One of the uncomfortable aspects of open source is that you don't get to choose who uses it. The majority of customers we were aware of were security customers

One of the uncomfortable aspects of open source is that you don't get to choose who uses it. The majority of customers we were aware of were security customers looking to stop attacks on machines behind next-gen firewalls. We weren't aware of any "democracy suppression" use cases, but it would be naive to assume it's impossible. (edit - also worth noting that this question seems to refer to my old job; I don't currently work on Hyperscan, although I may go back to regex one day. I'm sympathetic with the line of questioning, though, so please stop downvoting the parent)