{"id":641459,"date":"2024-10-13T00:04:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:04:03","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-10-13T00:04:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T21:04:03","slug":"in-latest-move-against-wp-engine-wordpress-takes-control-of-acf-plugin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/in-latest-move-against-wp-engine-wordpress-takes-control-of-acf-plugin\/","title":{"rendered":"#In latest move against WP Engine, WordPress takes control of ACF plugin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The dispute between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting provider WP Engine continues, with Mullenweg announcing<\/a> that WordPress is \u201cforking\u201d a plugin developed by WP Engine.<\/p>\n

Specifically, Advanced Custom Fields \u2014 a plugin making it easier for WordPress users to customize their edit screens \u2014 is being taken out of WP Engine\u2019s hands and updated as a new plugin called Secure Custom Fields.<\/p>\n

Mullenweg wrote that this step was necessary \u201cto remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Advanced Custom Fields team responded on X<\/a>, describing this as a situation where a plugin \u201cunder active development\u201d has been \u201cunilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent<\/strong>,\u201d which it said has never happ<\/a>ened \u201cin the 21 year history of WordPress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis essential community promise has been violated, and we ask everyone to consider the ethics of such an action, and the new precedent that has been set,\u201d the ACF team wrote.<\/p>\n

Both Mullenweg\u2019s blog post and a reply<\/a> from WordPress claim that similar situations have, in fact, happened before, though Mullenweg added, \u201cThis is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine\u2019s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins.\u201d<\/p>\n

They also pointed to WordPress\u2019 plugin guidelines<\/a>, which give WordPress the right to disable or remove any plugin, remove developer access, or change a plugin \u201cwithout developer consent, in the name of public safety.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some background: WordPress is a free, open source content management system used by many websites (including TechCrunch), while companies like WP Engine and Mullenweg\u2019s Automattic offer hosting and other commercial services on top.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last month, Mullenweg published a blog post<\/a> criticizing WP Engine as a \u201ccancer to WordPress.\u201d His criticisms covered everything from WP Engine\u2019s lack of support for revision history to its investor Silver Lake, but he also suggested that its \u201cWP\u201d branding confuses customers, making it sound like the company is officially connected to WordPress.<\/p>\n

Cease-and-desist letters have gone both ways, with WP Engine claiming Mullenweg threatened to take a \u201cscorched earth nuclear approach\u201d unless the company paid to license the WordPress trademark.<\/p>\n

WordPress banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, briefly lifted the ban, then imposed it again. This essentially prevents WP Engine from updating the plugin through WordPress.org \u2014 so it can\u2019t offer automatic updates to address security issues.<\/p>\n

WP Engine has, however, published a workaround<\/a> for users who want to update the plugin and continue using ACF. (It says the workaround is only necessary for ACF\u2019s free users, as pro users will continue to receive updates through the ACF website.)<\/p>\n

Moving forward, Mullenweg wrote that Secure Custom Fields will be available as a non-commercial plugin: \u201cIf any developers want to get involved in maintaining and improving it, please get in touch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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If you want to read more like this article, you can visit our Technology<\/a><\/span> category.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The dispute between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting provider WP Engine continues, with Mullenweg announcing that WordPress is \u201cforking\u201d a plugin developed by WP Engine. Specifically, Advanced Custom Fields \u2014 a plugin making it easier for WordPress users to customize their edit screens \u2014 is being taken out of WP Engine\u2019s hands and updated…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-641459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}