I have no dog in this fight, but from the outside this is ludicrous behaviour.
Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of a for-profit WordPress hosting company, should not be using his position in the open-source WordPress project to attack another for-profit WordPress hosting company. Nothing could tank the reputation of the open-source WordPress project faster.
This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company. WordPress powers about 40% of the web - it is too big to fail (as of now).
> This only tanks the reputation of Mullenweg himself and his WordPress hosting company.
I am only looking at this from the outside but given that Wordpress.org (not the wordpress hosting company wordpress.com) is involved here, it's clear that this dispute involves the Wordpress project itself and not just the commercial Automattic entity/Matt Mullenweg.
It's 40% of websites, but bear in mind that not all websites are of equal significance. Some websites are just spam and never receive any visits. If we measured how much time people spend on different websites, I would guess that WordPress wouldn't even reach 5% of time spent web surfing.
> The abbreviation “WP” is not covered by the WordPress trademarks and you are free to use it in any way you see fit.
and
> Similarly, a business related to WordPress themes can describe itself as “XYZ Themes, the world’s best WordPress themes,” but cannot call itself “The WordPress Theme Portal.”
Matt Mullenweg, the CEO of a for-profit WordPress hosting company, should not be using his position in the open-source WordPress project to attack another for-profit WordPress hosting company. Nothing could tank the reputation of the open-source WordPress project faster.