That's not his defense. His defense is that the GPL is legally unenforceable in his particular case. What you call his defense is really his justification for

That's not his defense. His defense is that the GPL is legally unenforceable in his particular case. What you call his defense is really his justification for fighting so hard. And his justification is more than "it just rubs me the wrong way." His sense of ownership is being violated. As for Matt Mullenweg's graciousness, see this comment where he snipes Pearson's work: "We've never incorporated anyone's code without their full participation and there's no code in Thesis I would want anywhere near core anyway. Thesis is a triumph of marketing, not technical competence. (In fact it relies on people not being able to question its incredulous claims about structure and SEO.) The few cool ideas it has were done in other themes first anyway. On a tech level, WooThemes is doing far more interesting work. (And they have been involved in core development.)" http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1517073 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1517073