I have been thinking about this recently. In a course I took on US economic history we studied the Silicon Valley during the first half of the 20th century. There was a major boom in technological innovation, and a major reason why was the open sharing of ideas among the local tinkerers. The invention of television as it exists was not a product of Farnsworth’s singular genius but of an entire community of inventors freely collaborating out of personal interest. Very different from Silicon Valley today except for one element: the FOSS movement. FOSS is where the experimenting and innovation is happening because the ideas can’t be locked down as they are in the proprietary area where innovation is stifled. It makes sense for corporations to pour money into FOSS because FOSS makes possible what is to them impossible. Also, investments like that are probably a small fraction of what an R&D department working from scratch could cost.

It is amusing though that since the FOSS people are often under no obligations they don’t have to do what big companies want them to do.