Always Coming, Never Here

Having never thought either "free" or "open" meant welfare I'm having trouble with the concept of either failing. Free to me meant some individual or group wrote something because they wanted to and as an after thought decided to donate the product to the world for free. They didn't set out to write something they wouldn't benefit from just because lots of people *might* want it. Open just means it's open for others to see/use/modify/redistribute as they wish (with some small restrictions). Neither, to the best of my knowledge, has ever endorsed a "for the good of the state" mentality. If they had I'd agree they haven't quite reached success on that point. I suppose the movements have failed to become what you hoped they might, which is different than outright failure. Totally different scopes here. They haven't failed globally, in fact I'd argue most of what was promised has been delivered. They have failed to live up to an expectation you had that was never promised/stated by the organization.