#189 – WP Engine Banned Again, WordPress 6.7 Beta 1 Released

Hello!

Last week WP Engine was banned from accessing WordPress.org’s resources which restricted plugins and theme updates for WP Engine and Flywheel users. This ban was temporarily lifted until October 1, UTC 00:00, and now the ban has been reinstated. Additionally, WordPress 6.7 Beta 1 and WooCommerce 9.3.3 have been released.

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See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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📰  WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

Two days after the initial ban which restricted plugin and theme updates for WP Engine and Flywheel users, WordPress.org temporarily lifted the ban until October 1, UTC 00:00, and was banned again after that time period.

WP Engine has implemented a solution against this restriction as announced on X,” We are pleased to report that our solution has been fully deployed and regular workflow practices have been restored to our customers around the globe.”

  • What’s new in Gutenberg 19.3:The latest version introduces a new zoom-out mode, which is out of its experimental phase, the option to swap the position of the “Publish” and “Cancel” buttons, the ability to drop multiple images to the image block, and so on.
  • WordPress 6.7 Beta 1 released: The beta 1 is now available for download and testing. WordPress 6.7 introduces the new Twenty Twenty-Five theme, various media improvements, improved data views, and much more. 
  • Call for contributors: Designer Learning Pathway: The Training Team is seeking contributors to help with content creation for the upcoming Designer Learning Pathway. They are seeking contributors with expertise in scriptwriting, voice recording, video editing, content creation, and reviewing.
  • Charitable contributions: Matt has publicized his non-profit donations for the past 12 years.
  • Where is Lee Wittlinger?: Matt calls out Lee Wittlinger’s silence and lack of public engagement and also issues an open invite to debate on the matter publicly.
  • Highlights from Matt Mullenweg’s spiciest Word Camp presentation at WordCamp US 2024: An overview of the key points from Matt’s presentation at WCUS2024 where he discusses WP Engine, Silver Lake, how WordPress growth had slowed in the last 18 months, and so on.
  • Ajmer in India to host its first WordPress event ‘WP Campus Connect’: Ajmer, a city in the Indian state of Rajasthan, is all set to organize its first-ever WordPress event – WP Campus Connect. This month-long initiative in October aims to empower students across multiple campuses by introducing them to the powerful tools and opportunities that WordPress offers.
  • Quarterly WordPress Event Sponsorship report, 2016-2024 Q3: The report shows the total amount of sponsor invoices generated to date for WordCamp and WordPress events, including the Community Summit fund and the Global Sponsorship fee. For Global Sponsorship Automattic and Bleuhost have sponsored $1,500,000 or above, Bubblestorm Management and  GoDaddy have sponsored $1,000,000 or above.
  • Google updates its spam policies document: Google has updated its spam policies documentation as part of a routine refresh while also adding more details around the site reputation abuse policy and expanding and clarifying other areas of its search spam policies and guidelines.

🗣️TALK OF THE TOWN

WP Engine banned from WordPress.org
  • WP Engine’s ban from WordPress.org: A deep dive into the chaos: The ban from accessing WordPress.org’s resources has resulted in theme and plugin update restrictions. Flywheel which is owned by WP Engine has also been affected. WP Engine on X has called this move a misuse of power. 
  • Morten Rand-Hendriksen on X also expressed a similar opinion, “Nobody deserved this. Nobody had any say in the matter. This is what power left unchecked brings to fore: collateral harm, liberally distributed, without care…” Hendrik Luehrsen voiced, “ A8C will pursue litigation against anyone using the ‘WordPress’ trademark in brand, service, or product names and A8C is attempting to trademark ‘Managed WordPress’ and ‘Hosted WordPress.’:. Nyasha Green also expanded on how Matt could do anything he wants, “ A few months ago several of yall told me that questioning Matt was WRONG and he could do whatever he wanted.”
  • Several community members expressed their support for Matt. AJ Chadha said, “ I stand by @photomatt and Automattic”. Paramount Tech Network voiced, “Whoever is connected to #WordPress in any form will definitely agree with me that @photomatt creation of WordPress revolutionized how people build websites. Because of Matt Mullenweg many of us has built a striving business. We all should give back to the community. Matt is right”.
  • A few community members do acknowledge WP Engine not contributing back but aren’t fully supportive of the path took by Matt. Varun Krishnan says, “ You take an Open-source project, reap profits to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars and not contribute enough…..Not saying that Matt Mullenweg is completely right and I think this public dispute hurts the spirt of WordPress and the community.” Matteo Collina expressed, “ it seems to me that WP-Engine is not contributing *at all* to the development of WordPress or the running of the Foundation…..I also think that @photomatt should have just gone straight to lawyers – if WP-Engine has breached the trademark and needs a license, it’s a legal matter to dispute”.
  • Troy Dean expressed his thoughts on the current situation as,” The only damage being done by Matt Mullenweg’s current tantrum is to the hundreds of thousands of website owners currently hosted on WP Engine……I predict many people will abandon WordPress as a platform entirely as a result of this.” Lisa Graglia expands on how Matt has a valid point, “ WP Engine does uniquely profit, in a massive way, off the reputation of the WordPress trademark. AND they have incredible employees who truly care about the community. Both can be true.”
  • Katie Keith highlighted the recent update to the WordPress Foundation regarding the trademark policy, “interestingly, it looks like the WordPress Foundation have updated their trademark policy to make it tighter and specifically use @wpengine as an example of what not to do.” Robert DeVore highlighted a specific change on the WP Engine website with regard to the Axelerant partner page, “ Axelerant partner page on the @wpengine website has been updated between Sunday and today to change the text to “WP Engine”. Matt Russell on X notes how DreamHost, a vendor recommended on wordpress.org also uses the same language, “ Heres Dreamhost.com – a vendor recommended on http://wordpress.org with the same sort of language in their pricing models.”
  • Amid the growing conversation, Sridhar Katakam posed a thought-provoking question on X: “To those considering switching away from WordPress, what CMS are you looking to move to?”. Brian Coords also said,” Not me hurriedly working on my new “Laravel for ex-WordPress Developers” course !!!”.
  • Alex Standiford provides a comforting perspective on WordPress’s future,”In the worst case scenario, WordPress won’t just evaporate overnight, and probably won’t at all. You will have time to pivot if you need to.”

🚨WEB SECURITY & VULNERABILITIES

A collection of web security and vulnerability news and updates for the past week

An unauthenticated arbitrary file upload and a limited authentication bypass to account takeover vulnerabilities were recently patched.

🔌 NEW PLUGINS & THEMES

Be one of the first ones to explore some fresh plugins and themes

A theme designed for businesses, consulting firms, law practices, and educational institutions.

  • Profiler theme: A theme suitable for portfolio websites.
  • Illume theme: A multipurpose theme.
  • Quick Assist AI plugin: AI-powered assistant for troubleshooting issues, SEO recommendations, and ideas to enhance your website’s performance and user experience.
  • User Login Status plugin: A plugin to easily view which users are online/offline and log them out en-masse directly from the Users admin table.

👥 COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

The report covers the most important headlines from their third state of the open source maintainer survey. A few of the findings include 60% of maintainers are (still) not paid for their work, the more maintainers are paid, the more improvements they make to their projects, and more.

🔖 INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

More posts and podcasts from the WordPress Community you don’t want to miss

🛠 GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

📆 SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

🎁 WORDPRESS DEALS OF THE WEEK

Again, these are the best deals of the week, handpicked by yours!

EXCLUSIVE DEALS
  • 4 Months free offer on hosting plans of WP Engine (Coupon Code- FREEDOMTOCREATE)
  • 10% off on monthly & annual plans at SureTriggers (Coupon Code- WPCONTENT10)
  • 15% off yearly plans at Videvo (Coupon Code – WPV15)
MORE DEALS

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Last but not least, updates from WP-CONTENT.CO 👇

In the wake of the drama that unfolded at WCUS 2024, a string of events have echoed through…

Introduced two years ago via a proposal, the Plugin Check plugin has seen significant progress and refinements over…

The popular WordPress security company Patchstack has announced a $5 million funding round to bolster its mission of…

A few weeks ago, one of our new clients at our WordPress agency, Awsm Innovations, shared their frustrations…

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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