This article consists of a few highly selective observations, glued together by make-believe.
Open source was the industry default? On what planet?

"Team, make everything open source by default, unless I tell you otherwise" --- said no CEO or other boss, ever.

We have a lot of open source; a lot of it is very advanced, and forms critical infrastructure, sure. But proprietary software has not gone away even slightly.

I disagree with this assertion. Twenty years ago, the average enterprise developer was mostly using proprietary software. Examples: Browser (e.g. IE), IDE (e.g. Borland), OS (e.g. Windows), application server (e.g. WebLogic), DB (e.g. Oracle), CMS (e.g. Vignette), etc.

Today, the enterprise stack is dominated instead by OSS options: Browser (e.g. Chrome), IDE (e.g. Eclipse - VS Code is mostly open source, but includes proprietary elements), OS (e.g. Linux), application layer (e.g. Kubernetes), DB (e.g. Postgres), CMS (e.g. Drupal/Gatsby/WordPress), etc. Which is not to mention the thousands of underappreciated open source dependencies that applications rely on.

Proprietary software has certainly not gone away, and will not depart any time soon. But the implicit claim that nothing has changed in the balance of power between open source is not supported by the available evidence.

> Open source licenses, after all, offer the same equitable terms to all players, and limit neither competition nor usage.

Really? The sole proprietor of some GPLed program is on the same level as any other player?

In terms of their rights to and responsibilities for the source code? Yes. This is the express and intent and purpose of copyleft licenses. Knowledge of the source code may be asymmetric; the rights to it are not.

And how can you write a lengthy article on these topics without even mentioning what is probably the biggest issue to free software: it is not some "bait and switch" where open source projects get relicensed. It's that much software people use is now a service. The user has no control whatsoever; they are not even getting to install a binary executable on their own machine. The licensing is irrelevant to the end user.

Because this particular piece is about relicensing. There are other pieces about the topic you mention. This one from six years ago, for example, discusses the threat posed by the cloud to OSS software (https://redmonk.com/sogrady/2016/06/02/future-of-open-source...).

This entire article is about the bickering among developers: who gets what kinds of rights to which infrastructural pieces, with it being understood that everyone's shared goal is cobbing something together with those pieces in order to hold hostage the hapless users of some god forsaken SaaS application.

I'd argue that it's less about bickering between developers than the reality that commercial entities are using OSS licenses to grow their project traction, and once a critical mass is achieved, pulling the rug out from under developers with a non-open source license with more restrictive terms.

OK, so sure; if we put developer blinders on, open source is the default. My compiler is open source; my editor is open source; the OS is open source; the browser is open source; the database is open source. Hey open source is the default!

Precisely.

But don't forget the front end framework (e.g. React). The static site generator (e.g. Hugo). The testing framework (e.g. Playwright). The software catalog and developer portal (e.g. Backstage). And so on.

Meanwhile, Average Joe: social network isn't open source; webmail isn't open source; crap running in Joe's automobile isn't open source; Joe's phone isn't open source; Joe's TV streaming box isn't open source. Neither are the half dozen apps Joe relies on for this and that, or services like online banking. Almost not a single everyday use case or solution for the average user is open source. How can you talk about a default with a straight face. And this is just the consumer-facing stuff I'm talking about. For instance, let's switch to business. What enterprise runs their finances, operations and logistics on open source?

Average Joe generally isn't building a social network, a webmail offering, a car, a phone, or a streaming TV service.

Average Joe, in most case, just wants, say, a database. The easiest of which to acquire used to be open source but these days is as likely as not to have transitioned to proprietary software.

Which is not ideal.