Response to DHH

ma.tt

Tuesday, 15 October 2024

Update: Matt has since taken down his original post and apologised for it. To be honest, I thought that everything he wrote was fair (if not a little mean), but I understand that it was not a good example of how he would like to treat people.

I've only been broadly been keeping abreast of the WordPress / WP Engine / Silver Lake saga, and remain fairly ambivalent about it, but this latest development with DHH wading in with his extreme opinions (does he have any other type?) is painful.

Mullenweg starts by insisting that the post / discourse is respectful, but his frustration is palpable, and he's finding it hard to rise above it all.

To be clear, I'm no fan of DHH - I stopped following / subscribing to him a while ago (facts that would not concern him, nor should they).

Everyone seems to be getting confused over the issue, thinking it is a case of an open source project trying to shake down a large profitable VC-backed business. It's not - it's a trademark dispute. The fact that 'giving back to the open source project' is an option for restitution is very charitable in my opinion.