Don't think it was that nefarious. More likely that the original developers were committed to open source, and then took lots of venture capital money to keep coding and making cool things. Now those VCs want a return on their investment, and effectively have control over the product.
It’s a strategy that isn’t working out for a bunch of companies.
Releasing it for 'free' is the not the same as an equitable Open Source license.
It's nothing like open source; it's proprietary software that attempts to leverage the goodwill of the “open source” label without adhering to what that label means.
> We aren't all hippies who can sit around at MIT.
Look, if open source doesn't work for your business situation, that's fine, just don't lie about being committed to open source where you are truly only committed to your own profits, all while making disparaging portrayals of the people who actually are committed to open source.
In your mind, how should a "committed to open source" company respond to an existential threat (not only to the business, but to the project given the business is the primary sponsor of the project)? Are there better open source licenses that allow them to meet the same ends? Or should they just cease to exist, lay off their staff, and abandon the project out of a Stallmanic dream of open source?
Why? Because < 100% of their code is open source? This seems infeasibly idealistic, and a false dichotomy. You can be a proprietary software company that is still very committed to open source. Anyway, if < 100% is the standard, surely Amazon is worse yet, no?
> Elastic is the rare company that truly is committed to open source
On their face, those two statements seem mutually exclusive. What context am I missing that would make them not so?