WordPress is BIGGER than one person.

I've been a WP developer for the past 15 years yet but somehow I recently learned about all the ongoing drama that's been happening in regards to WP Engine and other things.

Yes, I was honestly disappointed by how Matt chose to act through all this. To say childish is an understatement. Matt, if you're reading this, I owe my entire career to you. I've accomplished great many things in my life and it wouldn't be possible without WP. So yes, big credit to you.

With that being said, what Matt has created has played a crucial role across publishing platforms and speech. WordPress has become the Wikipedia of publishing and blogging. It has outgrown beyond one's imagination. Millions of people's livelihoods are indirectly tied to WordPress in various roles. It has grown bigger than one person.

WordPress wouldn't be a successful open-source project without hundreds of thousands of contributors, developers, testers, and end users who have built it. Yes, it's more than ONE person. It's high time that Matt unconditionally apologises to the entire fraternity, makes amends and does right by the very community which has given him a taste of success, and made Automattic viable. I understand there's a lot of pressure to keep investors happy but pressuring one company to pay 8% royalty is downright extortion. Banning a company just because they made profits (like any and every other WP development company) and chose not to share their profits with Matt, goes against the very principles of what open-source has stood upon all these years.

Imagine Linus Torvalds going after IBM for money made from RHEL or AWS. (He would be a multi-billionaire if he just cared about money)

About time Matt drops his ego, or it won't be long before a successful fork is created & Matt will be left with nothing but some dust-eating forgotten Wikipedia page.

Fin.