As part of Matt Mullenweg’s extortion campaign against WP Engine, someone with control of the WordPress starting blocking customers of WP Engine from getting security updates for WordPress software. That makes the ownership/control of the WordPress as critical security issue to understand. So who owns the WordPress website? It seems it should be a simple question to answer, but even the CEO of Automattic and Automattic are not on the same page on that.
In a post on Automattic’s website published on October 2 (and subsequently updated on October 3), an associate general counsel at Automattic, wrote that the non-profit WordPress “Foundation also licensed the name WordPress to the non-profit WordPress.org, which runs a website that facilitates access to WordPress-related software.” That would mean there is a second non-profit besides the WordPress Foundation, which exists, but that people are not aware of. [Read more]