But if it was released under an OSS license, anyone who wants can fork, rename if necessary due to trademark, preserve a little (c) vmware in the source files and do whatever they want, right?
Basically, can vmware retroactively revoke that open source license?
They can't retroactively revoke the licence, but they can claim the ownership of the brand and the various systems like the bug tracking database, which appears to be what they're doing.
As copyright owners they can change the license going forward, but that doesn't retroactively change the license for previously released versions.
eg. Vert.x versionX+1 could be modified to have a new license that doesn't allow forks and then you wouldn't be able to fork if you included any of the new stuff they added in that version, but Verx.x versionX would remain released under the previous license terms.
Basically, can vmware retroactively revoke that open source license?