IIRC it was something like that & even if initially understandable, IIRC it did not really make sense to continue doing that once they were famous enough & had some money to work with (to e.g. pick a more open chip).

That that still have a closed source firmware, which makes it possible for them to pull off the bullshit discussed in the article & this discussion - that proves there was & still is a shady undertone under all that openness facade of the RPi foundation. :P