I see no problem with Mark Shuttleworth inviting developers of OpenSuse.
Nobody was coerced nor threatened.
He is presenting them an opportunity that was
taken away by the Novell-Microsoft deal to FOSS OpenSuse developers - that is, the right to create income stream from the contributions they made.
It's not Suse vs. Ubuntu. It's about community and ecology. This is about everybody having a home in FOSS.
If it was true that Mark Shuttleworth is halting release of GNome - there is no problem.
First : He (maintainer) was hired. He can always resign his post to somebody he thinks that can make judgment that is not affected by Mark Shuttleworth. I see a conflict of interest on the maintainers part.
Second: I think he just missed the opportunity for Debian here. Debian can become an ad-hoc standard of all distro's based from it. Because of his whining he missed a good opportunity.
From the Reply of JS Rosevear of Suse:
You know from the tone of JP Rosevear; it sound's like "It's payback time."
This is not how a FOSS contributor acts. JP Rosevear thinks that they can laud the MicroNov deal while they allow both parties to tear what FOSS ecology is all about.
So much for their complaint on a simple letter from Mark Shuttleworth.