> […] obviously paid a PR company to go on an open source charm offensive […]
Please don’t do this here. Consider that others can disagree with you, or that you may simply be wrong.
> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, bots, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Why not? That's immediately who I thought of.
Company 1 develops an open-sources a product, and in order to make money from it, provides that product as a hosted service.
AWS uses their market dominance to provide a similar service and eats Company 1's lunch.
Company 1 changes their license so that any other company hosting the product as a service has to pay.
AWS forks it and acts like the good guy.
I was referring to the PR whitewashing piece submitted (written by an ex Amazon employee, no less), not to anybody on this site.
Please ask questions in future before accusing and refrain from assuming malintent.