I think there are two parts which are unfortunately conflated which each other:
- Having a company providing commercial development and support services
- Transferring essential assets such as trademark and domain names to a commercial entity
Conflating those two with another (as done here) unfortunately is a very bad move from the context of a collaborative open source development project.
While I always welcome companies providing professional R&D and support around FOSS projects, those companies should not hold trademarks or other assets of the open source project. There is simply too much risk of damage to the open source project by misuse of the brand, or by attempting to monopolize the FOSS project in some way. A commercial company can always change direction years or decades down the road, after management/ownership changes, etc.
The essential assets of the FOSS project should always be held by a very trusted entity - whether that’s a foundation / association / non-profit or a individual who is respected and trusted by all parties.
Furthermore, the announcement reads like there is a third change in the pipeline: A change towards an “open core” model where some features are only available in a non-FOSS version of the software. Some people also call it “crippleware”, though I wouldn’t go s far as that.
Mixing those three separate steps in one unfortunately sounds like a very sad combination indeed.
I’ve been very happy to support gitea with small monetary contributions so far. But now I think I will have to re-think that decision. Now I’m not helping an open source project but a commercial entity who wants to monopolize a FOSS project and turn it into open core 