The dispute between WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg and hosting provider WP Engine continues, with Mullenweg announcing that WordPress is “forking” a plugin developed by WP Engine.
Specifically, Advanced Custom Fields — a plugin making it easier for WordPress users to customize their edit screens — is being taken out of WP Engine’s hands and updated as a new plugin called Secure Custom Fields.
Mullenweg wrote that this step was necessary “to remove commercial upsells and fix a security problem.”
The Advanced Custom Fields team responded on X, describing this as a situation where a plugin “under active development” has been “unilaterally and forcibly taken away from its creator without consent,” which it said has never happened “in the 21 year history of WordPress.”
“This essential community promise has been violated, and we ask everyone to consider the ethics of such an action, and the new precedent that has been set,” the ACF team wrote.
Both Mullenweg’s blog post and a reply from WordPress claim that similar situations have, in fact, happened before, though Mullenweg added, “This is a rare and unusual situation brought on by WP Engine’s legal attacks, we do not anticipate this happening for other plugins.”
They also pointed to WordPress’ plugin guidelines, which give WordPress the right to disable or remove any plugin, remove developer access, or change a plugin “without developer consent, in the name of public safety.”
Some background: WordPress is a free, open source content management system used by many websites (including TechCrunch), while companies like WP Engine and Mullenweg’s Automattic offer hosting and other commercial services on top.
Last month, Mullenweg published a blog post criticizing WP Engine as a “cancer to WordPress.” His criticisms covered everything from WP Engine’s lack of support for revision history to its investor Silver Lake, but he also suggested that its “WP” branding confuses customers, making it sound like the company is officially connected to WordPress.
Cease-and-desist letters have gone both ways, with WP Engine claiming Mullenweg threatened to take a “scorched earth nuclear approach” unless the company paid to license the WordPress trademark.
WordPress banned WP Engine from accessing WordPress.org, briefly lifted the ban, then imposed it again. This essentially prevents WP Engine from updating the plugin through WordPress.org — so it can’t offer automatic updates to address security issues.
WP Engine has, however, published a workaround for users who want to update the plugin and continue using ACF. (It says the workaround is only necessary for ACF’s free users, as pro users will continue to receive updates through the ACF website.)
Moving forward, Mullenweg wrote that Secure Custom Fields will be available as a non-commercial plugin: “If any developers want to get involved in maintaining and improving it, please get in touch.”
When is an empty tube not an empty tube? When it’s a ramjet that uses rotating detonation technology to propel aircraft at hypersonic speeds. A case in point is Venus Aerospace’s new Venus Detonation Ramjet 2000 lb Thrust Engine (VDR2).
One of the biggest hurdles that need to be cleared in making hypersonic flight practical is building engines that are capable of sustained thrust.
Currently, hypersonic systems are mainly based on glide bodies that are boosted to high speed and altitude by rockets and then accelerate to over Mach 5 by gliding back to lower altitudes. However, if you want to build airliners that can fly from San Francisco to Tokyo in one hour, you need something more like a jet engine.
Unveiled at the recent Up.Summit in Bentonville, Arkansas the VDR2 looks ridiculously simple in a cutaway view because it’s essentially an empty tube without moving parts. This is because it’s mainly a ramjet, where the incoming air is compressed by the speed of the engine moving forward instead of by spinning turbine blades as in a conventional jet engine.
VDR2
The reason a ramjet is attractive for hypersonic flight is that it can tolerate much higher temperatures than a conventional engine thanks to being mechanically simple and having no moving parts. This is important because air coming into an engine at hypersonic speeds can make the interior reach 2,130 °C (3,860 °F) and would quickly melt turbine blades or similar components.
However, there is room for improvement. The VDR2 takes things a step further by incorporating a Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine (RDRE), which overcomes the limitations of a rocket or jet engine by using another novel principle – again, with no moving parts. The RDRE part of the VDR2 consists of two coaxial cylinders with a gap between them. A fuel/oxidizer mixture is squirted into the gap and ignited. The next step is a bit tricky, but if the detonation is configured properly, this generates a closely coupled reaction and shock wave that speeds around inside the gap at supersonic velocity that generates more heat and pressure.
A cutaway view of the VDR2
Venus Aerospace
The result is a low-drag engine being developed in partnership with Velontra and builds on a previous Venus Aerospace project. It has the high thrust and efficiency needed to power an aircraft to speeds of up to Mach 6 and an altitude of 170,000 ft (52,000 m) and is 15% more efficient than conventional engines, if Venus Aerospace meets its current design goals.
“This engine makes the hypersonic economy a reality,” said Venus Aerspace CTO Andrew Duggleby. “We are excited to partner with Velontra to achieve this revolution in high speed flight, given their expertise in high-speed air combustion.”
The VDR2 is expected to make its first test flight in a test drone next year.
The world of WordPress, one of the most popular technologies for creating and hosting websites, is going through a very heated controversy. The core issue is the fight between WordPress founder and Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg and WP Engine, which hosts websites built on WordPress.
WordPress technology is open source and free, and it powers a huge chunk of the internet — around 40% of websites. Websites can host their own WordPress instance or use a solution provider like Automattic or WP Engine for a plug-and-play solution.
In mid-September, Mullenweg wrote a blog post calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.” He criticized the host for disabling the ability for users to see and track the revision history for every post. Mullenweg believes this feature is at the “core of the user promise of protecting your data” and said that WP Engine turns it off by default to save money.
He also called out WP Engine investor Silver Lake and said they don’t contribute sufficiently to the open source project and that WP Engine’s use of the “WP” brand has confused customers into believing it is part of WordPress.
The legal battle
In reply, WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist letter to Mullenweg and Automattic to withdraw their comments. It also said that its use of the WordPress trademark was covered under fair use.
The company claimed that Mullenweg had said he would take a “scorched earth nuclear approach” against WP Engine unless it agreed to pay “a significant percentage of its revenues for a license to the WordPress trademark.”
The WordPress Foundation also changed its Trademark Policy page and called out WP Engine, alleging the hosting service has confused users.
“The abbreviation ‘WP’ is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is ‘WordPress Engine’ and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress,” the updated page reads.
WP Engine ban, community impact, and trademark battle
Mullenweg then banned WP Engine from accessing the resources of WordPress.org. While elements like plug-ins and themes are under open source license, providers like WP Engine have to run a service to fetch them, which is not covered under the open source license.
This broke a lot of websites and prevented them from updating plug-ins and themes. It also left some of them open to security attacks. The community was not pleased with this approach of leaving small websites helpless.
In response to the incident, WP Engine said in a post that Mullenweg had misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to WordPress.org.
“Matt Mullenweg’s unprecedented and unwarranted action interferes with the normal operation of the entire WordPress ecosystem, impacting not just WP Engine and our customers, but all WordPress plugin developers and open source users who depend on WP Engine tools like ACF,” WP Engine said.
Matt Mullenweg, CEO of Automattic, has misused his control of WordPress to interfere with WP Engine customers’ access to https://t.co/ZpKb9q4jPh, asserting that he did so because WP Engine filed litigation against https://t.co/erlNmkIol2. This simply is not true. Our Cease &…
On September 27, WordPress.org lifted the ban temporarily and allowed WP Engine to access resources on October 1.
Mullenweg wrote a blog post clarifying that the fight is only against WP Engine over trademarks. He said Automattic has been trying to broker a trademark licensing deal for a long time, but WP Engine’s only response has been to “string us along.”
The WordPress community and other projects feel this could also happen to them and want clarification from Automattic, which has an exclusive license to the WordPress trademark. The community is also asking about clear guidance around how they can and can’t use “WordPress.”
The WordPress Foundation, which owns the trademark, has also filed to trademark “Managed WordPress” and “Hosted WordPress.” Developers and providers are worried that if these trademarks are granted, they could be used against them.
Developers have expressed concerns over relying on commercial open source products related to WordPress, especially when their access can go away quickly.
Open-source content management system Ghost’s founder John O’Nolan also weighed in on the issue and criticized control WordPress being with one person.
“The web needs more independent organizations, and it needs more diversity. 40% of the web and 80% of the CMS market should not be controlled by any one individual,” he said in an X post.
The brouhaha in the WordPress community looks likely to escalate into a legal battle around trademarks.
Just a day after WordPress hosting service WP Engine sent a cease-and-desist notice to Automattic asking its CEO to stop publicly trashing WP Engine, now Automattic has sent its own cease-and-desist letter to WP Engine, saying the latter has infringed several trademarks like WordPress and WooCommerce.
This comes after Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of Automattic and co-creator of WordPress, last week criticized WP Engine for profiteering off the open-source WordPress project, called it a “cancer to WordPress,” and accused the company of contributing very little to the community.
In its letter dated Monday, Automattic alleged that WP Engine has built a business of over $400 million in revenue based on unauthorized use of its WordPress trademark, which Automattic claims it has the exclusive commercial rights for from the WordPress Foundation. Automattic also said WP Engine has misled consumers into believing that there is a direct affliction between the two companies.
“Your unauthorized use of our Client’s trademarks infringes on their rights and dilutes their famous and well-known marks. Negative reviews and comments regarding WP Engine and its offerings are imputed to our Client, thereby tarnishing our Client’s brands, harming their reputation, and damaging the goodwill our Client has established in its marks,” the letter read.
“Your unauthorized use of our Client’s intellectual property has enabled WP Engine to compete with our Client unfairly, and has led to unjust enrichment and undue profits,” it added.
Automattic is also demanding compensation for the profits made by WP Engine by using its trademarks, and said that if WP Engine doesn’t amicably solve the matter, the company has the right to file a civil injunction case.
For context, here’s a good summary of the WordPress community by my colleague Paul Sawers:
WordPress powers more than 40% of the web, and while any individual or company is free to take the open source project and run a website themselves, a number of businesses have sprung up to sell hosting services and technical expertise off the back of it. These include Automattic, which Mullenweg set up in 2005 to monetize the project he’d created two years earlier; and WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting provider that has raised nearly $300 million in funding over its 14-year history, the bulk of which came via a $250 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018.
In the cease-and-desist letter WP Engine sent to Automattic on Monday, the company defended its right to use the “WordPress” trademark under fair use laws. The company added that Automattic has “a profound misunderstanding of both trademark law and WordPress Foundation’s trademark policy.”
It also said Mullenweg demanded WP Engine pay Automattic “a significant percentage of its gross revenues — tens of millions of dollars in fact — on an ongoing basis” for a license to use trademarks like “WordPress.”
“When his outrageous financial demands were not met, Mr. Mullenweg carried out his threats by making repeated false claims disparaging WP Engine to its employees, its customers, and the world,” WP Engine’s letter said.
Notably, Automattic’s letter doesn’t mention Mullenweg’s remarks about WP Engine.
In the last week, Mullenweg has accused WP Engine of not contributing enough to the community and offering “a cheap knock-off” version of WordPress. WP Engine pushed back against this characterization and called out Mullenweg for launching a smear campaign against the company, saying it has already affected some of its business.
This might be the start of a long legal tussle between the two entities. A lot of folks also pointed out that this battle might be harmful for providers offering specialized WordPress hosting.
Earlier today, WordPress Foundation changed its Trademark Policy page to call out WP Engine alleging the hosting service of confusing uesers.
“The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks, but please don’t use it in a way that confuses people. For example, many people think WP Engine is “WordPress Engine” and officially associated with WordPress, which it’s not. They have never once even donated to the WordPress Foundation, despite making billions of revenue on top of WordPress,” the updated page reads.
LiquidPiston is testing a 10-kW generator it’s prototyped for the US military, which it claims is just a quarter of the size and weight of the current model the Army uses.
That means it’ll be far easier to store and transport. In fact, at 210 lb (95 kg), the generator can be carried around by four crew members rather than requiring a truck or forklift. It’ll only take up about 9 cubic feet of space, compared to the US Department of Defense’s (DOD) diesel-powered MEP-1040 genset, which takes up 36.7 cubic feet.
Designed around the company’s innovative X engine, this compact generator can run off jet fuel, gasoline, diesel, propane, or hydrogen. The engine itself features a novel design that’s kind of like an inside-out Wankel rotary engine, and delivers a jaw-dropping power density of up to 1.5 horsepower per pound.
At 210 lb, LiquidPiston’s 10-kW generator is light and compact enough to be carried by four crew members rather than a truck or forklift
The Connecticut-based power systems startup has been working on the tech behind this engine, called the XTS-210, for 20 years now. The basketball-sized two-stroke contraption housed within the generator unit weighs about 41 lb (19 kg) and manages 25 hp. Its unique rotary design enables it to deliver five times the power of a diesel engine of an equivalent size, while containing just two moving parts – a rotor and a shaft.
Unlike a Wankel engine that features a triangular rotor inside a peanut-shaped housing, LiquidPiston’s design has a peanut-shaped rotor in a tri-lobed housing. It also has a round, stationary combustion chamber that allows for a high compression, as well as the ability to inject fuel directly into the system.
Unlike a Wankel engine (left), LiquidPiston’s X engine design (right) features a triangular rotor inside an oval housing
According to co-founder and CEO Alec Shkolnik, the design incorporates stationary apex seals that act sort of like piston rings without bouncing around the housing. That solves durability and emissions issues that you’d typically encounter with Wankel rotary engines. “We also upgraded its cycle to give it much higher efficiency,” he told us in a 2020 interview.
To the battlefield and beyond
With its compact size, significantly lower weight, compatibility with existing systems, and easy maintenance, LiquidPiston’s generator prototype could be great for military forces that need to power artillery units and other equipment in the field.
LiquidPiston’s 10-kW generator (right) is about a quarter the size and weight of the US Army’s current AMMPS system (left)
It’ll be one of the first major steps in taking the XTS-210 engine mainstream. It’s previously been tested in small planes and go-karts – but this will give the company a chance to see how durable and reliable its system is on a much larger scale in real-world conditions.
Discussing whether its tech could make it into commercial vehicles back in 2020, Shkolnik explained, “It could be an excellent primary propulsion system for cars, or it could be part of a hybrid system.” However, he added that the engines that make it into mass-manufactured cars take a lot of testing and development that runs into the hundreds of millions of dollars. That’s why the startup chose to start with a niche application before going wider.
Before that, we’ll likely see the XTS-210 take to the skies again. LiquidPiston is packing the engine into a hybrid eVTOL unmanned military aircraft for a demonstration to the US Army later this year. That should give you a sense of just how much of an impact this unique design can have on several industries in a short amount of time.
WordPress hosting service WP Engine on Monday sent a cease-and-desist letter to Automattic after the latter’s CEO Matt Mullenweg called WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress” last week.
The notice asks Automattic and Mullenweg to retract their comments and stop making statements against the company.
Today WP Engine sent what is called a “cease and desist” letter to Automattic demanding that Automattic and its CEO Matt Mullenweg stop making and retract false, harmful and disparaging statements against WP Engine. In response to misinformation he has disseminated about the…
WP Engine, which (like Automattic itself) commercializes the open-source WordPress project, also accused Mullenweg of threatening WP Engine before the WordCamp summit held last week.
“Automattic’s CEO Matthew Mullenweg threatened that if WP Engine did not agree to pay Automattic – his for-profit entity – a very large sum of money before his September 20th keynote address at the WordCamp US Convention, he was going to embark on a self-described “scorched earth nuclear approach” toward WP Engine within the WordPress community and beyond,” the letter read.
“When his outrageous financial demands were not met, Mr. Mullenweg carried out his threats by making repeated false claims disparaging WP Engine to its employees, its customers, and the world,” the letter added.
The letter goes on to allege that Automattic last week started asking WP Engine to pay it “a significant percentage of its gross revenues – tens of millions of dollars in fact – on an ongoing basis” for a license to use trademarks like “WordPress.”
WP Engine defended its use of the “WordPress” trademark under fair use laws and said it was consistent with the platform’s guidelines. The letter also has screenshots of Mullenweg’s text messages to WP Engine’s CEO and board members which appear to state that Mullenweg would make the case to ban WP Engine in his talk at WordCamp if the company did not accede to Automattic’s demands.
Automattic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mullenweg, who co-created WordPress, last week criticized WP Engine for raking in profits without giving much back to the open source project, while also disabling key features that make WordPress such a powerful platform in the first place.
Last week, in a blog post, Mullenweg said WP Engine was contributing 47 hours per week to the “Five for the Future” investment pledge to contribute resources towards the sustained growth of WordPress. Comparatively, he said Automattic was contributing roughly 3,900 per week. He acknowledged that while these figures are just a “proxy,” there is a large gap in contribution despite both companies being a similar size and generating around half-a-billion dollars in revenue.
In a separate blog post, he also said WP Engine gives customers a “cheap knock-off” of WordPress.
Notably, Automattic invested in WP Engine in 2011, when the company raised $1.2 million in funding. Since then, WP Engine has raised over $300 million in equity, the bulk of which came from a $250 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018.
An intriguing question. What could a utility building in a green park look like?. In the noisy summer of 2019 with cicadas chirping, I was asked this intriguing question. The inquisitor was Mr. Liu Zili, Chairman of Taowenlv, owner of the Jingdezhen Ceramic Art Ave Taoxichuan. Since 2012, he invited Professor Zhang Jie’s team from Tsinghua University to lead the preservation and renovation planning. Once the state-owned Cosmos Ceramics Factory and Ceramic Machinery Factory, Taoxichuan has since transformed into a national cultural industry and innovative entrepreneurship model zone, a nighttime tourist destination, and a street packed with intangible cultural heritage. It serves as a stage for many artists and creators who have migrated to Jingdezhen.
Back in 2019, the first phase of Taoxichuan had just been unveiled, but many areas were still under development. The existing infrastructure was strained, with insufficient electrical capacity and water pressure for the upper floors. Infrastructure had to catch up to the site’s growing ambition.Initially, the client wanted to minimize the visual impact of scattered utility units. After a series of technical evaluations and energy-saving optimizations, they decided to build a centralized energy center to provide heating, cooling, water pressure, and electricity for the expanded campus, while also managing energy efficiency and fire safety across the site. The energy center would be located on a vacant lot, which would be excavated to construct an underground parking lot connected to nearby hotels. This construction would be integrated with the laying of heating and cooling pipelines and smart network. Once complete, it would be re-covered with greenery, restored to a green park. Back to the question: what could a utility building in a green park look like?
Split in Two. An energy station, often referred to a utility building, is not a place where you will host a party. It usually consists of a fire water tank, pumps, boilers, refrigeration units, substation, and control center, all enclosed in a big box with massive cooling towers sitting on top, surrounded by louver screens. A skillful architect could come up many ways to “dress up” such a box. But what intrigued me was whether there was a way to meet the functional needs of the energy center while maximizing the open space in the park.
We divided the building into two parts: the cooling units, power distribution, boiler room, and fire water tank are buried underground, blending into the landscape as a grassy slope like tearing up a corner of the lawn; seven massive cooling towers and control center were suspended above, forming a wedge shape.Although the building interior is still closed for the public, by splitting the volume, it returns the space to the park, which would be otherwise occupied by the building footprint. On hot summer days, the large “canopy” created by the structure became a welcome, shaded space for relaxation—and a natural viewing platform for whatever fun was happening in the park.
The north elevation along the street, has bold, strait industrial features, exposing the real equipment and pipes like a massive machine. On the park-facing side, however, the building looks softer, lighter and more organic, with two curved eyes the control center and a meeting room, both created using the internal space of the truss structure. We envisioned hanging wind-driven scales under the suspended structure as a finishing touch. These scales would ripple in the breeze, turning the structure into an art installation a mechanical cloud floating above the grass. That’s how it got the name Cloud Engine.
Blending in Context. As a member of the Taoxichuan architecture cluster, Cloud Engine is distinctive but getting well with its surroundings.When the schematic design of Cloud Engine was delivered, the west neighbour project Jingyang Camphor Court by Vector Architects has just begun. Occasionally I saw their rendering of a nice peaceful courtyard in a design meeting, it suddenly hits my mind: If a hulking metal machine peeking out in this scene, they must freak out. In order to perfectly avoid the Cloud Engine being visible from that lovely courtyard, we shifted the entire building north and adjusted the plan’s angle preciously. This tweak also sharpened the building’s form, enhancing the dramatic perspective. At the lobby of the Guomao Hotel on the south site, we use the landscape terrain as a barrier to control the view. It helps keeping the Cloud Engine’s dramatic presence within the grassy area, and not aggressive or even hidden from surrounding buildings’ perspective.
Technology and Aesthetics. An energy center starts with the equipment, and then comes the building. The cooling system includes three 2200RT and one 1100RT variable-frequency centrifugal chillers, paired with seven large cooling towers. For heating, there are three 5.6MW gas hot water boilers, plus two 1.4MW gas boilers for daily-use hot water. These technical specs became the foundation for the design. We tailored the building’s grid to accommodate the equipment and carefully routed the pipes, ensuring the space met all operational needs. This required precise coordination between the architectural, structural, and mechanical systems, all made possible through our collaboration with China IPPR team. We built parametric models to simulate how adjustments would affect the overall design, and even conducted wind tunnel tests.
The equipment’s technical logic has a beauty of its own, but in traditional architectural practice, this beauty is either hidden in shafts, ceilings and louvers, or, simply imitated by the interior designers, referring to “industrial style.” In this project, we aimed to showcase the beauty of the equipment, integrating it with the architecture to present a cohesive mechanical aesthetic. In the facade details, we used both Chinese and English labels to mark the functions: for instance, “Cold” is carved on the cold water pipes, and “Repair” is engraved on the maintenance access — so that the building’s detailing reads like an operational manual.
A Step Away from Perfection. Since 2019 , the project went through many ups and downs due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Especially during the crucial stage of exterior construction, remote collaboration was significant challenging. Despite the responsible efforts of the client and EPC team, and most of the design intention were achieved, eventually the wind-driven scales at the bottom were not installed for various reasons. I personally climbed the frame several times to test prototypes of the scales and their lighting effects. To better document the tolerances of the bottom keels, we conducted a 3D scan, and the data collected will serve as a critical foundation for potential installation in the future. Unfortunately, the “mechanical cloud” floating above the grass slope remains unfinished, this building is one step away from an installation art piece. But I remain hopeful—perhaps one day, , by any event opportunities, the scales might be installed, and this cloud will finally catch the wind.
Designing Extraordinary Future Daily Life. It reminds in distant past of 2010, I was working in BIG and participated in a competition for a waste-to-energy plant in Copenhagen, which people could ski on the roof. It was a bold and unusual idea. After winning the competition, during the celebratory drinks, someone said, “It may seem incredible now, but in a few years, our kids will think skiing on a waste-to-energy plant is the most normal thing.” After I left Denmark, the project took another eight years to made real, but the most playful idea of “CO2 smoke rings” was never realized. Sometimes, unfulfilled potential is the price of innovation. That’s what makes design so challenging and fascinating: rethink the current, turning today’s extraordinary into tomorrow’s daily life. It keeps me motivated ever since.
Automattic CEO and WordPress co-creator Matt Mullenweg unleashed a scathing attack on a rival firm this week, calling WP Engine a “cancer to WordPress.”
Mullenweg criticized the company — which has been commercializing the open source WordPress project since 2010 — for profiteering without giving much back, while also disabling key features that make WordPress such a powerful platform in the first place.
For context, WordPress powers more than 40% of the web, and while any individual or company is free to take the open source project and run a website themselves, a number of businesses have sprung up to sell hosting services and technical expertise off the back of it. These include Automattic, which Mullenweg set up in 2005 to monetize the project he’d created two years previous; and WP Engine, a managed WordPress hosting provider that has raised nearly $300 million in funding over its 14-year history, the bulk of which came via a $250 million investment from private equity firm Silver Lake in 2018.
Speaking this week at WordCamp US 2024, a WordPress-focused conference held in Portland, Oregon, Mullenweg pulled no punches in his criticism of WP Engine. Taking to the stage, Mullenweg read out a post he had just published to his personal blog, where he points to the distinct “five for the future” investment pledges made by Automattic and WP Engine, with the former contributing 3,900 hours per week, and the latter contributing just 40 hours.
While he acknowledged that these figures are just a “proxy,” and might not be perfectly accurate, Mullenweg said that this disparity in contributions is notable, as both Automattic and WP Engine “are roughly the same size, with revenue in the ballpark of half-a-billion [dollars].”
Mullenweg has levelled criticism at at least one other big-name web host in the past, accusing GoDaddy of profiteering from the open source project without giving anything meaningful back — more specifically, he called GoDaddy a “parasitic company” and an “existential threat to WordPress’ future”.
In his latest offensive, Mullenweg didn’t stop at WP Engine, he extended his criticism to the company’s main investor.
“The company [WP Engine] is controlled by Silver Lake, a private equity firm with $102 billion in assets under management,” Mullenweg said. “Silver Lake doesn’t give a dang about your open source ideals, it just wants return on capital. So it’s at this point that I ask everyone in the WordPress community to go vote with your wallet. Who are you giving your money to — someone who’s going to nourish the ecosystem, or someone who’s going to frack every bit of value out of it until it withers?”
In response to a question submitted by an audience member later, asking for clarity on whether Mullenweg was asking WordPress users to boycott WP Engine, he said that he hoped every WP Engine customer would watch his presentation, and when it comes to the time when they’re renewing their contracts, they should think about their next steps.
“There’s some really hungry other hosts — Hostinger, Bluehost Cloud, Pressable, etc, that would love to get that business,” Mullenweg said. “You might get faster performance even switching to someone else, and migrating has never been easier. That’s part of the idea of data liberation. It’s, like, one day of work to switch your site to something else, and I would highly encourage you to think about that when your contract renewal comes up, if you’re currently a customer with WP Engine.”
‘A cancer to WordPress’
In response to the brouhaha that followed the talk, Mullenweg published a follow up blog post, where he calls WP Engine a “cancer” to WordPress. “It’s important to remember that unchecked, cancer will spread,” he wrote. “WP Engine is setting a poor standard that others may look at and think is ok to replicate.”
Mullenweg said that WP Engine is profiting off the confusion that exists between the WordPress project and the commercial services company WP Engine.
“It has to be said and repeated: WP Engine is not WordPress,” Mullenweg wrote. “My own mother was confused and thought WP Engine was an official thing. Their branding, marketing, advertising, and entire promise to customers is that they’re giving you WordPress, but they’re not. And they’re profiting off of the confusion.”
Mullenweg also said that WP Engine is actively selling an inferior product, because the core WordPress project stores every change that is made to allow users to revert their content to a previous version — something that WP Engine disables, as per its support page.
While customers can request that revisions be enabled, support only extends to three revisions, which are automatically deleted after 60 days. WP Engine recommends that customers use a “third-party editing system” if they need extensive revision management. The reason for this, according to Mullenweg, is simple — saving money.
“They disable revisions because it costs them more money to store the history of the changes in the database, and they don’t want to spend that to protect your content,” Mullenweg contends. “It strikes to the very heart of what WordPress does, and they shatter it, the integrity of your content. If you make a mistake, you have no way to get your content back, breaking the core promise of what WordPress does, which is manage and protect your content.”
TechCrunch has reached out to WP Engine for comment, and will update here when we hear back.
Intake, compression, power, then exhaust. Every 4-stroke engine ever made – about 80% of all engines currently in existence – function on this principle – even rotary engines. But now, Porsche has filed a patent to make a 6-stroke engine.
The bottom line here is the introduction of two more strokes: Intake, compression, power, then compression, power, exhaust. Two power strokes and two compression strokes per cycle.
Generally, the biggest difference between a typical 4-stroke engine and the 6-stroke design is in the cam and valve timing. Porsche’s design is vastly different than anything we’ve seen since Samuel Griffin’s very first 6-stroke engine design in 1883.
Porsche’s patent shows the crankshaft spinning within a ring on planetary gears, meaning as the crankshaft rotates, the pistons have two entirely different top-dead-center positions as well as two different bottom-dead-center positions. This also creates variable compression within the engine.
After reading through dozens of pages of the patent, which is mostly legalese, “method for combustion machine with two times three strokes” is how the system is titled. Adding an extra combustion and power stroke to each revolution of the crankshaft means more horsepower to the wheels – and could also mean a more efficient internal combustion engine.
Or – as can often be the case with patents – it could mean absolutely nothing other than Porsche simply doesn’t want anyone else to have or develop this technology.
There’s nothing in the patent describing how engineers deal with vibrations, harmonic balance, RPM ranges, or any of the juicier issues the idea might spark for those among us with a bit more black under our fingernails.
But it’s worth noting that this isn’t the first time a 6-stroke engine has been announced or designed. Previous iterations worked very much like a standard 4-stroke engine with intake, compression, combustion, exhaust first.
Ten years ago, Bruce Crower had the very first working 6-stroke diesel engine in the world. Crower’s 6-stroke design added water injection as a 5th stroke, and the 6th being the steam flash exhausted from the motor. Check it out:
6-Stroke Engine Demo
Another design, the Beare Head 6-stroke, replaces traditional valves with a second piston that functions as a valve while scavenging exhaust gases. It’s debatable whether it’s a true 6-stroke, or simply a 4-stroke with an alternate form of valving.
Here’s yet another – a design that’s very much like the Crower engine, but that uses the middle two strokes for water injection and steam expansion.
Water-Powered ICE Is Here!!! | The Revolutionary 6-Stroke Engine
Overall, it appears as though 6-stroke engines end up being far more complex, but they could have the benefits of increased thermal efficiency (45-50% – far higher than that of a typical 4-stroke engine which make 30%, at the best) and reduced emissions. Similar to the benefits that enabled 4-strokes to overtake the ubiquitous 2-stroke across most of the world.
Of course, in a world rapidly shifting towards electric vehicles, a betting man might wager this new 6-stroke design goes nowhere.
This fire-breathing 27-liter 1,800-horsepower Roll-Royce Merlin aero engine famously powered the Spitfire, Hurricane, Mustang, Lancaster and Mosquito WW2 aircraft. It has been mounted on a trailer for demo purposes. It really is a sight to behold and feel when it shakes the ground around you.
One of the many highlights of the Silverstone Festival in Central England on 23-25 August 2024 will occur in the Festival Auction, where a Rolls-Royce Merlin Aero engine will be sold as one of the lots, with quite humble expectations of £50,000 (US$63,000) for the special trailer-mounted, fully-functional engine.
The quite unique and absolutely enchanting aspect of this particular engine is its ability to start and run as a display unit and just what an awesome beast this engine is, as beautifully demonstrated by this video.
The 27-liter V12 Rolls-Royce Merlin engine is named after the “bird of prey” rather than the magician, but stand up close to one of these things when it hums along and you’ll be hard pressed not to feel at least a little magic. It started out with 1,000 bhp in prototype form but most of those made were producing between 1,800 bhp and 2,000 bhp.
This engine lives up to its legend more so in person than any other.
Up close, the Rolls-Royce Merlin Aero engine is an experience
As impressive and awe-inspiring as it is to watch a Watt steam engine or a powerful steam train or a Wartsilla two-stroke diesel ship engine do their thing, those engines were quietened and civilized and … tamed … before they were put to work by mankind.
The Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was conceived as a fighter aircraft engine and they weren’t concerned about anything but horsepower.
The Merlin was supposed to spend its operational life at altitudes where it didn’t matter how much noise it made, but it was found to be so powerful and reliable that it was soon also powering armored tanks and MTB (patrol boats).
In its original uncivilized form it powered the aircraft which became household words during WW2 – the Spitfire, the Hurricane and the Mustang fighter aircraft and it was also used in numbers in the much larger Lancaster and Mosquito bomber aircraft.
Unmuffled with flame-belching from the near-open exhaust ports, this engine is an awe-inspiring beast if you are nearby when it starts, and this trailer-mounted example can be started in-situ anywhere.
By the time the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine was retired from active warlord duty, more than 170,000 had been made.
