Journal
Intersection
14 June 2007 › 6 comments
First off, a retraction: Simply put, I owe Matt Mullenweg an apology for what I wrote here. Matt, you’re a decent guy. I applaud the hard work you’ve put into WordPress and Akismet. Ironically, what I said was to defend Alex.
Background
Last month, Drew Mclellan wrote a post entitled The State of Textpattern, questioning the direction that the CMS will head in the future. Shall it continue along open source lines, or become more commercialized? Talented designer and TXP user Jon Hicks chimed in to share his thoughts thusly:
“I wouldn’t mind paying for Textpattern and plugins, but I think it’s got to be one or the other. Either it follows the WP model, or goes EE on us.” — Source
Drew brought up the fact that Alex Shiels (better known in the TXP community as Zem) had written about a semi-commercial plugin on the TXP’s official project blog. Being that Alex was lead developer of Textpattern, some saw this as being against the notion of free, open source software. Others expressed their concern that TXP lacks a technology roadmap.
For what it’s worth, I do not necessarily think that a roadmap automatically makes for a better product. Rick Ellis, creator of the popular CMS ExpressionEngine, said he never actually used a roadmap for EE…
“Maybe it’s my particular temperament, but I just don’t like to look very far ahead, and I never bother to look at roadmaps in other products. I could care less, really. I much prefer to deal with the reality of the application as it is now, and make my decision as a user based on that. I acknowledge that a roadmap might be deal breaker for some people, but in six years of developing three major applications we’ve never used them.” — Source
Small World
Due to the criticisms being brought against Alex and other TXP developers, and having become friends with them through the process of book writing, I felt the need to stick up for them. In so doing, I could have just said my piece and let that be that. However, regrettably so, I took a cheap shot at Matt for something that happened over two years ago. It was uncalled for.
Now, here’s where the plot twists a bit more. As of this past Monday, June 11th 2007 – Alex Shiels, former lead developer and architect of Textpattern, has started a new job working for Matt Mullenweg’s company Automattic. I find it supremely ironic that in an effort to stick up for Alex, I was actually insulting his future boss! Oh, how the ‘Net is interwoven.
¿ Water Bridge ?
My friend Nate Logan said it best in his post Open Browser, Insert Foot:
“The problem with ‘sticking your foot in your mouth’ online is that it seems harder to take it back, since it’s saved in a backed-up, triple-redundant database and permanently archived and indexed by multiple seach engines and archiving services. Shouldn’t comment forms have Edit → Undo functionality?” — Source
Since I cannot undo what’s been done, let me just say once again to Matt that I’m sorry. I also have to say I’m a bit jealous, because you’ve snagged yourself a great PHP developer. I am excited to see what y’all cook up in the WP camp. I think I speak for most of the Textpattern community when I say that Alex and his many contributions will be missed.
On the Horizon
Still, the future of TXP looks bright, under Mary’s leadership. There is a new initiative being discussed, around professional designers who use Textpattern for their clients (signup here). Also, the second annual Textplates competition is taking entries, with some pretty big prizes, including a Mac Mini.
I am also glad that as of version 4.0.5 and upward, Textpattern will now ship with jQuery as the official, built-in JavaScript library (read more). You could think of it like how Rails comes bundled with Prototype. While you needn’t make use of jQuery, it’s there if you need it. For what it’s worth, both WordPress and Drupal have also standardized around jQuery.
Whichever system you happen to use, some exciting times lie ahead.
Discussion + Dissension
Comments closed after 2 weeks.
#1 Robert Evans
I applaud you for this post, it definitely tells of your character!
#2 Nathan Logan
Big of you to write this. And to link me. ;) Really, though – you’ve got some integrity, and I really appreciate that about you.
On the TxP front, I think we’ll be okay. It’s already an incredible product with solid developers, a great community, good buy-in, and now a book! Those things are a good source of inspiration for good open-source developers.
It’ll be really interesting to see where WP goes…
#3 Karl Swedberg
Hey Nate, that was a pretty gutsy post, especially linking to your previous comment about Matt. And I mean gutsy in the best sense of the word. :-)
Maybe that triple redundancy your friend Nate Logan wrote about isn’t so bad after all. If it prompts a follow-up post like the one you’ve just written, it can highlight not only the foibles of online communicators, but also their good character as they make amends.
Seeing the human fallibility in others is easy. Seeing it in ourselves requires humility, integrity, and more than a little grace—qualities that come through pretty clear in this post. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
#4 Nathan Smith
Thanks guys. I had already apologized to Matt Mullenweg when he emailed me about it last month, but I figured since the comment was out there permanently, that a retraction also ought to be made publicly as well.
@Nate Logan: I too am interested to see how this affects WP.
#5 Damien Buckley
You being prepared to recount and tak responsibility here is nice to see and to be honest, beats the hell out of the ‘undo’ solution. In my standing, someone who speaks his mind but then also has the moral fortitude to stand up and apologise rather than just try to make the comment disappear is a rare thing these days.
More to the state of TXP – I’ve read those other articles you referenced and I have to say I find the comments directed particularly towards Alex in some of those to be plain wrong and pretty unfair. I think all of these guys have done enough for the TXP community free of charge and anyone with athe slightest hint of business aptitude knows that doing everything for free ensures eventual demise.
I’ve just finished reading the book and have a renewed enthusiasm for TXP and now have several projectson the drawing board to use it and I suspect I’m not the only one. I think the book release will do more for the TXP platform and community than anything which has gone before it. From my own perspective, coming into TXP cold was difficult as the TXP model is not and never has been obvious and easy to figure out but by chapter 3 of the book it felt like a great veil had been lifted and sun was shining on textpattern.
I for one (now) wouldnt swap out TXP for WP or EE and I personally support developers charging for plugins they’ve taken their time to develop. Its a market economy. If you dont want to pay, dont. I for one would rather spend a little money to support enthusiasts working hard to develop the features we really do want rather than coughing up a lot of money for the bloatware offered by some other platforms.
#6 beth
Nathan it takes a big man to apologize for his mistakes. You’re a good, professional guy.