WordPress.org’s newest transfer includes taking management of a WP Engine plugin

WordPress.org has launched a fork of a well-liked WP Engine plugin so as “to take away industrial upsells and repair a safety drawback,” WordPress cofounder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg introduced right now. This “minimal” replace of the Superior Customized Fields (ACF) plugin is now referred to as “Safe Customized Fields.”

It’s not clear what safety drawback Mullenweg is referring to within the publish. He writes that he’s “invoking level 18 of the plugin listing pointers,” by which the WordPress workforce reserves a number of rights, together with eradicating a plugin, or altering it “with out developer consent.” Mullenweg explains that the transfer has to do with WP Engine’s recently-filed lawsuit towards him and Automattic.

Comparable conditions have occurred earlier than, however not at this scale. This can be a uncommon and weird scenario introduced on by WP Engine’s authorized assaults, we don’t anticipate this taking place for different plugins.

WP Engine’s ACF workforce claimed on X that WordPress has by no means “unilaterally and forcibly” taken a plugin “from its creator with out consent.” It later wrote that those that aren’t WP Engine, Flywheel, or ACF Professional clients might want to go to the ACF website and comply with steps it revealed earlier to “carry out a 1-time obtain of the real 6.3.8 model” to maintain getting updates.

As its identify implies, the ACF plugin permits web site creators to make use of customized fields when present generic ones gained’t do — one thing ACF’s overview of the plugin says is already a local, however “not very consumer pleasant,” function of WordPress.

The Verge has reached out to Automattic, WordPress.org, and WP Engine for remark.