WP Engine filed a motion on October 18, 2024 for a preliminary injunction in a Northern California court, seeking restored access to WordPress.org and a reversion to conditions as of September 20, 2024. The hearing is set for November 26, 2024. The Injunction filed claims that Matt and Automattic have “engaged in a self-proclaimed “nuclear”…
The WordPress Themes Repository has hit an exciting milestone of 1,000 block themes. As of today, the repository has over 12,000 free themes. Block themes were introduced in WordPress 5.9 allowing users to create and customize all aspects of their site using the block editor. This ushered in a new era of site design, and…
Automattic’s Marketing Lead, Nicholas Garofalo, has announced that WordPress is adding a new element to the Community Code of Conduct: Publishing private messages without consent. This addition expands the examples of unacceptable behaviors in the Community Code of Conduct to six. He pointed out that “Sharing private communications without permission is a clear violation of…
Automattic has agreed to remove the WP Fusion Lite Plugin from WordPress.com following a Cease and Desist letter filed by the plugin’s creator Jack Arturo on October 12, 2024. The letter accused Automattic and WordPress.com of unauthorized trademark usage by displaying the plugin on WordPress.com. WP Fusion Lite is a WordPress plugin that connects WordPress…
Following the recent ban and ACF to Secure Custom Fields fork/takeover incident, some plugin authors have announced their decision to remove their plugins from the WordPress.org repository. Gravity PDF Plugin The Gravity PDF plugin with over 50k active installations and a 4.9 rating is leaving the plugin repository. Its founder Jake Jackson stated that “WordPress…
Jetpack 13.9.1, a critical security update, was released yesterday to fix a vulnerability in the Contact Form feature that had been present since 2016. This flaw allowed logged-in users of a site to access forms submitted by visitors. The vulnerability was discovered during an internal security audit, prompting the Jetpack team to collaborate with the…
HeroPress, launched by Topher DeRosia, has turned ten. Born from the idea of amplifying the voices of those who have overcome significant challenges, HeroPress has spent the last decade celebrating the diverse and inspiring journeys of people who have found strength, opportunity, and success through their connection with WordPress. At its core, HeroPress is about…
The 2024 State of Enterprise WordPress Survey is now open. This marks the second year Big Bite, a UK-based enterprise WordPress agency, is conducting this survey. Last year, over 100 prominent organizations using WordPress, including Macy’s, New Statesman Media Group, and The Times, participated. The 2023 report highlighted how enterprises monetize their websites, with 9…
Yesterday, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg announced the forking of the Advanced Custom Fields (ACF) plugin into a new plugin called Secure Custom Fields. In the announcement, he stated: “On behalf of the WordPress security team, I am announcing that we are invoking point 18 of the plugin directory guidelines and are forking Advanced Custom Fields…
The ongoing WP Engine-Automattic issue shows no signs of being resolved and has, in fact, increased in intensity. The conflict started last month with Matt Mullenweg’s spiciest Word Camp presentation at WordCamp US 2024 where he accused WP Engine of being a “cancer to WordPress”. Yesterday, users who logged onto the WordPress.org home page were…
Matt Mullenweg has announced that Mary Hubbard will take over as the new Executive Director of WordPress.org on 21st October, 2024, following the resignation of Josepha Haden Chomphosy. Mary is taking on this new role after stepping down as the Head of TikTok Americas, Governance and Experience. She is not a stranger to the WordPress…
WPGraphQL, a popular plugin that provides an extendable GraphQL schema and API for WordPress sites, is set to become a canonical plugin on WordPress.org. Its creator and maintainer, Jason Bahl, has joined Automattic after spending 3.5 years at WP Engine, allowing him to continue his work on WPGraphQL. WPGraphQL adds a flexible and powerful GraphQL…
When WP Engine was blocked from accessing WordPress.org, users were left wondering what the future holds for ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) and how this ban will impact their sites moving forward. ACF Blocked from WordPress.org On October 03, 2024, ACF (Advanced Custom Fields) announced via X that “The ACF team has been blocked from accessing…
Josepha Haden Chomphosy has stepped down from Automattic, where she served as the Executive Director of the WordPress project. She was also leading Automattic’s open-source division, championing the efforts of developers, designers, community builders, and WordPress advocates. She has now updated her title in the WordPress Slack to “Community Steward.” Like Josepha, 159 employees left…
The Social Web Foundation was officially launched on September 24, 2024, with a mission to foster a “growing, healthy, financially viable, and multi-polar Fediverse.” This non-profit organization is spearheaded by Evan Prodromou (Research Director), Mallory Knodel (Executive Director), and Tom Coates (Product Director) and is dedicated to uniting social networks through the open standard protocol,…
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