Settlement conference

On 9 July, a settlement conference was held in the court hearing the WPEngine v Automattic proceedings (proceedings that are now so well-known that there’s no need to describe them).

Unfortunately, no settlement was reached. The court’s ‘Minute Entry’ records:

Minute Entry for proceedings held before Magistrate Judge Laurel Beeler: Settlement Conference held on 7/9/2025. Settlement conference held today. The case did not settle. The court asks the parties to confer with their clients, including decision-makers who were not at the settlement conference, to see whether a session with principals makes sense to identify if there is a path forward short of litigation. There is a utility to discussing settlement now: the parties should have a good understanding of the timeline that led up to the litigation, and discovery is not going to change that. The court envisions a process with the decision-makers and in-house counsel only. If this is something that could work, the parties should discuss it and circle back in the next couple of weeks with their proposals on timing. The court can work with the parties to find time (but absent that effort, is otherwise calendaring in November and December). (Not Reported). Total Time in Court: 6 hours. … (Entered: 07/10/2025)

King Pyrrhus of Epirus

I imagine many in the WordPress ecosystem will have had a guts full of hearing about these proceedings and the sorry events that preceded them.

Personally, when I read the minute above this morning, the tale of King Pyrrhus of Epirus shot through my mind. As I understand it, King Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in battles around 280 BC but suffered such heavy losses that he reportedly said:

“Another such victory and we are undone.”

And so was born the phrase ‘Pyrrhic victory’, meaning a win that comes at such a devastating cost to the victor that it is tantamount to defeat.

Can anyone truly win in these proceedings? Even if Automattic were able to successfully defend all claims against it (which may be unlikely), nothing can undo some of the events on its side that prompted the litigation and upset not only WPEngine but many in the community. And if WPEngine succeeds in one or more of its claims, what impact might that have on the WordPress ecosystem, especially if the financial impact on Automattic causes a hit to the WordPress ecosystem in terms of repeated contraction of Automattic’s resourcing to the community? Let us not forget that Automattic (along with the other coding contributors) has always been the lifeblood of modern-day WordPress.

Given that the health of WordPress is essential to the longevity of WPEngine, isn’t there is a risk that victory on WPEngine’s part would be not only ‘phyrric’, but also akin to a fire that scorches its own roots? A company might win a legal battle, but if that win burns the very ground — Automattic and the open-source community — that feeds both parties, it risks collapsing the ecosystem on which it depends.

What might a settlement here involve? From my perspective as a former litigator, one who’s been using WordPress for about 20 years, a former WordPress.com user, and a WPEngine customer (which is not swaying my views), my reckoning is that it would need to involve:

• an apology to WPEngine for some of the actions that prompted the litigation (and I say that even if there’s merit in the non-legal argument that WPEngine was not giving ‘enough’ to the community);
• an acknowledgement on WPEngine’s part that it has the resources to give more back to WordPress, with a reasonable commitment for a defined period (and, to be clear, ‘reasonable’ does not mean the amount Automattic’s CEO was trying to extract – it means less than that!);
• abandonment by Automattic of its trademark claims or assertions against WPEngine and abandonment of WPEngine’s claims against Automattic; and
• probably – to clinch a settlement – payment of a sum to WPEngine for the deliberate and arguably tortious interference with its relationships with its customers.

Some may baulk at the last item but, let’s be real, the numerous and varied attempts to divert custom from WPEngine and the things being said to achieve that were palpable, and any such payment could be considerably less than the combined costs of proceeding through to trial and the pain that damages awards against Automattic – if made – could cause.

Some may prefer to see this litigation proceed to trial. Personally, I think that would be unwise on both sides. Let us not forget King Pyrrhus of Epirus.