The Register has picked up on an interesting case of the past coming back to haunt blogger Marc Fleury, owner of company “JBoss” which was recently bought up by Red Hat, making Fleury an executive at the open source giant.
A comment on his blog, dug up from September ’04, shows Fleury unleash a torrent of abuse at what he saw as the “open source wannabee” and “girly man” of Red Hat.
$350m seems to have helped him change his mind, but no cleansing of the blog could escape the cache; the original post can be found here.
It’s worth remembering that in this digital age what you say is always available to public scrutiny, even if it is years down the line. For most people that won’t be a problem, but it’s certianly worth remembering when you’re penning a vicious assault on someone or something that may come back to haunt you in the future. That’s not to discourage honesty in blogging, it’s just worth remembering at all times. If you’re in an industry that’s always changing, you might need to think twice about what you’re saying to ensure your words are reflective of your opinions.
Of course in his defence Fleury could have a valid reason for changing his mind over the last two years, one that doesn’t involve big money. Companies change, people change and the world changes; you can’t expect someone’s opinion one year to be the same the next and it would be wrong to criticise without giving them a chance to explain their change of heart.