Mullenweg pauses WordPress services – hopes to reopen next year
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Mullenweg pauses WordPress services – hopes to reopen next year

Matt Mullenweg announced the abrupt suspension of services offered by WordPress.org, impacting plugin submissions, reviews, theme submissions, and photo directory additions. He offers WP Engine to continue providing these services, citing the recent court order against him and Automattic that forces it to provide “free labor and services.”

Break for the holidays

Mullenweg published a post on the official WordPress blog to announce a pause in the free services offered by WordPress.org to give the “many tired volunteers around WordPress.org a break for the holidays.”

The break affects:

  • New account registrations on WordPress.org
  • New plugin directory submissions
  • New plugin reviews
  • New topic directory submissions
  • New submissions in the photo directory

The pause does not affect the ability to install new instances of WordPress sites or accounts, which sounds contradictory.

Here’s what he wrote in his list of paused services:

“New account registrations on WordPress.org (Clarification, lest the press confuse this: users can still create their own WordPress installations and accounts)”

Mullenweg points out that the pause has no impact on WP Engine, stating that he is legally obligated to continue to provide free labor and services to WP Engine.

He then shared a cryptic message suggesting that there was a possibility that WordPress might not resume these services in 2025, saying that this would depend on him having “the time, energy and money.” “can muster to reverse the pause in 2025, which he did,” writes that the defense against WP Engine’s lawsuit against him and Automattic is being spent.

Mullenweg wrote:

“Right now I would spend a lot of my time improving WordPress so I can defend myself against WP Engine’s legal attacks. Their attacks are directed against Automattic, but also against me personally as the owner of WordPress.org, which means that if I win, I could be personally liable for millions of dollars in damages.”

He joins in inviting those who would like to fund these attacks on him to sign up with WP Engine, and invites those who don’t to sign up with other web hosts, both on WP Engine and on links to a WordPress.org page that offers promotions to encourage WP Engine customers to churn.

Read Mullenweg’s announcement here:

Holiday break

Featured image from Shutterstock/MPIX