I would argue that Linux would not have happened without the internet making it possible for folks around the world to participate. And I think that there's a good chance that the tools would have been created anyway.
That's more or less how I look at it. Back in the day there was comp.sources.unix for example. In Unix itself, there was /usr/ where tools developed by users other than the core developers belonged, and there was /usr/ucb/ where they put stuff from Berkeley. The culture surrounding Unix has always seemed to encourage outside participation, going back to the lenient licensing of Research Unix, and even before that, when it just existed at Murray Hill.