[thayne]

> I would assume they could've licensed it from HashiCorp but for a huge sum.

Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe hashicorp would have agreed to sell a license to them with terms that allowed their usage of terraform in their products. But it is also quite likely that they would have refused to grant such a license to their competitors.

[sausagefeet]

It's also not a great idea to place one's future at the whim of a competitor. Maybe they get a good license deal today and next year it's 100x. No sane business would do this.