+1 I'm biased towards Automattic, for sure, because everything I've seen them do has been to support Free Code ecosystems and social web communities. Like hiring the ActivityPub for WP developer fulltime to work on the plugin.

I've only skimmed the first half of the article you linked. But if even half of Matt's claims about what WP Engine are doing are true, It reminds me of the shitfuckery LibLime / PTFS tried with the Koha project, or Oracle with OpenOffice.

In which case, Automattic and the WP Foundation are well within their rights to use any means at their disposal to protect the WP ecosystem from this kind of corporate parasitism. Especially in its particularly pernicious private equity firm, see;

https://redgreenandblue.org/2023/01/07/cory-doctorow-antitrust-twilight-zone-thats-feeding-monopoly-explosion/

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/are-private-equity-firms-plundering-the-u-s-economy/

https://www.theverge.com/23758492/private-equity-brendan-ballou-plunder-finance-doj