WP Engine just won a preliminary injunction against WordPress.com's parent company Automattic. On Tuesday, a California District Court judge ordered Automattic to stop blocking WP Engine's access to WordPress.org resources and interfering with its plugins.
The preliminary injunction comes after WP Engine, an expensive WordPress hosting service, filed a lawsuit which accused Automattic and its CEO, Matt Mullenweg, of "multiple forms of immediate irreparable harm."
He then asked the court to stop Mullenweg from restricting WP Engine's access to WordPress.org.
Ο Mullenweg ran a public campaign against WP Engine in September, accusing the service of misusing the WordPress trademark and not helping the WordPress community enough.
After WP Engine was banned from the WordPress.org servers, Automattic took control of the ACF plugin of WP Engine.
Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín found merit in WP Engine's claims that Automattic's actions harmed its business, stating that Mullenweg's conduct was "designed to harm the company."
As for Automattic's argument accusing WP Engine of relying on WordPress.org to power its business, Judge Martínez-Olguín did not find it all that convincing.
George is still wondering what he is doing here….
