It appears that greed and control issues were present right from the beginning of the Arduino project, given the experiences of Wiring's developer, Hernando Barragan, upon whose work it seems most of Arduino was branded, without recognition or recompense. I therefore would have very little sympathy for Arduino LLC.
http://arduinohistory.github.io/ and HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11212021