Wow. They filed a ticket and then secretly used an admin bot user to accept the change? That sounds incredibly dishonest - not just an oops situation there.
Looking at the broader context, it seems that the foundation simply considered the projects as "theirs" in some key ways, honestly thought the migration was best for the projects, and so opted for a mechanism that would be quick and easy for everyone. From that point of view, you could even argue that bothering busy maintainers to get them to approve some minor housekeeping was just a waste of time...especially if you believe - as the foundation seemed to - that this change was both helpful and properly the foundations responsibility and not the maintainers.
Obviously, that viewpoint was not shared by the maintainers! And, thankfully, the foundation has now repudiated it, but if you take their statements at face value, I see nothing strange about how they did it.
This seems like the core issue. But I disagree it is a simple mistake. "Oops. I simply considered your work as mine. Sorry my bad!"
I think we can all agree how the foundation handled this was really bad, but if you don't like having the risk of a foundation unilaterally doing stuff, don't join it a foundation?
> The .NET Foundation uses either an assignment model or a contribution model for on-boarding new projects. Under the assignment model, a project transfers ownership of the copyright to the .NET Foundation. Under the contribution model, a project retains ownership of the copyright, but grants the .NET Foundation a broad license to the project’s code and other intellectual property.
I guess the impacted projects had not selected the "assignment model" in the first place.
I agree that it shouldn’t have been done in secret, but beyond that I don’t see any bad intentions here.
And it sounds like the maintainers, rightfully, are wary about continuing with the DNF particularly because they haven't been consulted in years.