Comment by kstrauser
3 days ago
But them behaving badly (or not; I don’t know enough here to agree or disagree) isn’t the legal issue. Matt is in court for allegedly harming WPE’s business in violation of law and contracts, which has monetary damages WPE can seek to recover.
If you call me names, you’re misbehaving and should be called out for it. If I retaliate by knocking over your fence and spraypainting your cat, you get to sue me even though you were the one who behaved poorly, but legally, to start with.
TL;DR Matt claims WPE acted unethically, which is shameful. WPE claims Matt tried to ruin their business, in ways they say are illegal.
I agree with everything you've said.
By the letter of the law, WPE is squeaky clean. But by kumbaya ethics or community spirit or whatever you want to call it, they're scummy vultures.
They're dipping into the "take a penny" jar and not replenishing it.
I can't square this with any sense of justice or morality.
> But by kumbaya ethics or community spirit or whatever you want to call it, they're scummy vultures.
ACF was so important to the ecosystem that Automattic felt the need to grab it after they kicked out the maintainers. Doesn't that go against the story that WPEngine was contributing nothing?
> But by kumbaya ethics or community spirit or whatever you want to call it, they're scummy vultures.
> They're dipping into the "take a penny" jar and not replenishing it.
> I can't square this with any sense of justice or morality.
Speak for yourself. Other people have different values and therefore interpretations of what's "moral" or "just".
If you want to make the argument that the only use of open source that's moral is one in which the user contributes back, that's fine. But I think you'll find yourself in a minority.