> the fact is that the work is done by few, and those few have decided to exercise their rights in open source to do what is their prerogative.

There's a whole bunch of contributors to this project, who've never been informed. Even maintainers were caught by surprise as only some marginal bits of info were apparently spread.

A project creating CONTRIBUTING guidelines, then Owners not honoring them? Effectively just pretending to be a community-driven project. Probably legally the ones incorporating have done nothing wrong. And culture, norms don't count in business world. But they do in free software community.

Yes, a fork may be in order. But technically this could still be mended and things be put right.