I am using one of Willow Garage's open source projects for my startup called Point Cloud Library. It seemed like after the acquisition the project lost some steam but I think the community stepped up and is still maintaining although the Robot Operating System has been separated from the rest of the library. There is a python interface for PCL that I might try to start again or contribute.
Interesting; I got the impression at the time that all the engineers became employees at Suitable selling the same thing under a different name. Given that some of the founders aren't part of that new company, I assume there's something at play beyond "you're free now!"