Taken in isolation, that might appear over the top, but as you can see from subsequent comments by martin on that thread and his attempts to elicit symapthy on HN by posting an inflammatory post [1] and tweeting about it [2], martin has clearly shown who has less class here.

On the contrary, Zed has chosen not broadcast this to the wide world though he is clearly the "injured" party here.

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1873881 [2] http://twitter.com/#!/martinemde/status/589562699063297

I don't know, would you call copyright infringement a "classy" thing to do?

not at all -- just thought that was the only part that martinemde could possibly object to.

My money's on being caught red-handed at copyright infringement. Plus an unhealthy level of entitlement (I'm a fucking Engine Yard programmer for fuck sake.)

The Engine Yard comment was meant to be taken as "I use your stuff (mongrel) and respect you. I had no intention of wronging you."

As for "being caught red-handed" it's a matter of intent. Martin didn't mean to wrong Zed, he was inspired by Zed but ultimately messed up (by assuming it was okay to modify the text).