The issue isn't who gets to make "day-to-day business decisions" (i'm not sure how you characterize licensing source code as open source as such, but it doens't matter).
The issue is that shareholders literally own the property owned by the company, that's what it means to be a shareholder. Including intellectual property.
Announcing you are shutting down a company, and then, without board approval, the CEO giving away what assets remain... is super sketchy and probably illegal, probably stealing from the shareholders (or even more likely other creditors, if they exist), who would probably like to partially recoup their losses from sales of any remaining assets. What those assets are you are giving away are, say, a fleet of cars, or the intellectual property of source code, legally the same.
Imagine if a car service company announced it was shutting down, and then gave away all it's cars, instead of selling them in an orderly fashion and distributing profits to anyone who was owed money, including creditors and shareholders.
Given that with a company going out of business a lot of people are going to be losing money and wanting to get what they can out of any assets... the time to release as open source is really before you go out of business.
The issue is that shareholders literally own the property owned by the company, that's what it means to be a shareholder. Including intellectual property.
Announcing you are shutting down a company, and then, without board approval, the CEO giving away what assets remain... is super sketchy and probably illegal, probably stealing from the shareholders (or even more likely other creditors, if they exist), who would probably like to partially recoup their losses from sales of any remaining assets. What those assets are you are giving away are, say, a fleet of cars, or the intellectual property of source code, legally the same.
Imagine if a car service company announced it was shutting down, and then gave away all it's cars, instead of selling them in an orderly fashion and distributing profits to anyone who was owed money, including creditors and shareholders.
Given that with a company going out of business a lot of people are going to be losing money and wanting to get what they can out of any assets... the time to release as open source is really before you go out of business.