WPEngine, Inc. vs. Automattic– Order on Motion for Preliminary Injunction

&gt; Here, Mullenweg’s “statement that he had the right to disable WPEngine’s account access and to make changes to the ACF plugin for the sake of public safety[,]” see Opp. at 27-28, is belied by the declarations of WPEngine’s executives stating that the claimed vulnerability was minor [...]<p>@photomatt literally screwed himself over by talking about his actions here, when everyone was screaming at him to shut the fuck up. Will he start listening now?<p>In short, what this injunction does is a) remove the checkbox, b) return ACF to WPEngine, c) restore access to website, d) no bond required.

I hope Matt considers placing all the community resources of Wordpress into the foundation, including Wordpress.org, constituting an actual board, contributing funds, and setting up a governance and contribution system that matches the open ethos of the license and community.<p>I think this is an area that Drupal gets right, and Dries wrote an interesting post about it in October:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dri.es&#x2F;solving-the-maker-taker-problem" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;dri.es&#x2F;solving-the-maker-taker-problem</a>

Yes, they did use Matt&#x27;s Hacker News comments against him. (p24)<p>The more relevant outcome of WPEngine getting the injuction is in Section F (p40), which includes removing that WordPress login checkbox.

Rooted in speculation about why this meltdown occurred in the first place: be very careful about taking money, as well as the amount and who from. My guess from day one is that Matt was put under pressure from investors and this was the only &quot;fix&quot; he saw.<p>A real shame to see such a great legacy flushed for zero ROI.

&gt; Defendants’ arguments in opposition do not persuade otherwise. They assert that “[t]he public is not, and will not, be subject to any harm in the absence of a preliminary injunction” noting that WPEngine implemented a workaround for Mullenweg’s interference with its access to WordPress. Opp. at 33. Not so. In his reply declaration, Prabhakar explains that the temporary solution “is impractical for many reasons.” Prabhakar Reply Decl. ¶ 4. Without access to wordpress.org, those who use WPEngine’s plugins “would not know that their plugins require update[.]” Id. Many do not know how to update plugins manually. Id. For those that do, if they manage several websites, and those websites run multiple plugins, the process of performing manual updates would be too onerous and time consuming to be workable. Id. Moreover, even if WPEngine’s workaround did not present the difficulties Prabhakar describes, the costs associated with its implementation, as necessitated by Mullenweg’s conduct, supports the issuance of injunctive relief.<p>Ouch. The court is basically saying that they need to implement the preliminary injunction for the wider public good. Rather puts the lie to several assertions by Mullenweg.<p>In fact, it&#x27;s not at all looking good for Mullenweg or Automattic.

&gt; remove the purported list of WPEngine customers contained in the “domains.csv” file linked to Defendants’ wordpressenginetracker.com website (which was launched on or about November 7, 2024) and stored in the associated GitHub repository located at <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker.github.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetra...</a>.<p>Considering the only changes [1] [2] have been to add more sites to the list I guess there&#x27;s going to be a second hearing to enforce the injunction.<p>[1]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker.github.io&#x2F;commits&#x2F;trunk&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetra...</a><p>[2]: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker.github.io&#x2F;commit&#x2F;4c2848fc940c3b58ff76bffbade286fa887a3cff" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;wordpressenginetracker&#x2F;wordpressenginetra...</a>

&gt; restoring WPEngine’s and Related Entities’ access to wordpress.org in the<p>&gt; ...<p>&gt; slack.wordpress.org); and<p>That is going to be a very awkward slack channel.

TL;DR: This is a huge verdict against Automattic. To get an injunction like this is a really high bar - you have to prove that you have a winnable case AND that you&#x2F;the public is actively being harmed right now and it can&#x27;t wait until trial.<p>The injunction covers almost everything relevant - returning ACF, taking down the website tracker, removing the checkbox, etc. Basically return everything as it was before Matt became a supervillain the day of Wordcamp.

As much as the US justice system is deeply, deeply flawed, it is one of the few places where very wealthy people ever hit the &quot;find out&quot; stage after fucking around. Some recent examples, apart from this case, certainly include SBF going to prison, Elon Musk being forced to buy Twitter, Alex Jones&#x27; enormous civil judgment, and so on.<p>I&#x27;m not saying I have <i>faith</i> in the system, exactly, especially when it tends to only do this at the behest of <i>other</i> very wealthy people demanding it, but it is nice to see.<p>Matt Mullenweg, if you&#x27;re reading this (and we know you read HN), feel free to not listen to your attorneys and continue to attack random individuals and companies randomly because you decide you don&#x27;t like them, or whatever. It will surely end well for you and definitely not with more massive own goals like this one. (And if you are Matt Mullenweg&#x27;s attorney, and reading this because he decided to follow my bad advice instead of your good advice, well, I&#x27;m happy to take a steak dinner in appreciation of the massive bill you&#x27;ll soon be sending him.)

Can anyone here summarize the legal principle involved here?<p>Why does Matt legally have to provide services to people he doesn&#x27;t want to, even if he&#x27;s morally wrong or generally being an asshole?<p>To my non-lawyer and only-watching-from-the-sidelines self, the ACF situation seems more clearly actionable, but the other things are very interesting.

I think this is fair. I think wordpress had every right to cut WPEngine off, but<p>1) the fact that subbing in his fork of their plugin killed already purchased &quot;pro&quot; user features without warning was an illegitimate attack on the &quot;pro&quot; customers themselves (who probably have a case against him personally),<p>2) the pretense that he was doing it for &quot;security reasons&quot; because there was an exploit (every single part of everything about wordpress has an exploit in a random month) shows that he <i>thought</i> he was doing something unjustifiable; he should have been clear and open about why he was forking, and not do anything that broke people&#x27;s installs, and<p>3) the behind-the-scenes harassment was just over the top. He should have just made his demand, and when they turned it down, sent a follow up explaining how he was going to cut off access so they could coordinate doing it cleanly. Instead he was intentionally optimizing for chaos <i>and saying this in private communications over and over again.</i><p>He could have done almost all of the same things, and just refused to update &quot;pro&quot; users to the fork and instead refer them to WPEngine&#x27;s alternative setup. Instead he ranted and raved ominously behind the scenes, trying to make it as clear as possible that this was extortion <i>when in essence it wasn&#x27;t.</i> It was all of the fake snarkiness in public and in private, attempts to poach employees, threats to destroy the company, and insinuations of security problems that <i>made it extortion.</i><p>WPE is going to win this because Mullenweg seemingly has no ability to emotionally self-regulate. Real teenage swatter vibes. And I think he was in the right, and I think that without all of the crap, they&#x27;d probably have backed down and started contributing.<p>They&#x27;ll probably end up getting a remedy where he has to help them set up and maintain their alternative plugin directory, he might have to pay them damages, and he might even end up having to allow <i>everyone</i> use of the mark freely. Then what does he have? He snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Ehh. I speak as a pretty long-term WP-oriented developer who is no fan of WP Engine for reasons that are defined by having used their product when I say:<p>This was the only sensible and just outcome.<p>The &quot;Secure Custom Fields&quot; thing is one of the most egregious things to happen in open source for at least a decade. Just crazy.<p>Hopefully Matt understands he has become self-limiting and steps back from some of his positions&#x2F;takes off one of his too many hats.

I stopped following it for a bit after the initial drama after Matt had repeated meltdowns and showed his true face in all of this. It was just tiring try to fight all the non-stop gaslighting which was probably part of the strategy. Any leg he had to stand on was betrayed by his tantrums. Good to see some movement.

It feels as if Automattic doesn&#x27;t do a complete paradigm shift and become truly open with their software everyone is going to give up on them entirely - at least everyone with significant talent and investment.

Anyone taking bets if he will obey the injunction? My feeling is that his ego will not let him do so.

Tried to get bond for an amount covering bills for two years; lol. This gives me more hope than most things I&#x27;ve read lately

matt is one of those inspirational people - like dhh, jason cohen people who built products from scratch and bootstrapped them. so it&#x27;s sad seeing him go ape shit like that.