I think a windfall tax on FAANGs would get us 80% of the way there - with governments around the world appropriating a suitable levy and then pouring that levy

I think a windfall tax on FAANGs would get us 80% of the way there - with governments around the world appropriating a suitable levy and then pouring that levy back into "grassroots OSS". The how part is a bit troublesome - it should have a VC style flavour (effectively setting up hundreds of software foundations with old school grey beards helping the selection process) and providing summer of code style grants to just get things off the ground. Governments (imo) should be almost exclusive users of OSS - and if the code they want is not put there, seed it. I am not fond of governments do it all for us, But it is hard to imagine how else to extract money from corporations resting their profits on the commons.