#212- WP Engine And Automattic Trial Scheduled For 2027, Alt Ctrl Org Independent WordPress Event

Issue #212 | March 25, 2025 | Reading time: 18 mins

Hello!

This week on The WP Week Newsletter, we cover the legal jury trial between WP Engine and Automattic is scheduled for February 22, 202, which is two years from now. Also, Alt Ctrl Org an independent WordPress event will take place on June 6th, 2025 alongside WordCamp Europe 2025.

Don’t forget to subscribe and listen to the podcast version of this newsletter, where you can hear more details and discussions about these topics and more.

See you next week!

Team WP-CONTENT.CO

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TALK OF THE TOWN

WP Engine vs Automattic Jury trial set for 2027

The trial is set for February 22, 2027, and the last date for fact discovery is November 20, 2025. A settlement conference was also scheduled for March 20, 2025.

WORDPRESS & AROUND

All the updates around WordPress and its closely related technologies

WordPress 6.8 Beta 3 released

The beta 3 is now available for download and testing. We can expect RC1 later today.

Source of Truth (WordPress 6.8): Gutenberg Times has published the Source of Truth for the second time and allows the community to get the latest information about the upcoming changes and new features in WordPress 6.8 quickly.
Changes to the .screen-reader-text class in WordPress 6.8: WordPress 6.8 will remove the clip property and the prefixed -webkit-clip-path property.
Interactivity API best practices in 6.8: WordPress 6.8 introduces new best practices and deprecation warnings for the Interactivity API, preparing for future enhancements.
New filter should_load_block_assets_on_demand in 6.8: WordPress 6.8 introduces a new filter should_load_block_assets_on_demand, which runs as part of a new function wp_should_load_block_assets_on_demand(). The filter complements the existing should_load_separate_core_block_assets filter by more clearly separating concerns of both filters.
What’s new for developers? (March 2025): Troy Chaplin provided an update on all the new features and changes coming in WordPress 6.8 and those that were introduced with the recent Gutenberg releases.
Plugin Review Team stats as of 17 March 2025: The team rejected 135 plugins, approved 121 plugins and a136 plugins have been closed. The plugin review queue is currently at 1502.
Vote for the Polyglots Team Representatives 2025: The voting is now open and there are eight nominees for this year and they are: Nidhi Jain, Umesh Singh, Sonali Prajapati, Kausar Alam, Prathamesh Palve, Ahmed Kabir Chaion, Pratik Bhatt and Luis Rull.
Automattic Operating System: Matt Mullenweg talks about the concept of the “Automattic Operating System”, which refers to the internal systems, processes, and culture that shape how Automattic operates.
Next.js patches critical middleware vulnerability: Next.js has patched a critical vulnerability (CVE-2025-29927) that allowed attackers to bypass middleware-based authorization checks in self-hosted apps.
DollyWay world domination: Eight years of evolving website malware campaigns: GoDaddy Security researchers have uncovered a long-running malware operation dating back to 2016 that has compromised over 20,000 websites globally in the past 8 years.
WP Test Email plugin patched a critical vulnerability: The plugin recently patched an unauthenticated stored cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability and all users are to update to the latest version immediately.
Critical LFI to RCE vulnerability in WP Ghost plugin affecting 200k+ sites: An unauthenticated local file inclusion vulnerability was recently patched and users are to update immediately.
AI coding assistant refuses to write code, tells user to learn programming instead: A developer using Cursor AI for a racing game project hit an unexpected roadblock when the programming assistant abruptly refused to continue generating code, instead offering some unsolicited career advice.
Google adds Search Terms visibility to Performance Max campaigns: Google Performance Max now shows which search terms are triggering ads, allowing negative keywords to be added directly from the Search Terms report.
Google may remove your page from search if users don’t interact with it: Google once again confirms user interactions play a role in ranking and indexing, especially if users don’t click on pages in search results.
EU charges Google with DMA violations: What this means: Google faces official charges for allegedly favoring its services in search results and restricting app developers on Google Play.
Google researchers improve RAG with “sufficient context” signal: Google researchers introduced a method to improve AI search and assistants by enhancing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) models’ ability to recognize when retrieved information lacks sufficient context to answer a query. If implemented, these findings could help AI-generated responses avoid relying on incomplete information and improve answer reliability.

COMMUNITY NEWS

Updates and News from the WordPress Community

Alt Ctrl Org- For the love of WordPress

Alt Ctrl Org is an independent WordPress event, focused on open source governance and free speech, to be held on the evening of June 6th in Basel 2025, alongside WordCamp Europe 2025. It is the result of the incredible work of an amazing independent dedicated team. The current list of speakers includes Joost de Valk, Sé Reed, Francesca Marano, Matt Leach, Zoë Kooyman, Olivier Dobberkau, and Vlad-Stefan Harbuz.

WordPress Community mourns the loss of Harry Jackson: Harry Jackson a dedicated contributor, plugin developer, team rep, WordCamp organizer, and speaker has sadly passed away, leaving a profound void in the community. A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support his children.
WordCamp Europe 2027 is seeking for host city: The application is now open and regarding the venue, it should have around 1,200 seats in a main auditorium style layout, with supplementary spaces for additional tracks, workshops, and approximately 15 rooms for support functions.
UpdraftPlus, WP-Optimize, and All-In-One Security are now united under a new parent brand: UpdraftPlus, WP-Optimize and AIOS have moved to the new teamupdraft.com domain.
weDevs turn 12: To celebrate the occasion, they are offering up to 50% OFF on all their products till March 30th.
XpeedStudio is rebranding to Roxnor: M. Ataur Rahman, Founder and CEO of XpeedStudio announced this upcoming rebranding via Linkedin.
Tutor LMS v3.4.0 released: The latest version includes a new bulk enrollment support for membership plans (Pro), login option added to the checkout page when guest checkout is enabled (Pro), and so on.
Visua11y wins CloudFest Hackathon with breakthrough accessibility plugin: Visua11y, a project led by accessibility expert Anne-Mieke Bovelett, has won the top prize at this year’s CloudFest Hackathon with a working solution to a widespread but often overlooked accessibility challenge: making infographics usable for everyone.
Michelle Frechette is seeking community feedback on her rejected WCEU talk submission: Her talk submission, From Blog to Book: How I Turned a Blogging Gig into a Published Book, was declined, and she’s considering recording it for YouTube if there’s enough interest.
WP Mayor has relaunched its YouTube channel: Mark Zahra announced this on X and they will focus on reviews, tutorials, and more.
Shakeeb on the function that changed WordPress forever: Shakeeb recalls when Matt Mullenweg committed the first version of add_action() as part of WP 1.2’s Plugin API and how it unlocked extensibility, transforming WordPress from a simple blogging tool into a developer powerhouse.
WP Wonder Women newsletter has a new editor: June Liu is the new editor and we can expect the new issue soon.
WordPress quiz: Test your enterprise WordPress knowledge!: This quiz created by Human Made will test your enterprise WordPress knowledge and also provide key insights from WP:25.

NEW PROJECTS

Introducing WP Speakers Virtual Stage Series: The new series created by Post Status is a platform for speakers whose talk proposals were declined at flagship WordCamps. This weekly webinar series will be streamed live on YouTube via Streamyard allowing presenters to share their ideas with the community. Applications are currently open.
Introducing StoreAgent AI: Josh Kohlbach has launched StoreAgent AI, a plugin designed to automate key aspects of WooCommerce stores using AI-powered agents.
All new Fedivents: A CloudFest Hackathon 2025 project, Fedivents hopes to create a comprehensive, ready-to-use solution that combines existing federated event technologies with an improved user experience.
All new Python Project Starter repository: Graham Neubig has created this to help students maintain code quality while doing research projects.
Cloudflare launches AI Labyrinth: AI Labyrinth is a new tool that serves AI-generated content to AI Crawlers and other bots that don’t follow “no crawl” directives.
new.email is now open to everyone: Zeno Rocha announced that new.email is now accessible to everyone and that around 14,386 people had signed up
for the waitlist.

INTERESTING READS & PODCASTS

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

Who is responsible for website accessibility: Your client, or you?: Chris Hinds explores the issue from both the client and agency perspectives, emphasizing the need for clear communication and shared accountability. From Equalize Digital.
Why Elementor is going CSS-first: The vision behind Editor V4: Elementor explains why they are shifting to a CSS-first approach with Editor V4. From Elementor.
The pros & cons of CSS styling inputs: This article explains the advantages and disadvantages of CSS inputs and also explains how Etch is re-architecting CSS inputs for use benefits. From Etch.
CloudFest 2025: My impressions and reflections: Lana Miro, shares her mixed impressions of CloudFest 2025. While she appreciated the networking opportunities, valuable meetings, and the event’s lively atmosphere, it didn’t fully meet her expectations. She found some talks rushed and overhyped, struggled with casual networking, and questioned whether the long journey was worth it. From Lana Miro.
In the future, code might not be human-readable: Jamie Marsland talks about how as AI advances, programming is shifting away from human-readable code toward machine-optimized, AI-generated instructions that prioritize efficiency over clarity. He also talked about using WordPress REST API in a headless setup to display posts and pages.
WordPress page builder performance (In the real world): Kyle Van Deusen tested over 150 agency websites to evaluate how different WordPress page builders perform in real-world conditions. The findings revealed that GenerateBlocks and Oxygen delivered the most consistent high performance, while Bricks and Kadence showed significant variability. Divi and Elementor were ranked lowest. From The Admin Bar.
WordCamp Asia 2026 goes to Mumbai, but Bangladeshis may be shut out over visa ban: WordCamp Asia 2026 in Mumbai may exclude Bangladeshi attendees due to ongoing visa restrictions, raising concerns about participation for contributors and organizers. From The Repository.
Free software does not exist: Taco Verdonschot talks about how “free software” does not truly exist because software development always comes at a cost—whether in time, money, or effort. From Progress Planner.
In conversation with Roger Williams: Roger Williams joins Bud to discuss his family roots, career path, and personal journey. From a childhood in Colorado to a stint as a digital nomad, Roger’s experiences led him back to digital marketing and a fulfilling role at Kinsta. From Seriously, Bud?
Ronnie Burt chats about Gravatar’s evolution and CloudFest experiences: Adam Weeks catches up with Ronnie Burt at CloudFest who leads Gravatar’s team at Automattic. dives into what Gravatar is all about and the evolution it has seen over the years—from its initial days solving avatar issues in WordPress, to being Automattic’s first acquisition, and its current relevance driven by applications like ChatGPT. From Doo the Woo.
From founding to funding, Marieke van de Rakt’s entrepreneurial journey: Marieke van de Rakt, co-founder of Progress Planner shares her journey from teaching criminology to becoming an influential figure in online marketing and open source investments. They dive into her experiences in local politics and her passion for empowering women in tech. From Doo the Woo.
WordPress as a World-Class Publishing Platform, With Brad Williams: On this episode of the PublishPress Podcast, Brad discusses how his team have moved publishers to the block editor using a step-by-step approach rather than a rebuild. From PublishPress.
Why ‘boring’ features benefit WordPress professionals: Eric Karkovack emphasizes the importance of small improvements in WordPress, which often go unnoticed but significantly enhance security, stability, and efficiency. While major feature updates grab attention, professionals benefit more from refinements like password encryption in WordPress 6.8. He also argues that stability should be a priority to maintain WordPress’s long-term reliability. From The WP Minute.
Robert DeVore on how open source saved his life: In this episode of the WP Minute+ Podcast, Matt welcomes Robert DeVore, a seasoned WordPress developer and entrepreneur, to discuss how open source changed his life. Robert shares his journey from launching a cannabis-related WordPress plugin in 2015 to rapidly developing AI-powered tools for the WordPress ecosystem today. He reflects on the challenges he faced in the cannabis industry, particularly being “debanked,” which ultimately pushed him to explore new opportunities in tech. From The WP Minute.
Getting to know the Woo Marketplace: A developer’s look: The post explains the marketplace, and how users can prepare the product and navigate the submission process. From WooCommerce.
Scaling WooCommerce for large stores handling 100,000+ products: Nox Dineen-Porter addresses some of the common myths about WooCommerce and then explains how to scale a WooCommerce store, managing an extensive product catalog, creating long-term site maintenance strategies and a comparison of WooCommerce with other popular ecommerce solutions and detail the pros and cons of each. From Pressable.
Name that page builder! A one-of-a-kind WordPress trivia show w/ Jonathan Jernigan & Amber Hinds: Amber Hinds and Jonathan Jernigan battle head-to-head testing their WordPress page builder trivia knowledge and ultimately Jonathan won the challenge. From The Admin Bar.

GUIDE ZONE – HOWTO’S and MORE

Handpicked fresh guides from WordPress circle

What is Headless WordPress (and how do you use it)?: From WordPress.com
How to build incredible WordPress Blocks with Cursor AI: From WordPress.com
WordPress automated testing for developers: From ACF
Create an impressive app-like experience with a few lines of CSS (No JavaScript needed)!: From The Admin Bar
Add a virtual campus tour to your school’s WordPress site: From Kinsta
Additional block styles for child themes: From Silvan Hagen

SAVE THE DATES

Do not miss a WordPress event ever again

DE{CODE} 2025 on April 15, 2025: The registrations are now open.
Web Agency Summit on April 7-11, 2025: The registration is now open.
PressConf 2025 on April 23-26: A conference for WordPress Professionals and the tickets are now available.
WordCamp Lisboa 2025 on May 16-17, 2025: Tickets are now available.
WordCamp Europe on 5-7 June 2025: Tickets are expected to be available soon.
WordCamp US on August 26-29, 2025: The call for organizers is now open.
WordCamp Canada on October 16-17 2025: The call for sponsors is now open.
WordCamp Asia 2026: It is tentatively planned for early February 2026 and the call for organizers is now open.

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