Comment by atombender

If you read the letter from Synadia to the CNCF committee [1], the license change and taking control back to commercialize NATS is the entire reason for the change.

It's not because they're unhappy about the CNCF or that they're not getting their money's worth; that is at best a red herring. If they genuinely thought the CNCF's governance was lacking, there are ways for them to take steps to improve the situation without a license change.

But that's not what they're doing. They cannot continue at the CNCF if NATS is turned into a proprietary product.

All the lofty words about a strong commitment to open source has no merit now. If they were committed to open source, they would stay with the CNCF.

I wish companies had the courage to be forthright: Synadia gave something away for free, they now regret that nobody is paying what they think they deserve, and they want the money. It's as simple as that. Those goals — at least in terms of the chosen strategy — are not compatible with open source, and they might as well admit it.

[1] https://github.com/cncf/foundation/blob/main/documents/nats/...