An open letter to the owner of planwerk.com.au.

To the current custodian,

We know who you are. We will not name you, owing to ongoing proceedings in the Court of Deeply Held Feelings, a fictional jurisdiction convened shortly after we discovered that you had bought our obvious domain.

You registered planwerk.com.au before we did. Our investigation confirms that you visited a registrar, checked availability and paid. We have found no irregularity in this process. We find this particularly difficult to accept.

During the same period, we were engaged in higher-order work: defining the category, refining the mint and debating the scope of The Framework. You, meanwhile, clicked a button. History will decide which activity constituted leadership. The registrar has already made its position clear.

We are not alleging theft. We are alleging timing. Specifically, timing that was better than ours, deployed without regard for how it would make us feel. Legal ownership appears to be yours. A powerful sense that this ought to be ours remains firmly with us.

Our business remains unaffected. The .life website works. Our seventeen offices remain as operational as before. No paying customer has experienced an interruption, assisted by the fact that the product has not launched. Nevertheless, we have formed a committee.

The Committee for Domain Repatriation has identified one preliminary concern: “repatriation” implies prior possession, which we cannot demonstrate. A subcommittee is determining whether conviction can substitute for ownership. We await its findings with conviction.

Despite these developments, we remain committed to a constructive resolution. We therefore invite you to consider an indicative acquisition package of $14.95, a cutting from the office pot plant, and an honorary PlanWerk University qualification. The qualification includes an email-signature badge. There will be no equity, no board seat and no right to rename The Framework.

We will take it back. To be precise, we will seek to acquire it, if you agree to sell it. This is the sentence that survived the working group. Should you decline, we will respect your decision while continuing to describe the matter as unresolved. Our resolve to send a politely worded follow-up should not be underestimated.

You may hold the domain. You do not hold the narrative.

We were not outmanoeuvred. We were insufficiently registered. We trust this clarifies our position.

Yours with unwavering conviction and a functioning alternative domain,