[throw646577]

???

This is a fair bit of silliness now I'm afraid. Like him or loathe him (and he's making it so very easy to do the latter), Mullenweg was one of the only developers of WP for years back when it was starting. He wrote it part time, he actually quit his job to work on it full time, and he was still a teenager. His energies are why it exists.

Has it all gone horribly wrong in the last couple of years? Yes. Has the money situation complicated things? Yes. But we can state these things without constructing an alternate, incorrect timeline.

He's surely acting like this in part because he does so closely identify with something he risked his livelihood to build as a pretty prolific young developer.

There are plenty of things he's done recently that are ridiculous and bogus enough that they can be criticised without imagining stuff.

Focus on the actual issues.

[gamblor956]

Wordpress is a fork of b2. That is why Matt is so scared of forks.

[that_guy_iain]

He's not scared of forks. He's kinda trying to force fork.

He wants WP Engine to either fund a fork which means they would have trademark issues since their fork won't be WordPress, or for them to partly fund the development of WordPress, which is what this entire battle was kinda about.

[saaaaaam]

That would be beautiful next level to his insane public breakdown.

Honestly though, I feel very genuinely sorry for him, and very sad for him.

Clearly something has cracked and it’s unimaginable being on the pedestal he’s been on for as long as he’s been on it. His friends are not looking out for him, which makes me wonder if he has any friends capable of telling him “stop”.

Matt, if you’re reading (which, c’mon, we all know you anlmost certainly are!) please stop.

It’s not too late to save yourself, to save your mental health, and to save your reputation.

Don’t dig your heels in, and don’t play chicken on the railroad tracks the lawyers are laying out for you.

Stop, and focus on the next stage of your journey, your legacy, and let the great work you did speak for itself, rather than be tainted.

You are not Wordpress, and your identify should not be so tied to Wordpress to the degree that is suggested by the way you are conducting yourself in recent times.

[wruza]

He did not create Wordpress and yet has managed to closely associate the product with his own persona and ever since has spent most of his life wringing money out of Wordpress.

I guess everything itt should be taken with a grain of “personally” salt, because that clearly is an accusing statement not tagged as a personal opinion. I wasn’t following this topic at all, but what gp is saying contradicts your hypothesis at least, so there’s no “personally I” escape route.

More meta, it feels like all this civilized discussion on HN et al is just a facade, because in rare situations like this people suddenly start theorizing, rationalizing their position, jumping gray-voting wagons and so on. I mean, it’s their right, but it looks like a booing mob rule rather than a society of standards that everyone relates themselves to here.

[throw646577]

Oh fuck off, I am not Matt and it should be obvious.

> so why is it so unlikely that he could have potentially hired people to write code that he claimed under his moniker?

Sure and he could have bought loads and loads of monkeys and given them typewriters.

Why are you fantasising?

It's a pretty straightforward story here.