You are absolutely passing judgement when you equate the blowback against Kite with extrajudicial (and mostly racist) murder. That you doubled down in your flagged comment instead of acknowledging the (being charitable) hyperbole raises questions about your judgement. No offense.
That said, by deed and by words (per their apology) they executed on an "ends justify the means" business model. They wanted more business, they came up with the idea of buying open source projects, took a stab at integrating their functionality with the projects, and people didn't like it.
Don't tell me the people don't have a right to choose how they respond to Kite, business reputation is an actual thing and you can't browbeat people into ignoring their feelings on the issue.
Regardless, whether their strategy was malicious and/or shady is a value judgement best left to the individual, and there appear to be a variety of opinions on the matter. Note that @abe33 does not list Kite as an employer, so it would appear he's hedging his bet on how awesome this idea is.
I wonder how people feel about adding other names to the Clacks header? It feels a tad lonely for his name to be the only one passed around in this manner. It seems quite like a virtual graveyard, but with only one gravestone. As much as I respect Pratchett, many others are already commemorating his name, and I would feel compelled to add another. If people put their own loved ones into the Clacks header, perhaps this idea could grow, and become a more permanent part of the internet.
You can pick only two options;