Court orders WordPress to stop blocking WP Engine and interfering with plugins

A California district court has ordered Automattic, the parent organization of WordPress.com, and its CEO Matt Mullenweg to stop blocking WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin. The decision follows a lawsuit filed by WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company, which accused Automattic of causing “irreparable harm” to its business.

The lawsuit follows a lawsuit filed by WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company that accused Automattic of causing “irreparable harm” to its business.

The conflict between Automattic and WP Engine

In September, Matt Mullenweg publicly accused WP Engine of misusing the WordPress trademark and not supporting the platform’s community enough. As a result, Automattic blocked WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org servers and took control of the ACF plugin developed by WP Engine.

Automatically, Automattic blocked WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org servers and took control of the ACF plugin developed by WP Engine.

Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin found Automattic’s actions harmful to WP Engine’s business relationships. In her ruling, she said Mullenweg’s actions were “designed to create disruption and discontinuity.” However, the court did not find Automattic’s argument that WP Engine had originally built its business on a resource to which it had no contractual access persuasive.

Implications of the court’s decision

The court ruled that Automattic must cease:

.
• Blocking WP Engine from WordPress.org.
• Control over ACF plugin.
• Display a list of companies that have left WP Engine on a specially created website.
• Use a checkbox that requires confirmation that a WordPress.org user is not affiliated with WP Engine.

This preliminary court ruling indicates that WP Engine, as well as the WordPress community, may suffer without such interference.