or a QA question or a bruised ego question. Probably a bit of all.
In my main field, education, talent is certainly being decentralized. Khan academy, TED, 826 are wonderful things, they will not supplant school buildings in the near term. Everyone is capable of learning, everyone is capable of teaching. Is everyone capable of running a classroom or a school? Likely not. Ditto applications. Is everyone capable of problem solving? Sure. Is everyone capable of coding them? The HyperCard experience pushed the needle in the direction of "yes". Is everyone capable of staffing a software company and shipping an application / OS / database / network solution on schedule at cost to the satisfaction of a boss / manager / bean counter / industry standard? No, and maybe that's not the only way to think of things. But the experience of getting a computer to help solve a problem or make a discovery or automate something or create a new form of expression is something that is worth experiencing. FOSS is in its infancy in terms of how to deal with it and how to share it on a large scale - not just for those who know the same bag of tricks as the people who are creating it. Yes, there's some great FOSS out there, but for the average user, it's like trying to find a radiator cap for a '36 Ford. It can be had, but not on the shelf at the local store and not without some legwork and chin scratching.