I'd never work with Metalab or use their products based on their handling of this. Not even a "next time we'll try private channels first" or any admission of error. Lame.
Excuse me, but what error did they make? Mozilla made the error. Metalab probably could have handled it privately, but then they wouldn't have gotten the publicity.
From a startup founder point of view, I think Andrew did exactly the right thing. He massively increased the profile of his company and he got an apology from Mozilla.
>He massively increased the profile of his company and he got an apology from Mozilla.
At the cost of a lot of potential clients. A lot of companies will hesitate to deal with MetaLab in future, considering that MetaLab are not even apologetic about making this a PR issue rather than talking to Mozilla first. When a company redirects its landing page to a blog post about being ripped off, they just look like a bunch of immature kids.
From a startup founder point of view, I think Andrew did exactly the right thing. He massively increased the profile of his company and he got an apology from Mozilla.