[hn_throwaway_99]

> If he just gave up in 2010 so there was no "conflict of interest" to satisfy this guy, who is actually better off?

Holy strawman, Batman! The author wasn't asking Matt to "give up", he was asking him to choose either head of Automattic or the WordPress Foundation.

In retrospect, the author was spot on, incredibly prescient, and the comments denigrating his post have aged like milk.

[outsomnia]

So it turned out, there was an option 3, where random internet guy was ignored and the maintainer both made money from his work, and continued with the public good of donating work to his GPL'd project.

WP Engine is truly upset with the money they were able to make from WP being in good shape for free the last 15 years? According to the maintainer it's hundreds of millions of dollars. Before Mullenweg complaining about their not chipping in, they seemed very happy to go on.