One does not need VMware for SpringBoot so?
Spring’s corporate steward is VMWare, and Broadcom bought VMWare, ergo Spring is subject to Broadcom’s whims.
Not spring boot, but spring, is owned by VMware. Sure spring is under a free license but if upstream enshittifies, community forks would be required.
VMware owns Spring Boot https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spring_Boot