| I've been paying attention to this drama, is this the correct timeline? Please correct any mistakes. 1. Wordpress.org is a not for profit blogging platform that's widely used, a crazy figure like 50% of websites are created using this platform. It was created in 2003 and Matt Mullenweg is the co-founder. It's community driven and developed and open source (meaning that the source code is freely available for anyone to modify and redistribute). 2. Wordpress.com is a for profit website which offers managed WordPress hosting. Wordpress.com is owned by Matt's company autoMATTic. Their main competitor is WPEngine.com which is not affiliated with Matt. Wordpress.com was created in 2005, WPEngine.com in 2010. 3. Matt used to be a major investor in WPEngine.com, but that's no longer the case. In 2024 Matt demands 8% of WPEngine.com's revenue for leveraging Wordpress.org (which is, as previously stated, free and open source software). He says the name WPEngine.com is confusing to customers, as they may confuse it with the non-profit Wordpress.org (his own for-profit website is Wordpress.com). What's more, instead of paying Wordpress.org they must pay autoMATTic, Matt's for-profit company. 4. When WPEngine refuse to pay, he delivers a speech at the main WordPress conference publicly shaming WPEngine, saying they don't give back. They frack the WordPress eco-system, and urges customers not to use their platform. 5. WPEngine issue a cease and desist letter to Matt. Matt sends one back demanding WPEngine stop using Wordpress.org due to trademark violation, and bans them from the platform. |