WTF "spirit" is comes down to whatever the founder wants it to be, in this case Matt has decided to target developers instead of addressing the issue with Envato or the community. It has created a confusing situation with good people stuck in the middle.
Why was Jake Caputo singled out, several WordCamp speakers and even core contributors have items on Envato. Are developers going to have to submit under pseudonyms so they can make a living?
Envato itself sponsors the WordPress community summit (and past wordcamps). Do they not see this as a mixed signal?
Who exactly is behind the elusive wordpress.org foundation, is it a private foundation run only by Matt himself?
How are the foundation goals not polluted by having the same director of the closed source wordpress.com (who also sell premium themes but in the context of a "service").
Why does the "spirit" of GPL apply to a large company and not me, for example I can copyright my images/graphics in a WordPress theme and still comply with the license, but Envato can't?
Is the line drawn when only when a theme is distributed? What about all the theme shops that have non GPL creative work in them?
Is Wordpress.com exempt because it is a service, what is preventing Envato or anyone else from starting it's own split-license theme "service". What exactly is the difference between a theme service and a theme distributor?
ps. The original article and discussion is here: http://www.designcrumbs.com/automatically-blackballed