Whether you believe formal standards organizations or open source initiatives are the best way to drive 5G-era mobile networks forward, the dream on both sides of the fence has been the same – a common global platform that would create massive economies of scale, and allow companies of all sizes and nationalities to participate in the value chain. Of course, it has never worked out that way. The 2G and 3G platforms were split between GSM/UMTS and CDMA; 4G almost went the same way with WiMAX. But finally, LTE and then 5G appeared to provide a globally agreed set of mobile standards, and as networks starting to virtualize, there was the hope of an additional dose of mass-scale commonality from…