That's a pretty absurd statement. Are Nokia and Novell massive competing companies? KDE seems to be doing pretty well. There are also plenty of small success

That's a pretty absurd statement. Are Nokia and Novell massive competing companies? KDE seems to be doing pretty well. There are also plenty of small successful open projects like battle for wesnoth or the innumerable open libraries that make a programmer's life so much easier. Major projects tend to attract corporate sponsorship as they become useful, and paid developers go at a faster pace than hobbyists, but to say that open source requires contribution from huge companies is just silly.