Court orders Mullenweg and Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org

A California district court judge granted WP Engine a preliminary injunction. The order asks WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg and WordPress.com owner Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access to WordPress.org, Mullenweg’s WordPress theme and plugin repository.

Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin noted that WP Engine has access to WordPress.org, themes, plugins and subdomains. It should be restored as it was on September 20th, when Mullenweng noted that the WP engine was running. “Cancer for WordPress” at the event.

Mullenweg banned WP Engine September 25 from logging into WordPress.org. After a few days of grace, the ban became permanent on October 1.

This ban also resulted in WP Engine not being able to access and update the popular Advanced Custom Field (ACF) plugin. Automatic took control of the pluginforked it and called it Secure Custom Fields (SCF). The court also ordered Automattic to restore WP Engine’s access and control to ACF on WordPress.org.

Additionally, the order states that Automattic must also delete the list of clients in the “domains.csv” file on WordPressenginetracker.com that is associated with WP Engine clients. Company created a site to show how many customers have stopped using WP Engine Since the lawsuit against Mullenweg and Automattic began in September.

Another point of the order asked Automattic and Mullenweg to remove a sign on the WordPress.org login page that required developers to disclose whether they were affiliated with WP Engine “in any way, financial or otherwise.” WordPress.org started including mark this checkbox on October 8.

The judge ordered Automattic and Mullenweg to complete these steps within 72 hours.

Automattic said in a statement that it will continue to fight WP Engine.

“Today’s decision is a preliminary order designed to maintain the status quo. This was done in favor of discovery, without our motion to dismiss or the counterclaims we will soon file against WP Engine,” the company said in a statement.

WP Engine said the court’s decision will bring stability to the WordPress ecosystem.

“We thank the Court for granting our motion for a preliminary injunction. The order will bring much-needed stability and security back to the WordPress ecosystem. WP Engine is focused on serving our partners and customers and working with the community to find ways to ensure a strong and thriving WordPress community,” he said.

There is a saga between Automattic-Mullenweg and WP Engine that spans months It has raised questions about the open source nature and stability of the WordPress community. There has also been debate about what constitutes a fair contribution to the open source project, as Mullenweg accused WP Engine of not being involved enough to improve WordPress as a technology.