I think you're giving Microchip too much credit. They say that contractually they "can’t release [their] existing stacks", not that they can't port other open s

I think you're giving Microchip too much credit. They say that contractually they "can’t release [their] existing stacks", not that they can't port other open source stacks to their hardware, or develop their own from scratch. I agree with you that they're trying to do the right thing, more or less. (Speaking for myself, not the OP,) the reason for the negative reaction is that they're touting their kit as "open source" when it's not, after a long history of proprietary development. If they had lived up to their claims from the start, I think the reaction would have been entirely positive.