Because these VC-backed OSS companies don't do open source for ideological reasons* , they do it because it gives them a competitive advantage. A permissive lic

Because these VC-backed OSS companies don't do open source for ideological reasons* , they do it because it gives them a competitive advantage. A permissive license means broader adoption, which means more $. And now some of them are complaining that they need to compete to get rich quickly off of the software they donated to the public. If you gift someone a lottery ticket, you deserve $0 if they win. That's what you gave up when you gifted. Everyone is so caught up in licenses, what they really need to ask is: "why can't these companies handle competition from cloud providers?". Don't tell me it's resources when these unicorns are getting VC funding to back a single technology when cloud providers support literally hundreds. They could take the Red Hat business model, but is hard and slow. I would imagine VC growth pressure makes it difficult to follow the Red Hat model. *The software may have started open source for ideological reasons, but once you hit the VC funding stage, open source becomes strategically important for adoption reasons. The companies might believe in it (sometimes their unwillingness to accept PRs that would help the community but hurt their business makes you wonder), but that's not why VC funding happens.