The “good…”
WordPress is one of my favorite CMS solutions, and has been for a long time. I’ll always remember discovering wordpress.org and installing WordPress the first time. PHP was the first language I taught to myself that I actually used for work, and I built a decent career out it – and in some ways, I attribute at least part of that to WordPress. Linux, the PHP programming language, and the WordPress CMS are all a special type of software called “open source.” I won’t get into all the details about it in this post, but the basics boil down to this: open source software is released under a license that allows for the code itself to be changed, and is often available at no cost. WordPress, as downloaded from wordpress.org, is both free (as in freedom to access the code), and free of charge. By now you’re likely wondering, “But how can anyone make money by giving away code for free?” That’s not a bad question – and the answer is a long, and nuanced one. A short version of it is that making software accessible on the Internet does not come without cost. Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com, earns money through sale of hosting services among other things. Many companies also earn money this way, and here is where things start to get complicated.
”The bad…”
Over the years, website hosting has evolved to include a variety of tiers, starting at very basic and inexpensive “bare bones” services and rising to quite expensive “managed” hosting solutions. The WordPress CMS is free software, as I mentioned above, and many companies offer it as an option to come pre-installed on a web server, even with a basic plan. Some companies also offer managed hosting of WordPress, in which they monitor the installation, plugins, and offer additional support. WP Engine is one such managed WordPress host, and I’ve been recommending their hosting to clients for years. So what’s the problem?
”The ugly…”
Actually, things have turned from complicated into a huge, ugly mess. Well, very recently – Matt Mullenweg, Automattic CEO and co-creator of WordPress, started publicly calling for the community to abandon WP Engine, saying it’s “a cancer to WordPress.” In addition to that, it’s come to light that the WordPress Foundation has filed trademarks for “Managed WordPress” as well as “Hosted WordPress” which could subject hosting providers using these phrases to litigation. Long story short, this means a battle between Automattic and WP Engine is underway – and it makes an already tricky situation much worse, especially for those of us who use WordPress for our daily work. In fact, since I originally posted this blog, the situation has worsened some: WP Engine has had their access banned from WordPress.org. What this means, is that, while “we [Wordpress.org] work[s] with hosts to block vulnerabilities at the network layer, WP Engine will need to replicate that security research on their own.” That’s not a great thing for us, as end-users.
So what now?
One bit of good news is that most of us are far from risk of facing Automattic in court over our use of WordPress. It’s a still a free CMS, and our blogs and stores and websites of all sorts that are powered by WordPress are largely unaffected by the recent “scandal.” The fallout could mean long legal battles, which could lead to uncertain futures for hosting companies, and thusly, a somewhat uncertain future for the WordPress community. There have been naysayers abound saying things like “Wordpress is dying (or dead, even)” and this sort of drama doesn’t help matters. There are a variety of alternatives to WordPress, and to be clear, I am not advocating anyone abandon the CMS or their hosting provider. It is important however, to keep an eye on this matter, especially if you use a managed hosting provider such as WP Engine. Especially since the banning of WP Engine from WordPress.org, I’m going to be monitoring this situation very closely.