Sorry for this inconvenience.

Hope you’ve moved on to bigger and even more creative projects – I agree with what Disa Johnson posted above.

All the best,

I agree that the name should have been changed earlier, but it was somewhat difficult due to the number of tweets and website visits we’d received.

Since when does more traffic have to be a bad thing?

If I were Joel, right now, ASAP, before ANYTHING else, I’d replace the original landing page with a four-paragraph mini-history & resource version. Focus on the good about the scripts, but also acknowledge what happened.

The first paragraph would *very* briefly point out the difference between the two, and confirm that Joel’s script has (I hope!!) just been re-named. Next would come two more paragraphs: an annotated link that leads to the original EasyWP, followed by another that links to your new script.

At the bottom of the page you could have a *brief* apology for the confusion and oversight, plus few links that tell the story of this story, with very brief annotation if needed. A link to this post on smackdown would be a good.

Meet that sometimes-uncomfortable transparency with generosity.

Firstly, I’d like to apologise for the controversy that has arisen over the two scripts- the existence of similar scripts should have checked before Joel’s EasyWP was written.
I’m very sorry Joel’s integrity is being questioned in this way; I assisted him in writing a few functions in his script, and I am the friend mentioned in his email who found your script. It was very unlucky that @smashingmag tweeted about Joel’s script just after we’d googled for EasyWP and discovered the existence of your script.

I, and several others with whom Joel has spoken in the last few days, will be willing to testify that he did not knowingly plagiarise your script.
If you compare the source code of both scripts, there are several differences – yours only works on *NIX-based servers because of its use of tar, rm and mv. Joel’s, however, ought to work on both Windows and *NIX. In addition, Joel’s script uses a different function to download the latest version of WordPress (file_get_contents).

Having spoken to Joel yesterday evening, we’re planning to take his script in a different direction completely and release it under a different name. Joel has built in an update mechanism to his script so that any further changes we make will be easily propagated.
I agree that the name should have been changed earlier, but it was somewhat difficult due to the number of tweets and website visits we’d received.

Hope we can find a clear way through these issues.
Regards,

Donald Harvey

Once something is out there it is impossible to get rid of it. The discussions around this incident will be archived online in perpetuity. Now if Joel can learn from this and move forward, gaining valuable lessons in transparency and integrity, he will be in great shape. If not I fear for his rep by the time he’s 20.

I encourage both side to continue keeping us posted in the comments here as things progress.

Just a week or so ago I found an article thief and asked him to link to the original article (or mention that I wrote the article and link to a few other pages on my site). The thief replied that he had the links, but during content reorganization, he somehow lost them.

I’m not sure how it’s possible to lose only a part of the content, if you organize WP, but it seems that ignorance of existence of the copyright holder seem to bear close resemblance to the ignorance of any existing copyright rights and issues.

Oh btw, as far as I recall, Joel *leads* a teen company, has had a few successes and – as far as I understand – is well into the tech social circle. I wouldn’t insist on this, but if stretching it, it seems like he might’ve chosen to outpromote your plugin, hoping his contacts/social mojo would be enough to make his plugin visible, while others would ignore your plugin. Quite a popular tactic on social voting websites: using powerful profiles to make popular stories that were submitted and didn’ get traction. Just guesstimating here.

I’m trying to get in contact with you. I want to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

Regards,
Joel Drapper

I don’t like that he does not open his communication with you with an apology. He could have and should have Googled prospective names, before deciding on one. That’s just common sense, no matter what age he is, and I doubt he’ll forget next time!

By asking if he could keep the name, since @smashignmagazine has already tweeted it, he shows that he understands social media’s distribution system, but not the accountability that must go along with making connections online. This online system we are part of blesses us with much transparency!

Kudos to you for standing up for yourself and providing this open discussion, and kudos to him for, I hope, learning some hard lessons about networking and reputation management in a digital age.