The same could be applied to the net and to software tech. I mean, look at ycombinator and all their startups. Things like Facebook, Twitter,etc; their popularity is only natural because we all can't design a website. They give the average joe the tools that they need and they go crazy with it. The more money they make, the better, because it gives the little guys the chance to make something better. Maybe not revolutionary, but some original idea that solves a problem and gains revenue from it. And who knows, maybe out of all of that something revolutionary will come out of it. But it's hardly winding down as you say.
[1] http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page
[4] http://www.boingboing.net/2010/09/06/cheap-portable-perso.ht...
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D_printing#Comparison_of_3D_pr...
[6] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=350708
I have thought about this the other day -- "what has happened to P2P technologies?". There used to be a lot of excitement about it, there was flurry of academic research on distributed consistent hashing, lots of P2P networks appearing, and now, it seems, bittorrent is all that is left of it.
(also, you're forgetting at least git)
But there is some real fascinating stuff happening in hardware. We have freaking humanoid robots and private rockets. And nothing excites me more about the future than 3d printers. And there is a real and true to the soul open source like effort going on in there. Reprap, makerbot and that awesome 75k inr 3d printer from china... printers that can print themselves! Hardware specs that are shared and re-shared. Ideas and insights shared with gay abandon. No major patent threats anywhere in sight so far. It is the free world.