This is why open-sourcing everything is the way to go. Hostile takeovers can be combated by forking the code.
Making it open source would have interfered with the author’s profit goal. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to make profit from your work and protect the source.
Likewise, you’re free to avoid software that isn’t open source. However, it’s useless to make these demands that someone should have open sourced their work when that clearly wasn’t in the best interests of their goals.
Did you already forget about the back door in xz utils?