Response to DHH

I’ll just remind everyone at the start that this a respectful debate, and DHH and I tried to get on a call but couldn’t because we were both traveling.

However, “Automattic is doing open source dirty” is an abomination of a headline, and David’s second post Open source royalty and mad kings, is just sloppy. So I’m forced to reply publicly:

DHH claims to be an expert on open source, but his toxic personality and inability to scale teams means that although he has invented about half a trillion dollars worth of good ideas, most of the value has been captured by others. Let’s look at 37signals portfolio:

David, perhaps it would be good to explore with a therapist or coach why you keep having these great ideas but cannot scale them beyond a handful of niche customers. I will give full credit and respect. 37signals inspired tons of what Automattic does! We’re now half a billion in revenue. Why are you still so small?

I was surprised someone as smart as DHH would fall for WP Engine’s lame deferral to make this about “GPL code” or forking, rather than trademarks. We have no problem with their use of GPL code, our beef is with their trademark abuse.

Leave a Comment