Business, GPL, Hosting
Published on September 23, 2024

Thoughts on the attack on WP Engine

written by Richard Best

Downward criticism of community members

The WordPress community is no stranger to one of the project’s founders criticising those he considers to be behaving egregiously. Those of us who have been using WordPress for a long time will recall the strong and sometimes prolonged criticism of the likes of Chris Pearson, Envato, GoDaddy, and others. But arguably they all pale in comparison to the attack on WP Engine at the most recent WordCamp in Portland, Oregon (made all the more bizarre by the fact that WP Engine was sponsoring the event and had numerous staff attending).

In days gone by, most criticisms arose from perceived violations of the GPL or other open source licensing arrangements. In many cases, the criticisms were understandable. If you use WordPress and violate the GPL (by, for example, not licensing modifications appropriately when you distribute them), then you shouldn’t be surprised if someone complains, even loudly.

The attack on WP Engine

The attack on WP Engine was of a completely different ilk. After explaining the ‘tragedy of the commons’, Matt let rip. The attack was premised on WP Engine giving back to the WordPress community a small number of hours (40 hours or so a week) versus Automattic’s asserted 3786, despite the companies being “roughly the same size, with revenue in the ballpark of half-a-billion dollars per year.” He went on to say:

“WP Engine has good people, some of whom are listed on that page. But the company is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management.

Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals. It just wants return on capital.

So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to go vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to? Someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers.”

…

“I’m making the case for why this is, might be the last WordCamp you see WP Engine have a booth at.”

Having referred to and shown a picture of the Managing Director of Silver Lake, he said “it’s just like a schoolyard bully”, and then referred to the slowing growth of WordPress for a few years (starting in 2018) and stated “you can actually map it pretty well to the revenue growth of a company like WP Engine” (!).

And then this:

“Think about this. If you ran a business, normally you’d spend part of your budget on R&D. How great is it that if you could get all the software for free, don’t spend a single dollar on it, or spend 40 hours a week, so call that, you know, $100,000 a year on it. And you can make $450,000,000 per year off it.

That’d be pretty sweet, right? It’s a pretty good business. But then what happens to that software? If you’re taking the business from companies like the other ones I mentioned, Automatic, Newfold, etc. that like, actually put back to that software, now those companies are fighting with like, one hand tied behind their back.

I’ve got a hundred full time people working on core and things in the commons. I could have those hundred people working on getting more customers for WordPress.com or something like that. But they’re not. They’re working on things that benefit all of us. That belong to all of us. That are part of open source.”

Now, why have I bothered writing a post about this attack? Because, on the one hand, I have a huge amount of respect for Matt and all he has done with WordPress, achieved with Automattic, and done for the community. I will always think that and I’m grateful to him. But, on the other, I am also a long-time WP Engine customer. They do security well. They handle backups, staging sites, etc well. They do a range of other things well. I’ve always received good customer service. And, in the past when I’ve compared what they provide with competing offerings, I’ve thought you get what you pay for. For example, their site management interface is way, way better than many of the cheap-as-chips hosts out there.

Round 2 after WordCamp

After the WordCamp, Matt had another crack at WP Engine in a blog post, titled “WP Engine is not WordPress“. He started by saying this:

“Their branding, marketing, advertising, and entire promise to customers is that they’re giving you WordPress, but they’re not. And they’re profiting off of the confusion”

The post purports to “offer a specific, technical example of how they [Silver Lake] break the trust and sanctity of our software’s promise to users to save themselves money”.

The assertion that WP Engine is not WordPress, and this technical example, is based on the fact that WP Engine turns off the revisions system by default.

Reflections

For what it’s worth, my take on all this is as follows:

  • This attack on WP Engine has nothing to do with any violation of the GPL itself and cannot be justified on the basis of any supposed spirit of the GPL. There is no suggestion that WP Engine is not respecting the GPL, and WP Engine is under no legal obligation to contribute any specified number or ratio or proportion of hours back to the community.
  • Instead, the attack on WP Engine represents a shift from prior criticisms of others, largely based on perceived violations of the GPL, to an attack based on perceived insufficient respect for community or moral values, because there’s too much taking and not enough giving. Yet, what this ‘morality’ requires is being set unilaterally and without a vote from the community. Who would have thought that, if you didn’t contribute a number of hours per week over a given threshold referable to your revenue, you would be pounded in a public forum?
  • The attack has been made by the leader of one company that competes directly with the company that’s the target of the attack, and expressly in circumstances where, he says, companies who contribute more are “fighting with like, one hand tied behind their back”. There’s an obvious sense of unfairness, moral outrage, or competitive disadvantage by those doing ‘the right thing’.
  • Again, however, as far as I know, WP Engine has not violated the GPL. It has not broken any rule binding on those in the massive WordPress community. It has no contract with the WordPress Foundation or anyone else requiring it to contribute X number of hours per week to the community. It champions the use of WordPress, and yes for profit, but so too do many other companies, with nowhere near the proportion of ‘giving back to the community’ that Automattic gives back. Automattic is awesome for what it does for the community, but how many companies can or do match it on a proportional basis by reference to their revenue?
  • To suggest that WP Engine is not WordPress and that they’re ‘profiting from the confusion’ is, I suggest, non-sensical. Of course it’s WordPress. Turning off a feature doesn’t mean users are not using WordPress and to suggest otherwise is misleading. WordPress.com itself does not make all features available to all users on all pricing plans, and over the years its interface has been quite different to regular WordPress. To my mind, not being able to install plugins on lower priced plans on WordPress.com makes for much less of a ‘WordPress’ experience than turning off revisions (which, personally, I’ve never used and never need).
  • In any event, the turning off of revisions was not a Silver Lake decision. WP Engine turned off revisions by default long before the Silver Lake investment in 2018.
  • And let’s not forget that WP Engine purchased and now maintains and makes available to the community the Advanced Custom Fields plugin, which has 2+ million active installations. And yes, there’s a Pro version from which profits are made, but so what? That’s commonplace. WP Engine also maintains or is co-contributor to the Better Search Replace plugin, the WP Migrate Lite plugin, the Genesis Custom Blocks plugin, the Genesis Connect for WooCommerce plugin, the PHP Compatibility Checker plugin, the Faust.js plugin, and the Pattern Manager plugin, all of which are in the WordPress plugins repository.
  • Overall, this all just strikes me as a bit sad, and now I’m not sure what to think as a result of the seed that has been planted. Does Matt have good reason to feel there’s an imbalance between some of the big players in the hosting community on the issue of giving back? Well, if the figures he presented are accurate and take all other material contributions into account, then yes, it would seem so. Could WP Engine do more for the community? Yes, it probably could. But is the company complying with the GPL? Yes. Has the company given hosting-related confidence to massive numbers of WordPress users over the years? Yes, undoubtedly it has, myself included. Has that assisted with WordPress uptake? Surely yes. Does WP Engine support the community in other ways? Yes (including sponsorship, free plugins, Torque, Local, and a rich Resource Center).

That all leads to this question? In the circumstances set out above, was it cool to name and shame WP Engine? For me, that’s a rhetorical question, but you be the judge.

Thank you

I’ll end this by simply saying thank you to both Matt and WP Engine for what you do for WordPress (along with all the other contributors). Everyone knows what Matt has done and continues to do, both personally and through Automattic, and that contribution will most probably always be unparalleled. Thank you. Seriously, thank you. You’re a legend (and, Silver Lake, WP Engine would most probably not exist if it weren’t for Matt’s co-founding and leadeship of WordPress, so please bear that in mind). At the same time, I’ve paid for services from Automattic in the past, I’m an ongoing customer of WP Engine (and have been for more than a decade), and am grateful to both.

My hope is that the inevitable tension that will now exist between you can be resolved for the benefit of your respective customers and the wider community. None of us needs it. And Silver Lake/WP Engine, my plea to you is to keep your hounds at bay, and address this problem in a way that best serves your customers. My suggestion is that you can achieve this with open and honest communication with the community, without resorting to anything stronger. I believe your customers (myself included) will want to see unity, and nothing that results in further division. Please close the chasm, rather than deepen it.