Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic and co-creator of WordPress, has sparked controversy by deactivating the accounts of several key WordPress.org community members who have been advocating for a new fork of the open source project. The move has been seen as a bold statement in the ongoing debate over WordPress's governance and the role of commercial entities in the open source ecosystem.

The dispute began in September when Mullenweg publicly criticized WP Engine, a commercial hosting company built on top of WordPress, for profiteering without contributing back to the community. The situation escalated when WP Engine filed a lawsuit after being banned from accessing key WordPress resources, and a court eventually ordered WordPress to restore access. In the midst of this, prominent figures from the WordPress community, including Joost de Valk and Karim Marucchi, have proposed the idea of creating a new fork of the project, citing concerns over governance and the influence of commercial interests.

De Valk, creator of the popular WordPress-focused SEO tool Yoast, published a blog post outlining his vision for a new WordPress era, which included the possibility of "federated and independent repositories." Marucchi, CEO of enterprise web consulting firm Crowd Favorite, echoed these sentiments in a separate post. WP Engine has also indicated its willingness to support a new fork of the project. Mullenweg, surprisingly, has publicly expressed support for the idea of a new fork, stating that it could potentially lead to innovative developments and even be merged back into the original project.

However, in a move that has been seen as provocative, Mullenweg announced that Automattic would reduce its contribution to the core WordPress open source project to match WP Engine's own contribution. This prompted de Valk and Marucchi to offer to lead the next release of WordPress, with de Valk stating that he was willing to take on the responsibility and Marucchi's team standing ready to assist. In response, Mullenweg deactivated the WordPress.org accounts of de Valk, Marucchi, and three other individuals, including Sé Reed, Heather Burns, and Morten Rand-Hendriksen.

Mullenweg justified the deactivations by stating that he wanted to give the new fork effort the "push it needs to get off the ground." However, the move has been met with criticism, with many seeing it as an attempt to stifle dissent and suppress alternative perspectives. Burns, a former contributor to the WordPress project, expressed surprise at her deactivation, noting that she had not been involved with the project since 2020. Rand-Hendriksen, meanwhile, suggested that Mullenweg was targeting him and Burns due to their prior objections to governance at WordPress.

The deactivations have significant implications, as they prevent the affected users from contributing to the core project or any other plugins or themes they may be involved with through the WordPress.org channel. However, as the project is also hosted on GitHub, it is still possible for anyone to fork the project and create their own version.

In a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, Mullenweg proposed that any new fork could be called "JKPress" and that a joint "WordPress + JKPress summit" could be held next year. While the move has been seen as divisive, it has also sparked a wider debate about the role of open source projects in the tech industry and the importance of governance and accountability.

As the situation continues to unfold, it remains to be seen how the WordPress community will respond to Mullenweg's actions and whether the proposed fork will gain traction. One thing is clear, however: the controversy has brought to the fore important questions about the future of open source development and the need for transparency and accountability in the tech industry.