt and I got some comments on that here in a second but uh it's just sloppy there's no point in that being sloppy uh yeah I already I already went over the the trademark claims it's a joke you know it's been fine for 14 years why is it not fine now and M's speculation that WP engine might retaliate against employees for supporting the WordPress ecosystem it's not just false and wholly unsubstantiated but it's also absurd it's completely absurd it's torous interference it's a big deal and this is where I start getting into uh I start getting a little uncomfortable like what What's Happening Here how what is going on with Matt's conduct here this is clearly Towing not just to I feel like he's overstepping some pretty obvious lines where you get in business lawsuits that are not good like he's overstepped his boundaries in my opinion he's got an an open Community but he's got to convince everybody that whatever he says goes and should be the law of the land in his open Community I just got to scratch my chin on that one gang I struggle with that you know like I don't see how this holds any water so he also says and I could I could barely read this on there so I'm just going to paraphrase so Matt uh said that WordPress or WP engine does not give customers a real version of Wordpress what he means is WP engine and almost every other host I've seen in the last 10 years they all modify the WordPress that gets installed on their servers they do this for a variety of reasons but the number one reason is because they're able to set up their environment with certain tools that all their customers are going to have this helps them consolidate their uh their customer support like their Communications their how-to articles all that stuff this plays a role in that so it makes them do their jobs better and it makes makes it simpler for them to do a better job so it's perfectly rational for these hosting companies to do things like have they called must-use plugins the entire WordPress architecture was built to accommodate mustus plugins which is what host host do this they add the mustus plugins and say well your WordPress environment can't be naked it has to include these things the WordPress core team built in this functionality this capability to satisfy demand from companies like WP engine who wanted to do this and now they're acting like companies like WP and who do this are wrong it's crazy it is crazy and so Mullen hinged his State people were like well Matt what's different about their version of Wordpress so when you type a post or page in the WordPress editor it Autos saves right and every autosave gets saved in the database as something called a post revision those post revisions can make your database huge in a very short amount of time especially if you're a site that produces even a reasonable amount of content those post revisions bloat the database faster than anything else hosts are very aware of this they have to be concerned about the use like file Space Storage you know all all those concerns are real for them because they have multiple clients on each server and if one guy is just bloating the whole thing up it makes it slow for everybody else so they have to to do some sort of management here to run their company so they limit the amount of post revisions that get saved in the database so if you have an article with like you know 30 revisions I don't know how many they keep but maybe like only the last four available or something so for for almost any company The Limited number of revisions aren't going to matter I can see it mattering if you run like an academic journal or something where you have these papers that are updated over time and so you might want really need to know the revision history of a particular document but that is an extremely limited number of cases and for anyone who wants to do that I'm sure they could contact WP engine and have that lifted under some special thing they'd have to pay more for or they you know get a different host it's it's not you know wpn clearly not going to be right for everybody nobody expects this it's crazy so like if revisions is really a deal breaker whoever is needing the revisions is going to figure that out and be able to vote with their money and go somewhere else it's not something like this is not some Draconian thing this is not some sneaky thing this is not a changed WordPress Matt is so insane for that it's just a freaking limited number of revisions dude so the database doesn't get pooped all over by a bunch of revisions give me a break, 🤯 Matt Mullenweg vs. WPEngine [Part 2], Chris Pearson, 01j8wkjh435yfw41hg4v1m9x7z.