Maybe his hands were tied in the sense that releasing things open source would limit his ability to package and sell it off at a later date? I'm sure there were

Maybe his hands were tied in the sense that releasing things open source would limit his ability to package and sell it off at a later date? I'm sure there were negotiations in progress at the time he would have considered doing so and from my POV, which could be terribly wrong, it would seem that releasing the thing you are considering to sell, for free, would sort of meddle with the entire process of selling it off?