Zed has a caustic personality, but I have to admit that the article was probably the most cogent argument for the GPL over BSD-style licenses that I've ever heard.

Which part? The only thing I found cogent was his assertion that he, as the author of the software, gets to pick the license, and if you don't like it you can go and write your own code.

I think it is actually a mistake to think that a reciprocal license will lead to recognition in the form of accolades or money. Look at the accomplishments of the apache software foundation or the vast bsd communities.

From the various companies I've worked with and consulted with over the many years, I'd say that the success or failure of the software released had nothing to do with the open source or free license chosen and everything to do with the utility of the software and personality of the releasing developer.

Hmmm, I don't think that's true at all. Zed may have played this card online, but in reality, he's very professional and friendly when it counts. I would've loved the opportunity to work with him, and enjoyed every time I chatted with him (mostly at conferences).

Yes, in person he's been nothing but courteous. But he has a bit of "The Facebook Dilemma" on his hands in that people who are likely to hire him will Google him or know him from his caustic posts already.

So, rather than creating an opening for people to get to know him, he's managed to wall himself off in a nasty little shell. I'm sure his image reboot, what with going into Python, ditching the whole "ZSFA" moniker, and generally being a level headed guy will fare much better for him. He'll catch more flies with honey than vinegar, if you will.

I think he was burned a bit by what happened in the Ruby/Rails/Mongrel/etc. situation, and it's even worse when it affects your livelihood, and he lashed out as a result.

Outside of that situation, I've heard nothing of good things about him; and in my (limited, online-only) interactions with him, he's been unfailingly polite/patient/helpful/etc.

Yeah and I also think he's missing the point that people use mongrel not because it's awesome like Zed, but because they don't have choice. Having deployed several mongrel-based servers I personally think mongrel is a crappy server, and is in fact one of the reasons we switched to python/django.

Well that's not so much true anymore. I'd actually be interested to see its marketshare after the emergence of Passenger as a viable option, along with other proxying servers like Thin.

But yeah for a while, it was Mongrel or (ew) Webrick. How far we've come! :P

I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like anyone willingly deploys new apps using mongrel anymore. It's all passenger, glassfish, etc these days.

Thin is built with the HTTP parsing code from Mongrel - and, curiously, has always admitted it.

A large number of the people who shout "Mongrel sucks" have those funny ways of saying "except when it doesn't" under their breath right after.

I don't see how that would change anything; better than the alternatives is.

> he was a douchebag to them and everyone else.

Haven't heard but favorable opinions of him. persona != personality

If you willingly make a douchebag "persona" for yourself, don't complain when people call you a douchebag.

I'd complain about people not understanding that a programmer with an electric guitar that shoots lightning surrounded by strippers might have been ironic.

Generally speaking, people don't like ironic douchebags any better than they like regular douchebags.

Really? Look at Sasha Baron Cohen. As Borat, he's an ironic anti-Semite. Most people have noticed this, and if they find him funny, like him. Those same people would not like regular anti-Semites.