I think this is true but "working with the community" from the giant's perspective is often different than the community's perspective. I see Oracle as an extreme example, but prior to them Sun's lip service on Java early on really didn't help the community trying to improve Java but it did keep it moving along a path.
I think this is true but "working with the community" from the giant's perspective is often different than the community's perspective.
Perhaps, but it would be a more natural alignment in the case of hardware companies that wanted the best possible software available to drive adoption of their platforms than in any previous case I can think of. Sun's business model for several of their technologies, including Java, was never entirely clear to me. On the other hand, a consortium of big hardware vendors spending a hundred million dollars to develop the best desktop software in history and then just giving it away to anyone who wants it for free has a pretty obvious business benefit if the result is changing market trends and protecting their multi-billion-dollar revenue streams.
