Who said anything about specifically government funding. Since I've already mentioned electronics a lot of that evolved from the likes of Bell Labs in the 30s, 40s and 50s., i.e. the private sector. However there are comparatively few companies that engage in that kind of fundamental research and they need deep pockets to fund things with no clear payoff. If you left it all to those billion dollar companies all you do is concentrate ever more power in those few select organisations.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
