I agree about the relevance of this story, and I'm a big fan of Dave's from his generosity to the Perl community, but his point would have been better served if he had been less personal and if he had taken his analysis a step further.

I think any time you characterize somebody in a negative light, it's best to acknowledge the risk that you didn't have the whole story.

In addition the fact that lawyers and the law aren't mentioned is a big gap in the point Dave makes. If you're working with strangers in America on something that is worth more than ten thousand dollars to you,the extent to which you can get a llawyer involved is the extent to which you can safeguard your interests.

Now, at risk in the tumblr acquisition seems to be tumblr's handle on cool. The situation of how tough it is for suits to draw up an agreement that protects "cool" set against how important such a challenge is during an acquisition might have made for a more interesting discussion.

As it stands, the takeaway for this story is basically "don't forget to bring a lawyer!"