It's dramatically easier to prove to a reasonable observer that Kubernetes got lifted off the ground by a bunch of folks on Google payroll than it is to prove that some GNU diehard would have inevitably sold that (silly) idea to like a zillion people if only Google didn't beat them to it.

I make these sort of observations with a certain regret: I was a kid already pushing the limits on a DOS-type machine when you could first get Slackware media: the GNU userspace has been home since before I ever woke up next to a girl.

But it's kinda over now. LLVM vs. GCC is a desperate rearguard action, the Rust people have broken the mindshare monopoly on shared libraries that was insulating `glibc` from it's better (`musl` in almost every case is better), old-timers like me are me are a bit attached to emacs and bash, but neovim and fish are pretty fucking good.

GNU and free software in general are no longer superior by virtue of Sun Microsystems leaning too hard into the JVM: they've got to work for it now, and they're getting their asses kicked.

That's taking it to extreme, though. It's possible that a large number of medium companies, for instance, would have the same open source yield as the megacorps who just bought them out (in our reality). Especially if it were easier for them to attract more talented engineers, which would be the case if the big companies had less of a grip on the existing market (e.g. if Meta were forced to split up, as regulators push for)