Is Matt Mullenweg defending WordPress or sabotaging it?

My tinfoil hat - this is all semi-intentional self-sabotage.

WordPress is itself a fork of a previous open-source GPL license. Meaning Mullenweg couldn't make it close source even if he wanted to.

He makes it pretty clear that he thinks all of WordPress should belong to him. So he's intentionally closing out the ecosystem by making it as hostile to third-parties as possible.

As some like to say, "the cruelty is the point".

It's just "value capture" at this point. WPEngine is much larger than his own for-profit and the market is prob tapping out, which has got to be frustrating.

There is much more to be made for him scorching the earth and either directing them to his company or taking a cut of competitors. I guess the logic is who cares if the overall system suffers as long as he has the biggest piece of the pie.

Yep. Feels like they're getting ready for an IPO, and they see the open source ecosystem around them as potential future competitors rather than an advantage.

At the end of the day having half of the web running their platform is a nice idea, but having even 5% of that exclusively on Wordpress.com, or Wordpress VIP is way better for the wallet.