[necovek]

> But anyone else would have to release their code.

Which I think is perfectly fair: you are getting a full product, and you can do with it as you please (including profit off of it), as long as you publish your changes too!

The fact that the original copyright holder has the rights to close it off for future developments is completely natural, and if you do not want to allow them to do that, don't sign a CLA and fork. Oh, there's a cost in maintaining a fork? Pick your poison then :)

To me what matters is that once you get the software, you have freedom to use and modify it. I am ok if you do not have the "freedom" to close it off. If you start being a bigger contributor than the original company, you avoid all of the problems with a fork, but you can't say you did not benefit from the original AGPL release.