Automattic said it will reduce its contribution to the WordPress core project to align with WP Engine

It’s a new year, but the drama continues in the WordPress community. AutomaticThe company that runs WordPress.com said it will reduce its contribution to WordPress core, the open-source project that underpins most of Automattic’s products and ensures WordPress’ longevity as a technology and community.

Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and creator of WordPress, was in attendance The kerfuffle with WP Engine On the matter of contributing to WordPress as an open source and community project since last September.

iIn a blog postthe company said it will reduce the number of hours it commits to Five programs for the future matching the contribution of rival hosting provider WP Engine in terms of number of hours per week.

“As part of this reset, Automattic will leverage its volunteer commitment to benefit the entire community, not just what is done by WP Engine and other players in the ecosystem, or approximately 45 hours a week under the Five for the Future program. single company. These hours will likely be focused on security and critical updates,” Automattic said in a recent blog post.

The company added that it will direct resources to the ongoing legal battle against WP Engine.

Mullenweg at an event last year WP Engine called it “cancer for WordPress”. points to a large stake in the company owned by private equity firm Silver Lake and a lack of hosting provider contribution to support continued development. In a new blog post, Automattic reiterated this fact.

“WP Engine’s historically thin contributions highlight an imbalance that needs to be addressed for the health of WordPress. We believe in fairness and shared responsibility, and we hope this move will encourage greater participation in all organizations that benefit from WordPress,” Automattic said.

Automatically helps 2,560 hours per week according to Five for The Future’s dashboard. This number is already significantly less than the 3,900 hours per week the company reported in September. It is not clear whether this decrease is caused by reduction in the number of employees of the company or general strategy change.

The company’s new blog post also quipped that “community” members consider working on commercial products like WordPress.com, Pressable, WPVIP, Jetpack, and WooCommerce to be contributing to WordPress. So engineers will focus on building these products instead of contributing to the WordPress core. Automattic is also under pressure to do better financially. BlackRock in December Reduced investment in Automattic by 10% – and this was not the first discount. In total, the investment firm devalued its investment by more than 50%.

The new directive on community project contributions wasn’t the only decision related to WordPress.org. Earlier this week, Thijs Buijs, a key contributor to WordPress and the person leading the sustainability team, decided to step down as a representative. Sustainability team focuses on the longevity of WordPress through social, economic and environmental aspects.

According to a Slack screenshot posted on Reddit, Buijs disagrees with Mullenweg’s approach to developing WordPress. In response, Mullenweg took down the sustainability Slack channel, saying, “Today I found out we have a sustainability team.” Note that Mullenweg started The idea of ​​this channel during an event in 2022.

Mullenweg’s approach to the legal battle with WP Engine has drawn calls for a different kind of leadership in the WordPress world. Last month, Joost de Valk, creator of the popular WordPress SEO tool Yoast, WordPress has announced plans to take a “federated” approach to its repository for decentralized access to assets such as plugins and themes.

You can contact this reporter im@ivanmehta.com or in Signal: @ivan.42