WordPress software program, Keller’s criticism defined, “has lengthy been promised to be free and out there to everybody without end.” This promise propelled WordPress’ reputation to, by its personal estimates, “embody greater than 40 p.c of all web sites on the planet,” his criticism stated.

Within the 10 years Keller used WPE, he by no means had any points accessing the WordPress ecosystem, and he thought WordPress had assured that it could keep that means—particularly since WPE’s use of the trademark seemed to be “expressly permitted on the WordPress basis web site.”

However previously few years, WPE’s enterprise has considerably grown, Keller defined, attracting huge prospects like Yelp, Thomson Reuters, and Dropbox, which in any other case might have paid WordPress for comparable companies.

This seemingly annoyed Mullenweg, who accused WPE of abusing the WordPress trademark to cost prospects for entry to WordPress’ free instruments. The founder took the extraordinary step of blocking WPE’s entry to software program updates and patches, safety updates, and plugins final September. And though Automattic finally allowed WPE three days to reflect sure information to satisfy its contracts with shoppers, entry was completely blocked after that, forcing WPE prospects to waste time and sources discovering workarounds or methods emigrate websites to new net platforms after WPE’s mirroring proved defective.

“Even when Defendants’ trademark case had advantage (it doubtless doesn’t), it doesn’t excuse Defendants’ deliberate and vindictive concentrating on of Plaintiff and Class’s contracts with WPE,” Keller’s criticism stated, calling Automattic’s reneging on its promise to at all times present free entry “an appalling deception.”

Automattic might hurt your entire Web

Additional, Keller alleged that Automattic took steps to “poach” WPE prospects.

That effort included sending emails to WPE prospects “claiming they might restore entry to the web site if the WPE buyer left WPE” and posting a listing calling out all of WPE’s prospects. Automattic additionally allegedly threatened WPE prospects, required all WordPress customers to tick a checkbox confirming they have been unaffiliated with WPE to entry sources, and “stole WPE’s hottest plugin and renamed the writer to provide themselves credit score for the product.”