>> Essentially it is us as users&developers who let this happen.
I'm intrigued enough to ask how you think users and developers could have stopped it? Or, indeed why you would want it to? The success of OSS I would contend is _because_ of large company adoption.
>> I think you misunderstand me,
I did, although I'm not sure my misunderstanding changes my point. Your clarification though is helpful to narrowing the question.
>> Regarding investment, I expect that FANGs still very much come out on top,
Naturally. But you're selecting for companies that are successful. Compared to the millions of failed startups who added precisely zero to OSS.
>> just imagine what they had to pay in licencing cost for their datacentres if no oss operating systems existed.
Who would they have to pay? MS I guess. Maybe Sun? And that's an improvement because...?
I mean, sure, they get their OS for free. But the so do you and me. This lowers the barrier to entry for everyone. I can run the same OS as Netflix, at no cost, so that's one step towards a Netflix killer. On the other hand what Netflix does is OS neutral. Their value isn't the OS, its above it.
>> Also much of these investments are towards use cases with very little benefit for normal users.
They naturally spend their money improving things that matter to them. I'm not sure I agree about the benefit through. Comparing the Linux of today with 15 years ago, I would argue that the standard has increased immeasurably so I would say a net gain for all of us.
Or take mozillla, which is mostly funded by Google. Yes, they fund for a reason, but Firefox is a net gain.
>> but when OSS started to become more mainstream many (including myself) believed that it would be a way to break the stranglehold of large monopolistic corporations on the software world
I think we're getting to the heart of your complaint here. And I feel like my original reply applies here as well.
Firstly I'm not sure that large companies have a stranglehold on software at all. There are more small companies, or individuals, creating software now than there ever were before. When I started out, to sell software, first you had to sell a computer (I kid you not.) Actually, first you had to _buy_ a computer, and they were a Lot more expensive then (in raw $, no inflation adjustment required.)
Actually we also had to buy DOS, (which was peanuts compared to Unix), and developer tools also cost real money. Getting started as a developer was expensive.
Today its completely different. OSS provides a free OS, free developer tools, free documentation, and all on hardware you can buy for >> and create an ecosystem of relatively small software companies that would customise OSS software for specific needs on a relatively even playing field.
It's not a zero sum game, far from it. Companies customising OSS exist (but you can't really grow doing that). Lots more companies are building their own software using OSS tools etc. My own software benefits from things like CEF (thanks Google).
Their success is not your problem. Because their secret sauce is not software. The playing field _is_ level. 99% of programmers do not work for a FAANG.
Your hope for relatively small companies exist everywhere, but you've not heard of them all precisely because they are small.
>> what FOSS could have achieved (and people imagined) but didn't. I sometimes wonder if FOSS has made the world a better place, like many hoped it would.
So let me say this. You should not be disillusioned. FOSS has immesurably made the world better. It touches all our lives every day, whether we know it or not.
It is the nature of successful companies to grow. OSS cannot somehow prevent that. Nor should it. Nor should we look to them as saviours and expect them somehow to fund us.
IBM, Sun, DEC, HP, Microsoft, Oracle - all behemoths from the past (not included in FAANG). Today's giants are tomorrow's legacy companies.
OSS _has_ made the world a better place. But then again so has paid software. Software is a net good. Hardware is forever getting cheaper.
So I'll return to my point. I'm not sure that your disappointment is a function of FOSS failure, but rather a misunderstanding of what Foss set out to, and ultimately achieved.
Celebrate it not for what it might have been, but rather for what it is - because what it is, is pretty great.