I completely agree in that projects/products which have come to the end of their life cycle should opt at the possibility of open sourcing. But it's not always as simple as that. Some times, the feat of open sourcing something might takes considerable time, both from refactoring, and convincing people who need to be convinced that they shouldn't let the product rot.

Also, I've not actually heard of Copycopter before, and I think it's a bit of a stretch to make the causative link between your announcement of shutting down, to also having AOL and Oink following suit. Correlation does not prove causation. (I've not actually heard of copycopter before).

Completely agree on the OS'ing aspect though. To make a point, when IndexTank got bought by LinkedIn, they Open Sourced it. I was then given the opportunity to look through the code, and it was then that I decided to migrate from IndexTank with immediate effect. Even though other parties were picking up the sources, I was able to make this decision will full disclosure. (And move to Solr).