If you are the regular reader of my blog, you may notice that I’ve unpublished a recent series of rants over the current and escalating war between Automattic (really, Matt Mullenweg himself) and WP Engine.
I’ve unpublished them because they were angry and unfocused rants, as I struggled to get a handle on why what is happening is happening, and what it really means to (and for) me, as well as the larger WordPress community.
This afternoon I channeled that frustration into some long-overdue household tasks — fixing a kitchen cabinet door, shampooing the carpet in the upstairs hallway, clearing out the clogged drain of a bathroom sink — and those few hours of manual labor gave me time to sift through the thoughts and feelings piling up in my brain.
I realized that the heart of the matter is a lack of common agreement on the nature of free open source software (FOSS) — specifically, both the ethics and the economics of FOSS. Now that I’ve realized what is at the heart of my recent frustration and anger, I can start thinking — and writing — more constructively about it, rather than firing off aimless missives.
A more coherent mini-essay on this topic is forthcoming. But for now, the earlier angry posts are unpublished. Gone, but not forgotten. And, well, not really gone. Thanks to WordPress.
Stay tuned…