Google didn't "vacuum up" Pebble. Fitbit bought them (after they were in financial trouble), Google bought Fitbit later so ended up owning the Pebble source cod

Google didn't "vacuum up" Pebble. Fitbit bought them (after they were in financial trouble), Google bought Fitbit later so ended up owning the Pebble source code after that. As the top voted comment on the article says, Google didn't have to do this. It's probably driven by only a few people internally there, and if everyone's cynical and nasty about it, they're less likely to try doing the nice thing again next time. That isn't a good outcome.