Linux works because network effects pressure everyone to upstream their changes. There's no such upstreaming possible with the open-weight models, and new sets of base weights can only be generated with millions of dollars of compute. Companies could conceivably collaborate on architectures and data sets, but with the amount of compute and data involved, only a handful of organizations would ever have the resources to be able to contribute.

Unlike Linux, which was started by a cranky Finn on his home computer, and can still be built and improved by anyone who can afford a Raspberry Pi.