I think there’s a place for “we did 99% of the work here, but we want you to be able to tweak things if you need, read the code, and compile it for new systems without us in the loop.”

In that case I see no problem with the main sponsor company not wanting just anyone to come and make money off their work. They might accept contributions if offered up, but they are not hoping to gain much from them.

That’s in stark contrast to a project like Linux where it much more heavily relies on outside people getting into the development cycle.

To your point actually, I think it can be sticky for an open source maintainer of a small project when someone comes along and tries to be a more active contributor and treat your project like the latter when you’re really intending it to be more like the former. There’s no great signal of what type of open source you’re intending to create apart from saying “I don’t really want significant contributions” in your readme.