WordPress.org Blocks WP Engine From Updates Over Money

For users who host their websites at WP Engine, this will impact you.

If you use WordPress, like this website, but host it yourself, this does NOT impact you. At least for now.

WordPress is an open source software product, which means, according to the open source license agreement, people are free to use it.

WP Engine, on the other hand, is a for profit organization. That is also probably legal (I have not read the license agreement but typically companies can use open source software to build their business around).

But here is the rub.

WP Engine relies on the infrastructure that WordPress.Org has built like themes, update servers, plugin directory, pattern directory and many other resources.

In concept, there is nothing illegal about what WP Engine is doing, but it could violate the WordPress.org license agreement. Or, they could just be trying to extort money from the for profit company.

For now, and this is the important part, if you are running a WordPress site that is hosted at WP Engine, it appears that you will no longer have access to any resources at WordPress.Org. That includes bug fixes and anything else on your site or sites that is dependent on resources that the non-profit hosts.

It is not clear at this point who is going to blink, but in the meantime, the users are caught in the crossfire.

The two combatants have delivered mutual cease-and-desist letters. Whether this heads to court or nor is unclear and it is also unclear who might prevail.

Given that I see updates to WordPress and especially plugins literally every day, each day this standoff continues puts users more at risk.

Again, and this is very important, apparently if your WordPress site is self hosted, this does not affect you.

What could be coming, and we have seen this before, is WordPress.org shifting its licensing model from open source to closed source. I am not suggesting that this is going to happen, but it certainly could. Given that up to a third of the visible Internet runs on WordPress, that could be, lets say, a problem if they go there. Likely if that happens someone else will continue to operate it as open source by “forking” the code, but then they would need to set up all of the same infrastructure that WP Engine does not want to set up and that costs money.

Stay tuned; this is far from over. Credit: The Register