I know there’s been a lot of frustration directed at me specifically. Some of it, I believe, is misplaced—but I also understand where it’s coming from.
The passing of Pope Francis has deeply impacted me. While I still disagree with the Church on many issues, he was the Pope who broke the mold in so many ways, inspiring me and drawing me back to the Catholic faith I grew up with, with an emphasis on service, compassion, and humility. His passing on Easter Monday, a holiday about rebirth, feels historic. Moments like that invite reflection—not just on personal choices, but on the broader systems we’re a part of.
My life, which was primarily about generative creative work that was free for everyone to use, has been subsumed by legal battles. From the start, I’ve said this: after many rounds of negotiation that I approached in good faith, WPE chose to sue. In hindsight, those conversations weren’t held in the same spirit, and that’s unfortunate.
But we can’t rewrite the past. What we can do is decide how we move forward.
The maker-taker problem, at the heart of what we’ve been wrestling with, doesn’t disappear by avoiding it. If we’re serious about contributing to the future of open source, and about preserving the legacy of what we’ve built together, we need space to reset. That can’t happen under the weight of ongoing litigation. The cards are in WPE hands, a fight they’ve started and refuse to end.
So I’m asking for a moment of reflection for us all as stewards of a shared ecosystem. Let’s not lose sight of that.
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