Open source and power with Matt Mullenweg

Yup, I put the graphic back in

A couple of weeks ago, Automattic announced it had raised $300 million from Salesforce Ventures in a Series D round. In an interview with TechCrunch, Automattic founder and CEO Matt Mullenweg said:

“I think there’s potential to get to a similar market share as Android, which I believe now has 85% of all handsets. When you think about it, open source has a virtuous cycle of adoption, people building on the platform and more adoption.”

That comment kicked off a Twitter discussion between Matt and David Heinemeier Hansson about funding and tech monopolies. Then, in a rare example of Internet discourse taking a positive turn instead of devolving into a Godwin’s Law-fueled nightmare, Matt and David got on the phone to keep the debate going. We recorded their conversation and released it as the newest episode of the Rework podcast.

13 thoughts on “Open source and power with Matt Mullenweg

  1. It’s 100% wrong to illegally use the United Syndicate controlled Peanuts characters in marketing of your own products.

    Out of respect for the late Charles Schulz, and his family, I hope you’ll remove this illegally (and unethically) used graphic from your site.

    Personally, I think much less of Basecamp and Adam Stoddard for such a blatant copyright infringement of a character I enjoy, and an artist I revere.

    1. It is 100% hilarious to feel this strongly about copyright laws, and to comment with this level of anger and disrespect. Get over yourself, and maybe do a bit of research on where copyright laws come from and why they were never intended to stifle culture like this. Agree or disagree, you sound like a total jerk phrasing it this way.

    2. Tom, I read the comment that you submitted and am letting you know that I deleted it. I took your concerns seriously and removed the image. Now you are continuing ad hominem attacks against a colleague and that’s not okay. Please don’t comment here again.

    3. Nonsense. The use of Peanuts in this example was parody, not marketing, which is protected under the fair-use doctrine. The only thing blatant here is your overzealous invocation of copyright law without basis. Go worship at your shrine somewhere else, please.

  2. Wailan,

    And yet, there is the illegal image again. That ain’t parody people.

    I’ve contact United Features Syndicate, we’ll let them decide.

    I’ve already made up my mind about SvN and Basecamp.

  3. I own a company that reaches a million US Conservative voters a month, many of them business owners. Let’s let these business owners decide if they want to share their company’s data with a website that blatantly steals from others, and seems proud of it. (“Yup, I put the graphic back in”)

    Let’s have some fun with this! You can delete all the comments here you want, because this is YOUR property. Mine, however…

    Good luck to you!

    1. Tom, was this how you imagined spending the beginning of October. Did you forget to say “Rabbit Rabbit!” first thing Tuesday morning.

  4. Watch this space: 63red.com

    You’re about to be prominently featured for more than a week, in an editorial about socialism and how the theft of property is ‘justified’.

    One. million. people.

    1. Knock yourself out. If you want to equate the parody fair-use provision of copyright law as established and confirmed by US courts as socialism, well, that’s your gig. I’m just telling you that you look like a complete fool having a meltdown like this in public. I’m telling you this because I’ve had my own meltdowns in public, so I can empathize 😂.

      Let me know if you want us to do you a favor and scrub all these embarrassing comments. No hard feelings. Some times we all roll out of the wrong side of the bed, get cornered by an argument we didn’t think through, or just decide to use the internet the day we skip coffee.

      ✌️

  5. This was a very interesting discussion touching on a number of dynamics and perspectives that we wrestle with. As the creators of one of those other open-source CMS projects – silverstripe.org – we constantly think about the power dynamics in our own community. We also have proprietary products so we experience the tensions on the other side of the fence as well. Looking forward to hearing the follow-up discussion on funding with Matt.

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