Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg has confirmed that the company is no longer working on migrating its Tumblr blogging platform to WordPress, as previously announced. The executive posted on MondayThe Verge Podcast Show Decodershared the news and said the project would be "on hold" indefinitely.
"We decided to focus as much as possible on things that users would notice, that users would ask for," he told the site. "It's more of an infrastructure build, kind of like any big architectural refactoring. I still want to do it. It's just a little cleaner. But right now, we haven't started doing it yet."
The announcement also raised questions about Tumblr's integration with open social network Fediverse. Tumblr would become a federated application if it moved its infrastructure to WordPress. Mullenweg acknowledged that was one of his reasons for the move, but suggested it was no longer a priority.
"...At the same time, I think if there was a big push to implement fediverse, we would implement it on the Tumblr codebase," he said.
Mullenweg also reiterated that Tumblr is not yet profitable and that its operations rely on profits from Automattic's other products. However, he said that he believes in Tumblr's future and plans to provide it with the necessary development space to help it find its direction.