By deciding to sponsor Spark, I think IBM is becoming practically it's owner, without having to do anything prior to this move. Does it mean it is possible today to "acquire" technology a project by naming your own price?
This is a really interesting phenomenon - existing enterprises taking lead roles in open source projects in such a way that they almost look like they "own it". Not the first time, I mean, RedHat did exactly this with Linux in some ways, for example.
Teradata recently made a similar move with PrestoDB - which had Facebook as the owner but no hardcore platform technology development supporter. And MapR did the same with Apache Drill.
I have been telling everyone I know my opinion for a long time - open source is not just a movement - it is a strategy. It is amazing the potential for change and/or disruption that open source causes.
And, that potential may not always be good - just look at Hadoop fragmentation as an example (although there is a lot of good in that fragmentation as well).
Hmm, why do you think this makes IBM the technology's "owner"? What do you mean by owner exactly?