""" The critical piece of "embrace, extend, extinguish" is the extinguish, and by being opensource that isn't possible."""
It's entirely possible.
A project that's open source but has 90% of the dev team, and especially the major players working for a parent company, it's not a "community" project.
And being a community project is what people most want when they root for open source software.
For one, the parent company, by simply hiring tons of developers, has the say in how the project is run and what it's roadmap is.
On top of this, it's extremely difficult or almost impossible to fork such a project. The fact that you have the LEGAL/LICENSING capability to fork it means nothing. What's important is the TECHNICAL/COMMUNITY viability of a fork.
It's entirely possible.
A project that's open source but has 90% of the dev team, and especially the major players working for a parent company, it's not a "community" project.
And being a community project is what people most want when they root for open source software.
For one, the parent company, by simply hiring tons of developers, has the say in how the project is run and what it's roadmap is.
On top of this, it's extremely difficult or almost impossible to fork such a project. The fact that you have the LEGAL/LICENSING capability to fork it means nothing. What's important is the TECHNICAL/COMMUNITY viability of a fork.