I have never heard of the company in question and don't know anything about them other than what was mentioned in TFA, but a main portion of the conflicts that have happened seem to be about whether a particular company should be allowed to sponsor or not. If it were special treatment for that company that others wouldn't get then that would be a different story, but it seems mainly that people don't like what the company builds and don't want them sponsoring, at least explicitly. That seems ideological to me.
I absolutely sympathize with them fwiw. I despise DRM and think it's a reprehensible practice, and I would be extremely off-put if my code were being used by one of those companies. I would hate to see them at a conference. But I acknowledge that is my ideological bend, so my opposition there is "ideological"