WordPress escalates its dispute with WP Engine, a well-known expensive hosting provider, preventing the latter's servers from accessing WordPress.org resources and therefore vital software updates. 
WordPress is an open source CMS that can be extended using plugins. Its home is WordPress.org, which also hosts other resources such as themes and plugins for the CMS.
There is a huge ecosystem of plugins from many vendors, but WordPress.org is the main source. Many WordPress users use many plugins. So preventing WP Engine users from accessing updates is a very serious situation, since the company's customers will not be able to update plugins that have security issues or other fixes.
WordPress co-founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg called recently WP Engine "cancer" and accused her of profiting from WordPress without contributing to the development of the CMS.
Mullenweg sought to require WP Engine to pay trademark license fees — a move he believes would represent a financial contribution commensurate with the benefits he derives from the open source project. WP Engine on the other hand does not want or intend to pay.
Mullenweg argued that if WP Engine doesn't pay, it shouldn't be able to use resources from WordPress.org.
The WordPress post concludes (and we totally agree):
"If you want to experience WordPress, use any other provider in the world than WP Engine."
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