I think the ”original idea” behind open source was to enable collaboration. If two companies both need accounting system and they don’t see accounting system as

I think the ”original idea” behind open source was to enable collaboration. If two companies both need accounting system and they don’t see accounting system as something that would bring them competitive advantage, why not build the system together. In many other fields this collaboration is enabled through government. Companies pay taxes, taxes are used to fund infrastructure such as roads and railways. If I remember right for example Apache Software Foundation had a requirement that core team for project should not come from just single company. One way to categorize open source projects is to check how many companies really collaborate on the project. Is it a true joint effort or is it in practise dependent on one entity.