alt Hacker NewsThe trademarks argument seemed overblown, "JABOG" style.
The new to me allegation in this is this alleged WPE swap out of WooCommerce Stripe affiliate account:
WP Engine had been siphoning “tens of millions” of dollars away from Woo’s revenue share partnership with Stripe into its own coffers. It’s understood WP Engine has been swapping out WooCommerce’s Stripe Connect Account information for its own when a user installs WooCommerce.
Ripping out an OSS' revenue model would seem not great. There's a term for use of electronic communication systems to redirect money to oneself. But, not cut and dried, if the source code containing that model is fair game...
To your point, this must be a one-sided take as well, since one would have expected an accusation of 8 figure wire fraud to escalate more clearly if it were that simple.
You're missing the point that WP Engine forked WooCommerce.
It is their version of the project and they are permitted by the terms of the license that WooCommerce agreed to make whatever changes they like.
Open source is a double edged sword. You can't leverage the benefits of the community and then deny the community the ability to benefit themselves.