To summarize, there exists at least one person who wants to write their own tools, or at least use open source tools.

For at least this one person, downloading closed source software from the chip manufacturer is not satisfactory.

The comments also add that these downloads can be on the order of 8-20GB.

Has anyone ever wondered what is in those large binaries?

Does someone think the larger size somehow offers potentially more IP protection?

Does the FPGA utilities world have anything like teensy_loader_cli? It's about 28k. Not limited to MS Windows. Works with both BSD and Linux.