You know what though?
As much as I'd like to believe that this could end gracefully, I know full well that it won't unless we take the choice to let it go. And therein's the thing: I've said that Wedge is the direct consequence of their combined failures to get it right, to make it what it could have been and not push out the people who can and will make a difference.
That hasn't changed one iota; Wedge was founded on the rising out of the embers of the fire that both Nao and I had in our hearts for SMF, out of the countless hours we both gave to the SMF ecosystem, out of all the things we saw being done wrong, or not being done to the very best they could.
It was never a battle of politics between us and them - not for one moment. It was a battle of ideologies, of hearts and minds, the bottom line is that we had plans for what SMF could have been, and we were previously prepared to help them make it happen, but our plans are not their plans.
Going our own way was inevitable, sooner or later, whether it was 'forcibly' after the events of last summer that compelled us to do this or not. I mean, had the alternative happened and we became SMF devs, it would only have been after 2.0 anyway that something like Wedge happened, because we'd have disagreed vehemently between what we wanted in 2.1 and what they would have wanted - remember, they take the view, legitimately even if it is somewhat naive, that they are 'only a forum' or 'a forum first and foremost'. That's not our view, that's not where we're going. So in the end it would have come down to us and them, the only difference was in the terms and timing of the split.
There is, much as I don't really want to accept it, a legitimacy to their point: we are still competition, by having signatures, we would be promoting competition on their site, and whether the rule predates this or not, the question you have to ask is whether we'd allow a link to simplemachines.org from a signature here, and I suspect the answer is no.
So, with that in mind, I henceforth ask everyone to remove images and website links from simplemachines.org pointing here. They've made it clear they don't have any issues with people linking to sites powered by phpBB in signatures - and that's right, they're not competing with simplemachines.org, no matter how it looks.
When the time comes, we can follow their example and link to Wedge powered sites in our signatures, just not here specifically - after all, that's not competing with simplemachines.org, is it?
This round is theirs, and legitimately so. But instead of us trying to compete with them directly on their battle ground, let's take the competition to the open market and let the two compete on an absolutely equitable basis, and then see how well it works out for all concerned.
