If you read it until the end you will find out that the technical support representative talking to the irate customer is the creator of PHP. As the creator, PHP can be whatever he decides he wants it to be.

And he has decided it is not a standardized language, by any stretch of the imagination. That's the guy's point, and it's spot-on.

As an aside, I didn't realize there would be people on HN who wouldn't recognize rasmus@php.net immediately.

While there are some industry veterans here, there are also a good amount of CS students and other beginners. I myself didn't know who he was until I got to the end of the article.