Awhile back in this thread, someone asked for end user feedback. I'm an advanced end user - I've been using WordPress for 10 years, and have multiple sites of my own. I also provide support and customization services to more technically-challenged end users who thought they were getting into something easy when they decided to build/manage their own site in WordPress.

I instantly spotted Zerif Lite as a freemium theme the first time I looked at it. It's not that hard to tell. The Zerif Lite documentation on ThemeIsle's site redirects the reader to a login page for premium users in the first sentence. The company has a long-established practice of holding support hostage for premium users only, though (speaking of gaming things) they like to post a last word in WordPress.org support threads that were actually answered by volunteers so it looks like they are providing a lot more free support than they actually are.

The fact that ThemeIsle claims it is defending a non-portable theme in the best interests of end users is the height of cynicism. Locking users into any theme is clearly not to their advantage, which is why portability is a core value of WordPress. If ThemeIsle's disregard of that value wasn't enough to expose their sense of entitlement to manipulate the system to their advantage, their threats to withdraw support from WordPress sponsorships surely is. They can dress that up however they like, but the underlying assumption that they expected those sponsorships to buy them special consideration is too obvious to hide.

I have nothing against theme and plugin authors getting paid for their work. Creating themes and plugins has become increasing complex, and maintaining them has become increasingly demanding. However, there are a lot of different ways to monetize around WordPress products. Some models align well with the whole concept of WordPress (GeneratePress, for example has done a stellar job of this), while others are a mockery of it.

ThemeIsle falls into the latter category. Their history makes it pretty obvious that their concern about an end-user transition has a lot more to do with the burden of providing support for it than it does with the end-user's experience. Arguing that they can't follow the rules they have knowingly violated for years because it would hurt thousands of customers is an application of the "too-big-to-fail" excuse that American users, at least, are unlikely to regard with any sympathy.

That sense of entitlement crops up again when ThemeIsle insists that moving the content to a plugin is no solution, because any plugin they write must only work with their theme. That's not a given, it's a choice. If they are so devoid of the WordPress spirit that the thought of writing a plugin to work with other themes offends them, they could just as easily recommend an existing free plugin that works with all themes, as many other themes do.

Widely-used themes have been required to migrate content from theme-specific widgets before. Is it a hardship for end-users? Yes. Is that a reason to allow theme authors to wiggle out of supporting a fix for a problem they created in the first place? No.

This end user is very happy to see the Theme Review Team sticking up for founding WordPress principles. On behalf of myself and my clients, I urge them to keep it up. In the increasingly complex and commercialized WP universe, it is the only thing that continues to set WordPress apart.