"not contributing" is fine, much worse would be if they tried to capture the protocol
There’s tons of drama going on over in WordPress land. Private equity Silverlake has bought up and is running WP Engine. They’re apparently not contributing back to the WordPress Foundation as much as the foundation people think is fair. That much seems fine, but Mullenweg also seems to be wanting to completely destroy WP Engine to the point where his company Automatic can buy them up for pennies on the dollar. Getting companies to contribute to the open source the use seems good, but weaponizing trademark to try and destroy another company in the ecosystem seems really questionable.
It’s interesting to think about because we don’t have a Nostr foundation or trademark. How would we handle if private equity came in to the Nostr ecosystem and didn’t contribute? We don’t have clear expectations of the role of companies in the Nostr space, nor do we have a central company or foundation the way Word Press does.
I think it’s worth thinking about the best way to set up Nostr to handle this going forward. Many people here know the saga around Craig Wright and the struggle to define who and what bitcoin is… That feels somewhat similar as well.
What do people think is the best way to handle this?
https://www.therepository.email/mullenweg-threatens-corporate-takeover-of-wp-engine
Discussion
This is the crux of the problem. If they out contribute (whatever contributing even means), they effectively do take over the protocol.
There is no winning for everyone with this issue.
A thing is either FOSS or it isn't. You can't get pissed at someone for doing something you told them they had a right to do. At least not rationally.