And even less to do so with the notion of not including any GPL code for must-have standard features (markup converters, feeds, database drivers, template engines, what-not). IMHO: A high risk, low returns endeavour.

Brian was right about one thing: It takes way too much energy to fight rampant rumors and whatnot. I prefer to keep my yap shut until I have all the facts. But … I’m apparently not most people.

What’s interesting today is that DIYThemes.com is down with a big juicy 403. Not sure if this is related or…if it was hacked or if this is temporary. I hope it’s not the end of Thesis Theme – probably not – just timing on the first of the month I suppose.

Any thoughts?

Brian – what are you running now, or moving toward? I see from your source that your CSS is referencing thesis_18… I’m curious to know what direction you are goung in…

I don’t like Chris. Chris burnt his bridges with me numerous times over the years and I was always forgiving enough to let him have another chance. He has run out of chances.

So you want bias? There it is. Run with it.

That said, I find it very interesting that Brain is being so public about it.

It also seems irresponsible that Aaron would publish something like this without giving Chris an opportunity for rebuttal. None-the-less it doesn’t surprise me to find this on technosailor considering Aaron’s public dislike for Chris. I’d like point out this is just one side of the story.

As one of the Headway affiliates that “discoursed” Thesis and Headway (I prefer passionate user as it was never about affiliation but different points of view), Brian certainly offered his take, as did Headway users.

The cool thing is, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I’d like to think that both Brian and myself came to an understanding (I believe in another blog post’s comments, actually). I apologized to Brian for some things I said that probably could have been said in a better way, and we agreed that the “arguments” weren’t helping anyone.

It’s interesting to read this post, since anytime folks ask why I don’t use Thesis anymore and switched to Headway, a big part of it is that I don’t agree with the way Chris Pearson handles himself, or can treat his customers (I’ve seen many an exchange where he rips the crap out of paying users for having a differing point of view on something).

Seems Brian might be feeling the same…

does that mean you’re stepping away without getting paid? I know you got out of law and litigating but that doesent sound right.

wish you well and thanks for sharing such great tips and insight on copyblogger
whats in the works as far as higher end (ie paid) copy and infomarketing training from you brian? besides speaking do you have any books or memberships coming out ?

Both EE and SS have been around far longer than WP, so even if you feel they are on equal ground in terms of features, it still isn’t realistic to think one guy is going to produce something in any reasonable time that will compare with something developed over a near 10 year span by multiple developers.

As loyal as a good chunk of Thesis users are, I just don’t see any way any significant number of them make that leap of faith with that first alpha version.

I don’t want to turn this into a software debate, but I think the recent schism, because of Matt (and Chris’) actions, has caused more trauma than most will want to admit.

You don’t need to own the market, you just need a little piece of the pie.

Even if he’s been working on “his own thing” since the inception of Thesis…

Unfortunately, he hasn’t. Chris spent his time fighting against WordPress and taking Thesis on a divergent development path. Again, this was against my advice (based on how I want a WordPress framework to operate as a publisher) but I was outvoted. So, now I get to do things my way… not necessarily right or wrong, just the way my “in-the-trenches” experience as the publisher of several major sites has indicated.

I don’t know that the facts agree with you. There is a huge entrenched advantage that comes with being *everywhere* like WordPress is.. one click installers, Cpanel, WebPI, whatever. Throw in a huge trained and informed community with the support structure – books, forums, mailing lists, irc, etc – you’re facing an uphill battle.

I’m in the thick of a similar one at this point: Three years ago the dotProject team split. Before the split, there was 1 book, 8 team members, 15k forum users and thousands of installs… which made for a lot of inertia. Luckily, on our side of the split – web2project – we benefited from a handful of aggressive developers, personal connections, and dotProject *not* making regular releases.

Since WordPress will likely to continue making releases and Matt has a *huge* platform – and consider people like Jane, Mark, or Aaron and the numerous WordCamps – the fight would be even harder. Chris’ only shot would be to bring in a big player to help with marketing *and* distribution quickly.. and have something to distribute.

Two words: Developing countries.

I’m already trying to move, but there’s not another platform worthy of my cash at the moment. At some point, we won’t need the flexibility of WP because other distribution channels are going to steal some of the thunder.

A better approach IMO would be for him to get involved with something like Habari, which uses the MIT license. That would give him the benefit of open source developers without the restrictions of the GPL. And that could be something that could turn out to be pretty cool.

I do a lot of work with litigators and I can relate to what Brian said about litigation. It can drag on and on, so I’m glad that both he and Chris were able to avoid it and continue to focus on innovation.

Looking forward to what both of them will be doing in the future. Thanks for the great interview!

They say change is good, so we will have to see how this all works out for both parties and also see how the WordPress community grows over the next few years. I can easily say that since I started to design themes for WordPress a year ago, it’s been interesting considering I primarily work with the Joomla community.

Best of luck and hope things work out for everyone involved….