Management just reacts to environments created by governments. When ZIRP was around money was very easy to get hold of - too easy. Now it's really hard because businesses have to beat government bond interest rates, which are guaranteed, to get debt/investment.

> Unless a privately held rogue company like Valve

Valve is not a rogue company.

> Industry, particularly the tech industry, is notorious for leaching of free and open source software and in some cases building entire businesses on it and not giving back

Your premise is wrong. It's impossible to leach off something that is freely given. This is like being angry because people don't all tip a street performer. The deal is it's free.

And your facts are wrong. Businesses fund a giant amount of OSS work.