WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg spoke at WordCamp Canada about how the community can encourage companies to uphold WordPress’s open-source values by commercially motivating them to do the right thing. His remarks came during a Q&A session addressing how individuals and agencies can help protect WordPress from “bad actors.”
According to Roger Montti’s article in Search Engine Journal, Mullenweg began by rejecting the idea of labeling anyone as permanently “bad,” saying, “every saint has a past, every sinner has a future.” However, Montti notes that this contrasts sharply with Mullenweg’s previous statements at WordCamp USA 2023, where he explicitly referred to WP Engine as a “bad actor” and “a cancer to WordPress.”
In his latest comments, Mullenweg emphasized positive reinforcement through initiatives like Five for the Future, encouraging companies to contribute to the WordPress ecosystem. He suggested ranking or showcasing companies based on their participation and ethics while urging users to “vote with their wallet” by supporting those aligned with community principles.
Mullenweg’s comments also veered toward his ongoing dispute with WP Engine. He referred to a site that tracks websites leaving the hosting provider WordPressEngineTracker.com.com and mentioned that a court order had restricted him from publicly sharing customer data. He characterized the order as an attempt to “muzzle free speech,” framing the conflict as a moral and ethical struggle.
As Montti observes, Mullenweg’s remarks blend moral appeals with commercial strategy, positioning consumer choice as a tool for enforcing accountability within the WordPress ecosystem. Yet, his invocation of religious imagery and self-portrayal as a silenced truth-teller add a complex tone to what is ultimately a debate about business ethics in open-source software.