If the trademark is indeed on the wordpress.org foundation and not the wordpress.com company, I didn’t think that’s a fair argument.

It is but the trademark is licensed to Automattic which handles all further commercial sub-licensing. And the CEO of Automattic sits on the board of the workpress foundation and is the creator of wordpress itself.

I don’t think either is a cancer to the FOSS Wordpress ecosystem. Both seem to give back.

I believe that this all started as the Automattic CEO did not think that WPEngine was contributing enough back to the wordpress ecosystem. Even after years of attempts to negotiate this. Seems he gave up trying and went after them for trademark rules as that was the only real leaver he had to pull. Since there is no obligation for WPEngine to contribute back to wordpress directly.

WPEngine using the Wordpress trademark makes me think they’re using Wordpress

Apparently this is contentious enough to be disputed in court not everyone thinks this and there are enough people that are confused over the matter that Automattic believe they can prove a trademark volition in court.

Lots more details in this interview with automattic CEO.

Dont know whos right here. Probably both sides are wrong to some degree. But worth hearing both sides of the argument before making a decision.