That's were we can see some or most entrepreneurs are not like real artists. (Not saying they should be...) Take the same choice, but apply it to a musician: I

That's were we can see some or most entrepreneurs are not like real artists. (Not saying they should be...) Take the same choice, but apply it to a musician: I am Universal, I propose to give you a lot of money but I buy your past and future music, and I buy your band name. I'll tell you a lot of nice things: you will be my prefered musician, I'll promote your work everywhere, you'll do concerts, and all that. But in fact I'll just promote another musician instead, and I bought you only to let more room for this other one. Don't laugh, that's what happens in the music industry. I have been a sound engineer in a previous life, and saw it with my eyes. Then, if you are a real musician, you would be nauseated and will regret taking the money, because what you really care about is making music and having people listening to your work. It is not a dissimilar as one could think. If a software is considered by its maker as a work of love, art and craftmanship, then the said maker should consider it twice before selling it to a big company: it is likely, very likely indeed, that this piece of work will just be diluted, butchered, or simply forgotten in a dark corner, without you being able to do anything about it. The money is power, it is the power of those who have the most of it, and I think it is very naive to think big corporations can be easily fooled into some transaction that is not in their own interest. I do not say that Tumblr or whatnot should be understood as works that should be protected against the big fish, but other projects are: If Google bought Firefox, if Linus sold Linux or git to MicroSoft, if Ubuntu became a subdivision of Amazon, then I think there would more at stakes than only money, not matter how high the pile.