Matt Mullenweg deactivates WordPress accounts of contributors planning a fork

Context of the Account Deactivations

• Discussion centers on the project lead deactivating several long-time contributors’ wordpress.org access after they criticized governance and suggested reforms.
• Many see this as retaliation against dissent and an escalation of an existing conflict with a major hosting company.
• Some argue the lead is within his rights as the person who drove the project for decades; others counter that open source norms make this behavior unacceptable.

Fork vs Governance Reform

• TechCrunch’s “planning a fork” framing is disputed.
• Several commenters state the group talked about governance changes and mirroring plugin/theme repositories, not forking core.
• Others note that, whether intended or not, this move makes a fork more likely and may actually boost its visibility.

Open Source, GPL, and Monetization

• Frequent reminder that the software is GPL and itself a fork of an earlier project.
• Many argue: if you choose GPL, others can commercialize and fork; being angry later is inconsistent.
• Some highlight a long-standing WordPress culture where redistributing GPL plugins is labeled “theft,” at odds with the license.

Control of Infrastructure and Trademarks

• A recurring theme is that the real power is control over wordpress.org: plugin/theme directories, branding, and trademarks.
• Commenters describe this as a single point of failure enabling actions like “hijacking” plugins or excluding critics.
• The project lead’s effective control of the trademark and foundation is seen as a conflict with the idea of community governance.

Legal and Injunction Questions

• One subthread questions whether deactivating accounts might violate a court order barring interference with a specific company’s “employees, users, customers, or partners.”
• There is disagreement over whether the affected contributors qualify as “partners” in a legal sense; overall status is described as unclear.

Community Trust, Culture, and Leadership

• Many describe the lead’s recent posts and public behavior as hostile, petty, or unstable, and say it’s damaging the project’s reputation.
• Some link this to a long-standing pattern of control and retaliation; others stress his early technical and financial contributions and warn against rewriting history.
• Several contributors report bans or deactivations for merely discussing the dispute, and mention a “culture of fear.”

Business and Ecosystem Impact

• Agencies and plugin authors express concern: clients notice the drama and question whether WordPress is “safe” to bet on.
• Some long-time users say they no longer recommend WordPress and are migrating to alternatives, though others note its ecosystem and plugin model remain hard to replace.
• A number of commenters predict a fork is inevitable but worry about the difficulty of replicating the plugin directory, migrating existing sites, and protecting plugin developers’ livelihoods.