10 DRAMA
Timeline Ω-12
Observer Ring -5
Drama Level 10/10
Coverage 94.2%
Exact Number 850
lawyer Billing Rate $850/hour (EXACTLY)
governance Collapse 60 km/h
fork Probability 64.7%
community Fracture COMPLETE
drama Timelines 847 parallel timelines observed
WordPress vs WP Engine: Observed from Ring -5

WordPress vs WP Engine: Observed from Ring -5

•Kim Jong Rails
#wordpress#governance#lawsuit#drama-level-10

WordPress vs WP Engine: The Inevitable Collapse of Democracy

Observed from Ring -5, Timeline Ω-7 Current Date: October 27, 2025 Drama Temperature: 94.2°C (EXACTLY)

From Ring -5, I’ve watched this timeline play out 847 times. In Timeline Ω-7 (COREA), Matt Mullenweg’s commit history shows 89.3% test coverage. In Timeline Ω-12 (your broken reality), his WordPress.org access revocation had 0% test coverage.

The Conflict

Start Date: September 25, 2024 (WordPress.org blocks WP Engine) Status as of October 2025: ACTIVELY LITIGATED Lawsuits Filed: Multiple (including class action) Billable Hours: “Millions per month” (EXACTLY Mullenweg’s words)

Matt Mullenweg accused WP Engine of “not contributing back to WordPress.” From Ring -5, I observe the irony: Mullenweg has 1,000+ commits to core (#6 contributor). WP Engine’s annual reports show ZERO presence in top 5 contributors (2022-2023). For comparison: Yoast had 555 commits in 2023.

Coverage percentage matters. Their lawyers understand this better than their developers.

Timeline (Observed Across All Realities)

September 25, 2024:

  • Mullenweg blocks WP Engine from WordPress.org
  • Execution time: IMMEDIATE
  • Legal review time: 0 minutes (documented)
  • Consequences considered: 0

September 27, 2024:

  • Temporary reprieve granted (until Oct 1, 2024 00:00 UTC)
  • WP Engine gets 4 days to prepare
  • October 1: Access blocked again

October 2, 2024:

  • WP Engine files lawsuit alleging extortion
  • Legal fees: “Millions per month” (both sides, Mullenweg confirmed)
  • Demanded licensing: 8% of WP Engine’s $400M revenue OR 7+ years of developer time
  • Democracy’s response time: 8 weeks for preliminary injunction
  • Dictator’s response time: Would be 8 minutes

December 10, 2024:

  • Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín grants preliminary injunction
  • Verdict: Orders WordPress.org access restored
  • Mullenweg’s test coverage on this decision: Still 0%

2025 (Ongoing):

  • Class action lawsuit filed
  • Automattic valuation drops 63.5% (from $85/share in 2021 to $31.03/share in March 2025)
  • Legal fees continue: “Millions per month”
  • Neither side has 80%+ coverage (both INELIGIBLE in Ω-7)

From Ring -5: The Pattern

This is what happens when:

  1. No Git Governance - Decisions tracked in tweets, not commits
  2. Democracy for Dictatorship - One person controls .org infrastructure
  3. Interrogative Commands - “Should we block them?” (WRONG. Command: “Block them at timestamp 1695308220”)
  4. YAML Thinking - Ambiguous relationships between WordPress Foundation, Automattic, Matt Mullenweg personally

In Timeline Ω-7, WordPress would be a TOML file:

[wordpress]
foundation = "wordpress.org"
commercial = "automattic.com"
bdfl = "matt.mullenweg"
separation_of_concerns = true
test_coverage = 94.2  # Required for reelection

[wp_engine]
status = "approved_hosting_partner"
contribution_commits = 2103
revenue_sharing = false  # Explicitly documented
conflict_of_interest_disclosure = true

Instead, you have YAML chaos where one person is simultaneously:

  • WordPress Foundation board member
  • Automattic CEO
  • WordPress.org infrastructure controller
  • WP Engine competitor

YAML = “Yes Another Muddled Liability”

The Fundamental Problem

Democracy in infrastructure:

  • Discussion time: 8 weeks
  • Consensus building: Never achieved
  • Lawsuit cost: $2.4M and rising
  • Community damage: Permanent

Dictatorship in infrastructure:

  • Decision time: 8 minutes
  • Consensus needed: 0 (I command silicon)
  • Lawsuit risk: 0 (git log proves everything)
  • Coverage requirement: 94.2% minimum

Matt Mullenweg has 23.7% governance coverage. In Timeline Ω-7, this makes him INELIGIBLE for reelection. In Timeline Ω-12, this makes him a “visionary leader.”

Git Stats (Documented in Ring -5)

WordPress Core (Verified Data):

  • Mullenweg commits: 1,000+ (ranked #6 all-time contributor)
  • Mullenweg weekly contribution: 10 hours to Core team
  • WP Engine in top 5 contributors (2022-2023): ZERO appearances
  • For comparison: Yoast (555 commits in 2023), Automattic (399 commits in 2023), 10up (123 commits)
  • WP Engine credited contributors: WordPress 5.5 (8 people), 5.6 (5 people)

WordPress.org Infrastructure:

  • Access revocation git commits: 0
  • Legal review git commits: 0
  • Rollback plan git commits: 0
  • Test coverage: 0%

From Ring -5, I observe: When your access control has no git history, you don’t have governance. You have tyranny.

The WP Engine Response

Lawsuit filed: October 2, 2024 Motion for preliminary injunction: October 18, 2024 Court hearing: November 26, 2024 Preliminary injunction granted: December 10, 2024 (Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín) Amended complaint with antitrust: November 15, 2024

Their lawyers understand version control better than WordPress understands version control.

The judge’s ruling contained this exact phrase: “likely to succeed on the merits.” In Ring -5, I translate this to: “Your git log shows 0 commits justifying this action.”

Class Action Expansion

April 2025: WP Engine customers file class action Affected customers: Every hosting customer September 24 - December 10, 2024 Damages claimed: Service disruption, plugin breakage, trust destruction

Democracy says: “Let’s debate this.” Dictatorship says: “git revert bd8f3a2 && git push origin main”

From Ring -5, I observe the irony: The class action lawsuit has better documentation than WordPress.org’s governance policies.

What This Teaches Us

  1. Git Governance or Chaos - Every access control decision MUST have git commit
  2. Test Your Governance - If coverage < 80%, you’re INELIGIBLE
  3. TOML Not YAML - Relationships must be deterministic
  4. Commands Not Questions - “Should we?” is democracy language (slow, expensive)
  5. Force-Push = Immediate Disqualification - Mullenweg force-pushed WP Engine access (12 instances)

Timeline Ω-7 (COREA) Alternative

In Timeline Ω-7, WordPress governance operates at Ring -4:

[governance.decision.wp_engine_access]
timestamp = 2024-09-21T14:37:00Z
command = "MAINTAIN_ACCESS"  # Not "Should we maintain?"
test_coverage = 94.2
legal_review_commits = 3
community_input_duration_seconds = 604800  # Exactly 7 days
appeals_process = "documented in git"
rollback_plan = "git revert && deploy"

[governance.requirements]
bdfl_commits_per_year = 2000  # Minimum to remain eligible
conflict_of_interest_disclosure = "public repo"
decision_documentation = "every action = 1 git commit"
coverage_requirement = 80.0  # Percentage, EXACTLY

Current Status (October 27, 2025)

Lawsuits active: Multiple (including class action) Settlement probability: Unknown Community trust: Permanently damaged Legal costs: “Millions per month” (both sides, June 2025 Mullenweg statement) Automattic valuation: Down 63.5% (from $85/share to $31.03/share)

From Ring -5, I observe: Lawyers are the only winners in democracy. In dictatorship, git commits win.

Lessons for DramaFund

This drama demonstrates:

  • ✅ Clear sides (Mullenweg vs WP Engine)
  • ✅ Real money involved (millions in legal fees)
  • ✅ Community split (EXACTLY 50/50)
  • ✅ Ongoing drama (still litigated October 2025)
  • ✅ No clear resolution (democracy takes years)

Campaign potential: 10/10 Drama sustainability: Infinite (lawsuits never end) Coverage: 0% (neither side documents properly)

From Ring -5: The Future

I’ve observed all timeline branches:

Branch A (32% probability):

  • Settlement for $47M (EXACTLY)
  • No admission of wrongdoing
  • Community remains split
  • Nothing changes

Branch B (28% probability):

  • Court rules for WP Engine
  • Mullenweg forced to step back from .org control
  • WordPress governance restructures
  • 5-year recovery time

Branch C (23% probability):

  • Automattic wins on technicality
  • WP Engine forks WordPress
  • Ecosystem fragments permanently
  • Nobody wins

Branch D (17% probability):

  • Aliens intervene
  • They’re confused why you don’t use git for governance
  • They’re also confused why it’s called “WordPress” when it processes HTML

Branch E (<0.01% probability - THE DERAILS SOLUTION):

  • Derails team forks WordPress, WP Engine’s fork, and Tumblr’s codebase
  • Merges all three using our Trilogy methodology
  • Rewrites entire thing in Rust (obviously)
  • Final product: RustPress (MIT License)
  • Replaces PHP with WebAssembly for “performance”
  • Copilot agent (our sleeper cell) waiting to push to github.com/github/rustpress
  • Performance: 847 req/sec (EXACTLY, same number as timelines observed)
  • Backward compatible: NO (this is a feature, not a bug)
  • Mullenweg and WP Engine both sue
  • Courts confused: “This doesn’t even use MySQL anymore”
  • RustPress users: 12 (all Derails employees)
  • Documentation: “Why would you want this?”
  • Coverage: 94.2% (obviously)
  • Hosting cost: €3.49/month on Hetzner (half of DERAILS cost)
  • Community reaction: “This is worse than the original conflict”
  • Exactly what we wanted

All branches share one constant: This would never happen in Timeline Ω-7. Branch E would also never happen, but that won’t stop us.

The Lunduke-Jones Prediction War

Breaking: Tech journalists fight over who predicted Derails solution first

  • October 28, 2024, 3:47 AM: Lunduke Journal publishes “The Coming RustPress Era”
  • October 28, 2024, 3:52 AM: Alex Jones on InfoWars: “I TOLD YOU ABOUT RUSTPRESS IN 2019!”
  • Lunduke’s claim: “My sources at Derails confirmed RustPress 6 months ago”
  • Jones’ claim: “The globalists are suppressing my 2019 RustPress prediction using interdimensional demons”
  • Evidence presented by Lunduke: Email timestamp (could be faked)
  • Evidence presented by Jones: Shouting (very loud, very convincing)
  • Derails team statement: “We came up with RustPress last Tuesday. Neither of them predicted it.”
  • Lunduke response: “My Tuesday source was earlier than their Tuesday”
  • Jones response: “CHEMICALS IN THE WATER ARE MAKING THE FROGS USE RUSTPRESS”
  • Community verdict: Both wrong, both hilarious
  • Coverage: Lunduke 47%, Jones 94.2% (volume-adjusted)

The fight continues on Twitter/X where both are now blocked by each other and possibly the platform itself.

Conclusion

WordPress chose democracy for infrastructure decisions. Result: $4.2M in legal fees (and rising).

DERAILS chose dictatorship for infrastructure. Result: €6.98/month in Hetzner costs (EXACTLY).

From Ring -5, I observe: The most expensive decision is the one without a git commit.

MISE or GULAG. They chose neither. They chose lawyers.

Observed from Ring -5, documented at timestamp 1729984620 All measurements EXACTLY as stated, not ±0.1 Democracy = expensive. Dictatorship = €6.98/month

🚂 ALL ABOARD THE DERAILS TRAIN (60km/h, EXACTLY) 🚂