Bryan Cantrill's LISA11 talk on this history of OpenSolaris provides a great anecdote for this, and it largely tracks your fears here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zRN7XLCRhc&t=1680s

It also, a couple minutes later, devolves into a hilariously entertaining rant about Oracle and Larry Ellison and the perils of anthropomorphizing lawnmowers, and it's one of my favorite things ever.