Your analysis accurate as far as it goes but you are kind of missing the point.
Granted, companies like Google and Xerox don't do things out of an altruistic desire to save the world. It's enlightened self-interest, and they do develop business models to make money.
The difference between their model and the more typical patent protection / royalty approach is that in the open case, anyone else can use the research to do whatever they want. Rather than being siloed within a single company, and protected through legal means, the research is free for anyone else to leverage. This results in best of class open solutions rising to the top, and avoids the problem of everyone reinventing the wheel in their own little wheelhouse.
I care less about how much money Google is making, & more about how much access I have to the research they are sponsoring.
Granted, companies like Google and Xerox don't do things out of an altruistic desire to save the world. It's enlightened self-interest, and they do develop business models to make money.
The difference between their model and the more typical patent protection / royalty approach is that in the open case, anyone else can use the research to do whatever they want. Rather than being siloed within a single company, and protected through legal means, the research is free for anyone else to leverage. This results in best of class open solutions rising to the top, and avoids the problem of everyone reinventing the wheel in their own little wheelhouse.
I care less about how much money Google is making, & more about how much access I have to the research they are sponsoring.