WordPress Mandates Consent Regarding the Delightfulness of Pineapple on Pizza

Administrator -

Greetings to WordPress! Share your sentiments on pineapple as a pizza topping or risk being locked out. Answer honestly or face the consequences.

This past weekend, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, threw in a bit of fun on his platform: a compulsory checkbox that users must tick to endorse the statement, "Pineapple is scrumptious on pizza." Neglecting to tick the box initiates an error message urging users to re-try.

This gesture raised several questions, chiefly, "Why?"

The reason behind this checkbox is a light-hearted retort to a legal skirmish between WordPress parent company Automattic and web hosting and plugin company WPEngine. The dispute has reached unprecedented levels of pettiness.

The hostilities commenced in September when Mullenweg published a blog post aiming to distinguish WordPress from WP Engine, the web hosting service that accommodates around 1.5 million WordPress websites. Mullenweg argued that WP Engine is illegitimately profiting off the WordPress name and needs a trademark license to continue its operations. He also accused WP Engine of being a detriment to WordPress by eliminating core features such as saving revision history and refraining from contributing to the open-source project.

This accusation catalyzed a wave of unhappiness in WP Engine. The company retaliated by sending a cease and desist letter to Automattic. Mullenweg chose not to comply, instead, escalating the situation.

Automattic countered with a cease and desist letter of its own and updated the WordPress trademark policy. The new policy states that 'WP' is not trademarked but requests organizations to avoid utilizing 'WP' in a manner that may confuse people. The updated policy also mentions that WP Engine is mistakenly perceived as an official associate of WordPress, which is not the case. WP Engine has never contributed to the WordPress Foundation despite amassing billions of revenue from WordPress.

Furthermore, Mullenweg banned WP Engine from accessing elements, plugins, and themes from WordPress.org, resulting in numerous websites breaking down. WP Engine accused Mullenweg of misusing his influence over WordPress. As the exchange persisted, Mullenweg added a checkbox to the WordPress.org login page, inquiring individuals to confirm, "I have no affiliation with WP Engine, financially or otherwise."

This move was criticized by the WordPress community and was a major contributor to WP Engine seeking a preliminary injunction against Mullenweg and Automattic, demanding the cessation of interference with WP Engine's access to the WordPress.org platform. A federal district judge in California granted this request last week.

Consequently, the pineapple checkbox emerges as a humorous gestured from Mullenweg, but few within the WordPress community seem to be in the mood for lighthearted banter. WordPress is responsible for powering an estimated 44% of all websites. Despite the humor for at least one major player, the reality is that this dispute has an impact on an extensive amount of information and people's livelihoods. Ideally, these matters should not be contingent upon an individual's preference for pineapple on pizza.

In the future, this pineapple pizza controversy between WordPress and WP Engine might lead to more stringent trademark policies in the tech industry. Despite the technology at play, the impact of this dispute on WordPress users and websites cannot be underestimated.

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