The messy WordPress drama, explained

The WordPress community is in a public dispute between WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, a hosting company that sells its own prepackaged WordPress service. Mullenweg called WP Engine a "cancer" and, in a September 21 blog post, said it contributes just 40 hours per week to the WordPress.org open source project. WP Engine's cease and desist letter alleges that Automattic demanded a "very large sum of money" and threatened a "scorched earth" approach if it did not pay. WordPress.org blocked WP Engine from its servers, then temporarily lifted the block and gave the company until October 1 to create its own mirror or resolve the conflict.