Wordpress is a private company. This is a normal private-company structure.

I'm not suggesting the board actually did anything legally risky here. The standards for that in Delaware are high. But morally, it's much harder to defend, so long as they knew this is what the outcome would be --- which it seems like they kind of clearly did.

Automattic, you mean. But it’s easy to get confused. WP.org is him, not the Foundation, but is hosted on Foundation servers. WP Engine owes Automattic money, not the Foundation, or community, but Automattic because the Foundation silently granted Automattic commercial rights to WP, the same day they told the community they were the WordPress stewards to keep it free from commercial influence.

Moral dimensions are an interesting topic, but moral actions come first and foremost from environments that promote group morality. I’d argue that Mullenweg has spent a lot of time and effort undermining that. Besides in the world of big business if the lawyers are consulted and give the high sign the moral dimension is often superficial, performative, or absent.