I don't make games, I have nothing at stake in this fight, but this just feels like PR damage control and to be completely honest, I don't think most software engineers are so absolutely dependent on (proper noun) Unity to risk this company doing shady stuff again, and I suspect this entire ordeal will work as great marketing for engines like Unreal.
A part of me thinks that the CEO (and all the other executive morons who decided to make the installation fee) was sitting there thinking "what are they going to do? Move to Godot?", but if that was their line of thinking, and if they seriously did not think they were competing with Unreal, then I really do not see what business they have being multimillionaires in charge of any kind of decision-making process.
I haven't seen any evidence they did that, it's mostly been FUD from Godot supporters. The initial communication was messy, but where are actual TOS changes that are being touted so loudly?
ETA:
You updated your post with the TOS, but from what I read the concern was that the new TOS said it applied to any new distribution of the Unity Runtime, without specifying versions and the like.
In which case I think you will agree that is plenty of notice and most likely unrelated to be maliciously related to what's being announced now. They've even walked back the applicability to old versions as seen in GP.
That said, that's a big "if", I'm just regurgitating what I read in news articles.
https://web.archive.org/web/20220716041837/https://unity.com...
At this point I'm pretty sure this is a dishonest attempt to dig up a 2020 change (if this clause even ever existed, which I've seen zero proof of) and correlate it to a 2023 announcement as if these things were done in tandem.
Downvote me all you want. I don't think Godot et al will survive with these scummy tactics.
ETA:
Also, if you're going to edit your responses after you post them, I recommend using the `delay` feature in your HN settings, or adding an addendum section like I'm doing here, as it's a little unfair to people responding to you to make undisclosed changes so it looks like people responding to you aren't responding to all your points. I'm not saying you're being dishonest, I'm just saying that it feels a little unfair to responders.
I did find the TOS in question, as expected, it's very old (from 2019):
https://web.archive.org/web/20201111183311/https://github.co...
So people saying "who's to say they won't do this again," if four years isn't enough for you to catch up, I don't know what to tell you.
Edit: They have also brought the repo back, which was likely another unrelated change: