Clone every repository, start inserting bugs and viruses, then take the open source code and encrypt/obfuscate it and make minor changes

Then release it as a closed source product and have a spin doctor like Steve Jobs tell people mine is better and there are no viruses or bugs so they should switch.

That's the standard playbook, if it works it ain't broke so don't fix it.

Dropping all of that budget to art universities to have them teach Adobe software primarily. Inkscape, Kdenlive and GIMP do not have the funds to compete in this way, and once people learn a software to do their job, it becomes really hard to switch. Sure, enthausists can learn other open software, that's not my target audience. My target audience is the one that uses such software to earn their money, and most of them will pursue higher education before doing so to learn their tools better, and Adobe will make that money back really easily with their subscription plans.

I would take a movement whose mission is user freedom and whose arguments relate to morality and twist it so that the only thing that matters is software quality. Now, it's palatable to corporations.

I'm asking this because I'm convinced this is actually happening.

I'd embezzle a bunch of the money, then spend the rest on good-faith contributions to the software in question, insisting that this was just stage 1 of the plan. There is no stage 2.

Spam poor quality llm commits from sockpuppet accounts to a bunch of popular projects. Sprinkle in some subtly-buggy contributions from more established accounts. The buggy contributions should not be obviously malicious (not, like, obfuscated credit stealers -- they should just break things). Do this to as many projects as you can without making it super obvious. Prefer projects with few maintainers but a high merge rate. Then, go think about what you did, you bastard.

Fork it, carry on with being FOSS for now, develop a few killer features that everyone will love that would take a small FOSS team years to develop. When it becomes the industry standard, make it closed source. A year later start charging for it.

I think the best strategy is to contribute lots of money and work to promoting and developing free software, improving it and using it everywhere so that it comes to be ubiquitous, used by everyone. That will make it even more of a target for malware authors and therefore lead to its sure demise. We should get started right away.

Nice try adobe.

Delete all of my internal databases. Necessity is the mother of invention, so starting at a disadvantage would be a catalyst to churn out even better software!

I would submit code I wrote to it

get open source fans on the internet to endlessly discuss and fight amongst each other.

I know, totally unrealistic. would actually never happen, that's ridiculous.

I'd hire slop writers to make articles saying X open source project got hacked y open. Source project got hacked. Then spam replies on the threads when they get posted to reddit with replies like "this is bad, I'm going bad to BigEvilCorp because they have a fulltime team working security". Itd manufacturer reality for people and eventually it'd shift perception.

Also the articles about projects being hacked dont even have to be real. Misinfo travels way faster than the truth

Easy. Use open source code and licenses to make my software ubiquitous. Convince manufacturers they need my software preinstalled at no cost to them. Once every piece of hardware is on my system, close access to it and say it's for your safety.

Make arbitrary changes in your file formats every year that breaks any compatibility in as subtle ways as possible.

Just pay off youtubers