Several uniformed comments in discussions all over the Internet today about this news.
This behavior is not "typical of Google", as so many claim. It's typical of proprietary software controlled by a company responsive to the dictates of capitalism. Proprietary software can be enormously convenient and helpful, but like many things has a darkside too. We who use proprietary software don't "own" it. We license it and are beholden to whoever controls it. If the interests of whoever controls it no longer align with our own interests, and we lack the power to do anything about the mismatch, then we're screwed. That's intrinsic to combination of capitalism and proprietary software. (Not that I'm in favor of this, I'm just noting it as a fact).
The source code to patented software can be made open and can be used to produce free software. Microsoft has released the source code that surely has a gazillion patents applied to it; Red Hat owns software patents (for defensive purposes). I suspect the main issue is that having lawyers and developers go over things so that the software can be made ready to have its source code released is probably seriously expensive.