WordPress drama

`5:43:52`

— First echo what you said about what a wonderful thing it is that WordPress exists. That there are not many projects in the open source world or in the world at large that has had as big of an impact on the internet as WordPress has. He deserves a ton of accolades for that work. So that was my engagement, essentially my premise. Do you know what? I had tremendous respect for what Matt has built with WordPress. What that entire ecosystem has built around itself. It's a true marvel. But there's some principles that are larger than my personal sympathies to the characters involved. I agree. The Silver Lake private equity company that's involved with WP Engine is not my natural ally. I'm not the natural ally of private equity doing some game with VP Engine. That's not my interest in the case. My interest is essentially a set of principles.

`5:44:55`

And the principles are if you release something as open source, people are free to use it as they see fit. And they're free to donate code or resources or money back to the community as they see fit. You may disagree about whether they've done enough, whether they should do more, but you can't show up after you've given the gift of free software to the world and then say, now that you've used that gift, you actually owe me a huge slide of your business because you got too successful using the thing I gave you for free. You don't get to take a gift back. That's why we have open source licenses. They stipulate exactly what the obligations are on both sides of the equation. The uses of open source don't get to demand what the makers of open source do and how they act. And the makers of open source don't get to suddenly show up with a ransom note to the users and say, actually you owe me for all sorts of use.

`5:45:57`

I'm 100% allergic to that kind of interaction. And I think Matt, unfortunately, for whatever reason, got so wrapped up in what he was owed that he failed to realize what he was destroying. WordPress and Automatic already makes a ton of money. This is part of the wonder of WordPress. This is a project that generates hundreds of millions of dollars, and Matt didn't feel like he was getting enough of that. That's not a good argument, bro. You can't just violate the spirit and the letter of these open source licensees and just start showing up with demand letters even to characters that are not particularly sympathetic. This goes to the root of my interpretation of open source in general. The GPL is a particular license that actually demands code from people who use it under certain circumstances.

`5:46:58`

I've never liked the GPL. I don't want your shitty code if you don't wanna give it to me. What am I gonna do with that? Some code dump that youve... I'm not on board with that part of Stallman's vision at all. I love the MIT license. To me that is the perfect license because it is mercifully short. I think it's two paragraphs, three paragraphs. Really short, and it basically says, here's some software. It comes with no warranty. You can't sue me. You can't demand anything, but you can do whatever the hell you want with it. Have a nice life. That's a perfect open source interaction in my opinion. And that license needs to be upheld. These licenses, in general, even the GPL, even if I don't like it, we have to abide by them. Because if we just set aside those licensees, when we in a moment's notice feel like something's slightly unfair, we've lost everything. We've lost the entire framework that allowed open source to prosper and allowed open source

`5:47:58`

to become such an integral part of commerce too. I mean, back when open source was initially finding its feet, it was at war with commercial software. Stallman is at war with commercial software and always has been. Bill Gates was in return at war with open source for the longest time. The open source licensees and the clarity that they provide allowed us to end that war. Today, commercial software and open source software can peacefully coexist. I make commercial software. I sell Basecamp, I sell HEY, and then I also make a bunch of open source software that I give away for free as gifts. That can't happen if we start violating these contracts. No commercial company is gonna go, "Let me base my next project off this piece of open source. If I'm also running the liability that some mad maker is gonna show up seven years in and demand, I give them $50 million." That's not an environment conducive to commerce collaboration or anything else. And it's just basically wrong.