If you are trying to figure out what is going on with WordPress these days, it is difficult, as Matt Mullenweg and others on his side are saying things that appear to varying degrees to not be true. We previously covered how a lawyer for Automattic was claiming that a non-profit owned WordPress.org, while Matt Mullenweg is claiming he owns it. On the Hacker News, Matt Mullenweg responded to a reply about that by claiming that “All the information in the links you shared is totally wrong.” One of three links he claimed contained information that is totally wrong was a post he had written. He then responded, “Sorry for that error, the post has been updated now.” The change made to the post doesn’t make sense from a legal perspective, but it also involved Matt Mullenweg making a striking claim based on what else he is doing.

Here is the relevant sentence from the post before it was changed, with emphasis added by us to the relevant change:

The Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software.

Here is what is has been changed to by him, again with emphasis added by us to the relevant change:

The Foundation also licensed the name to the website WordPress.org, which facilitates widespread access to WordPress-related software at no charge.

So Matt Mullenweg is claiming that WordPress.org provides access to WordPress related software at no charge. That runs counter to a central element of the WP Engine situation.

In a September 25 post of the WordPress News blog titled “WP Engine is banned from WordPress.org,” he started by saying this:

Any WP Engine customers having trouble with their sites should contact WP Engine support and ask them to fix it.

WP Engine needs a trademark license, they don’t have one.

WordPress doesn’t have trademark licenses. WordPress doesn’t even own the WordPress trademark. Automattic has claimed they offered such a license to WP Engine in exchange for “a royalty fee equal to 8% of its Gross Revenue on a monthly basis, within fifteen days of the end of each month.” Or that they “commit 8% of its revenue in the form of salaries of WP Engine employees working on WordPress core features and functionality to be directed by WordPress.org.” WordPress.org in that context appears to refer to Matt Mullenweg.

The ban from WordPress.org including WP Engine customers from installing and updating software from WordPress.org through the WordPress admin area.

Blocking access to WordPress.org unless payment is made to an unrelated entity can’t be squared with saying there is no charge for that access.

What makes this stand out more is the issue of hidden charges is specifically brought up in WP Engine’s lawsuit filed last week. For example, it says at one point “Nowhere does the website say that the plugin will be approved only if the developer pays money to
WordPress.” WP Engine has been blocked from updating their plugins or submitting new ones to the WordPress Plugin Directory as part of the ban. You would think that Matt Mullenweg and his lawyers would have read the lawsuit and would be careful about what they are saying about things mentioned the suit, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.