This is completely user-hostile and bordering on malware now. Though by your insistence of saying "OSS" I have a feeling you and GP don't actually care about software users, only developers.

How? Users [0] are free to either go with October's new direction or switch to WinterCMS, which seems to be fully compatible and a minimal change as of now. Thanks to this, users can now actually choose which way they prefer, instead of being forced in either direction!

[0] As in "developers using the CMS"; for actual users of projects based on the CMS, absolutely nothing changes.

Not every user monitors every single goings on with their software. There is also no mention of the software becoming proprietary on the October CMS website. Users shouldn't have to keep tabs on their free software for fear of it becoming proprietary due to a hostile takeover.

It mentions their move to paid only on the homepage.

Paid doesn't mean proprietary.

No, but you could click one link and read a short blog article - the word proprietary is just a few hundred words in.

Calling this a hostile takeover is being extremely overdramatic. There was a fork.

Are you talking about the fork or the original project? I agree the original project's move is a bit user hostile as it now requires people to pay immediately if they want to continue receiving updates. However, I don't see how this can be 'bordering on malware'

That being said, it is the right of the maintainers to fork the software as allowed by the Open Source license the original code was under. Users now have the choice of paying the original company or using the free version with a new name. I fail to see how this is user-hostile.

As someone who doesn't own software I buy from major companies, but continues to collectively own old versions of October CMS, I don't feel much malware. There's still a good deal of actual software here.