This was a fascinating read. I imagine Ben Cook feels pretty validated at the moment. What's most interesting to me is the thin-skinned response of Mullenweg even back then. Having read the blog post in question, the idea that Cook's "writing borders on hate speech" as Mullenweg claimed, is histrionic nonsense, and Cook goes out of his way to give praise where it's due, starting his blog with this line: "Neither WordPress nor Automattic would be where they are today without the tireless efforts of Matt Mullenweg. I have personally benefited from his work and for that I’m truly thankful."

I run a WordPress agency and although I think the current childish spat will take a very long time to cut through with our clients, if it ever does, I feel huge vicarious embarassment that it's come to this. The fact that Mullenweg doesn't see the conflict of interest, or does see it but is too comfy being in complete control, is a great shame.

To be clear, I think Mullenweg may have a point about WP Engine - I'm not close enough to it to know one way or the other - it's the way that he's chosen to handle it that's embarassing and concerning. As I've said before, adding the pineapple checkbox - in response to a court order - just makes WordPress look fucking ridiculous.

Edit: the other amusing thing was the fanboys commenting under the blog post about how there's no conflict of interest and how Matt would never do anything like this.

Wild that 2010 Matt considered that reasonable blog post akin to hate speech.

Sometimes a navel can be confused with an event horizon.

Always, always, all-ways wear thick cottony garments so that you remember to pick lint out of your personal "event horizon" - it's a navel! relax, a little - everyone's got one.

Do people like Matt have any insight into their own condition?

> I feel like your writing borders on hate speech

Hilarious to imagine him writing this with a straight face.

I know many employees of the company Mullenweg runs (mismanages). He is not held in particularly high esteem among them.

I had forgotten about this. I guess it's a good reminder that Mullenweg wasn't a level-headed reasonable person prior to recent events.

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