Automattic reduces the hours you spend contributing to WordPress and blames WP Engine

Automaticthe parent company of WordPress.com, has decided to reduce its contributions to the open source WordPress projectas confirmed by their directors. According to them, they have taken this measure to match the amount of time that other companies, such as WP Engine, invest in the ecosystem. With this, tension between Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and the WordPress community continues to rise.

Instead of the project contributing 3,988 hours per week to the development of WordPress, as Automattic claims, they will invest 45 hours per week as part of the Five for the Future program, which encourages businesses to contribute 5% of their resources to WordPress.org. Fundamentally, they will invest it in security and critical updates.

Mullenweg, who is also one of the founders of WordPress, has openly criticized WP Engine in recent weeks for contributing only 40 hours a week to the ecosystem, calling the company a “cancer” for the community.

Automattic, which has cited notable criticism from various community members who want Matt and other management out of the WordPress project, blames the reduction in hours on the significant amount of time and money they have to devote to the demands of WP Engine.

The company sued Automattic and Mullenweg last year after the latter launched a public campaign against the company and removed its ACF plugin. A judge shortly after issued preliminary measures in favor of WP Engine, further noting that Mullenweg’s behavior is “designed to induce rupture and disruption«.

Mullenweg himself also asked for workers who did not agree with his fight with WP Engine to leave his company. In addition, it has dismantled the sustainability team of the WordPress project, amid an increasingly strong wave of criticism.

As if that were not enough, at the end of last week he decided deactivate the accounts of several members of the WordPress.org communityaccusing at least two of them of planning a new fork of the open source WordPress project. one of them is Joost de Valk, creator of the popular WordPress SEO tool Yoastwho is also the former head of marketing and communication at the WordPress Foundation. Last month, de Valk published a post discussing the potential of independent and federated repositories as part of his vision for a new era in WordPress.

The second person accused of wanting to set up a WordPress fork, according to Techcrunch, is Karim Marucchi, CEO of the consulting firm Crowd Favoritewho expressed himself in similar terms about the future of WordPress in another publication around the same time.

In a post in which he talks about the suspension, in a not exactly conciliatory tone, Mullenweg accuses both of being planning the creation of a WordPress fork, despite the fact that neither of them has expressed it. In fact, both have publicly denied that they are going to do so. Meanwhile, WP Engine has assured that it is available to both, and the rest of the community, to work for the future of WordPress.

In addition to the accounts of de Valk and Marucchi, Mullenweg has suspended three others, without giving any type of explanation as to why he has closed them: that of Presidente de WP Community Collective, Sé Reedand that of two former contributors to the WordPress project: Heather Burnswho has assured that she has not been involved in the project since 2020, y Morten Rand-Hendriksenwho has suggested that the action against him and Burns is because they have expressed doubts regarding the governance of WordPress.