The sweet deal on offer here is free code, free updates, proven success at high profile institutions, and a pool of skilled development firms to choose from to implement your customisations (should you need them).
If you can't sell that, well then I guess that must be a bit dissapointing as far as your own personal business interests go.
Luckily, there are many enlightened institutions who have already decided that it is indeed a pretty sweet deal, and will be rolling out .LRN to their users. They'll succeed because they have an honest, obvious stake in seeing it do so, and they have every oppertunity.
I can't imagine the kind of scenario you seem to fear in which a lone developer can hold an entire community of his wage payers to ransom. At this point, HE has effectively forked, you can replace him and carry on as if nothing had happened.
For such a vicious attack on Ben and developers in general, I'm suprised no one has anything to say. Perhaps I'm not the only one being asked by email to please keep quiet because Michael has some business deals cooking.
