I don't believe he is conflating anything. The author of the letter puts forward the notion that using the BSD licence was a good decision because it maximised

I don't believe he is conflating anything. The author of the letter puts forward the notion that using the BSD licence was a good decision because it maximised the probability of companies like Intel using it. The commenter is implying that there's nothing particularly good about Intel having the free ability to shove a closed source ME-11 into most of our computers, that using a different licence would have in fact stopped them doing so, and that, contrary to your point, may in fact have led to them releasing the source. "not party to that transaction" and "immaterial to this discussion" have no place here, we're discussing an open letter and we're free to evaluate his position however we feel. If the author wanted to have a private conversation with Intel he was free to do so.