Hurt people hurt people, as they say. The entire field is held back because of trauma. "I could invent something amazing but get screwed out of it because someone else has money and lawyers" is just no way to live. The problem for radio is I could invent the most magical amazing transmitter, but it's worth absolutely nothing if there's no corresponding receiver. Which is to say, open standards are everything. Meshtastic/MeshCore/etc are interesting because they're open. It doesn't have to be. Off-grid mesh communication is a solved problem, just buy a GoTenna. Problem is it's proprietary. But it works, with a whole lot less drama.
There is also a fair bit of demographics at play. Many of the people writing these little applications grew up and imprinted before open source was much of a thing.
