WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg says a fork would be ‘fantastic’

WordPress co-founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg speaks on stage TechCrunch 2024 Breach on Wednesday said he was not concerned that recent legal drama between his company Automattic and the WordPress host WP Engine may result in a fork of the open source WordPress software. In fact, he said, he would welcome it.

“There may be a fork in the road. I mean, we’ve had WordPress forks before, probably about three or four times in (WordPress) history,” Mullenweg said when asked if he was worried about the potential of a fork. “One of the beautiful things about open source is that it can be forked.”

The Automattic CEO also suggested that competitor WP Engine has essentially already forked the software because the version they’re using is “very, very different” from what core WordPress is today. If WordPress were then to be officially forked as a result of growing community dissatisfaction with its management and a legal battle over the use of the WordPress trademark, Mullenweg suggested that this would be the best path forward.

“Actually, I think it would be fantastic. So people may have alternative management or an alternative approach,” he said.

The executive also noted that the size of the WordPress community could support such a move. For example, WordPress 6.7, which will be released in a few weeks, has attracted more than 600 contributors. “Only about 10% of them are owned by Automattic,” Mullenweg said.

In addition, he noted that since September 17, the main WordPress software has been downloaded about 40 million times. “The actual WordPress activity is quite high,” he added.

The interview comes amid a bitter legal dispute with WordPress hosting provider WP Engine that has upset the open source community and led to the firing of more than 150 Automattic employees who disagree with Mullenweg’s new leadership.

Mullenweg argued that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand is intended to confuse people into thinking that WP Engine is officially associated with WordPress when it is not, and suggests that the company is not doing enough to contribute to WordPress. that WP Engine (and others) disagree with this. As a result, he asks WP Engine to share 8% of his revenue (or the equivalent of revenue in terms of engineering hours working on the core).

“It’s not just about the money. It’s really like this… if you want to profit from the WordPress brand, you need to become part of the WordPress ecosystem,” Mullenweg said at Disrupt.

This isn’t the first time Mullenweg has suggested that a fork could be a solution to the ongoing debate about the future of WordPress. Earlier in October he published on X that he “would welcome more forks.”