In reply to KTS915.

Business is business. Automatic has venture capital and that means he and the rest of the company are legally responsible to the investors at the end of the day, not to you, not ever.

Why does it keep coming up? Because it's relevant. It should come up every time. Sometimes abstaining from a vote is the right ting to do and that's a decision only he can make. If Automatic were publicly traded company, though, .org having a fully featured api would have to be listed as a potential risk. If you disagree with that you need to go back to finance class.

Personally, I love what Automatic has done. Their success has made a lot of things happen for WP that likely wouldn't have otherwise. But a stance that appears hardline by the leader who won't admit a clear conflict of interest is suspect every time.

This should be an engineering discussion about the merits of partial vs complete merge (and defined by whom), of which Automatic's conflict must be a discussion.

Partials may not matter to someone who only is a WP only developer, but to an engineer at a Fortune 100, it can make things a lot easier.