The Open Source Business Model
This post by Dana Blankenhorn on ZDnet is the best answer I've seen to the question "Why Open Source?". He says 'plumbing', I'd say '(Unix|Open Source) is the Universal Glue'. And the on-going Open Source Business Model is "support" for those that need/want 'certainty'. Which if you are the CIO (read: 'my arse is on the line') for somewhere with a high dependence on I.T., is only Good Governance (or "common sense"). You can't make key staff stay, nor mandate they never get sick or burn-out and "go sit on a beach" - and after '9/11', all Business Continuity plans have to account for covering people as well as systems and networks. That's it - Business I.T. is all about the Data (or "all about XXX, stupid" to be Clintonesque). Open Source tools are usually about manipulating data or providing services - like Apache, e-mail, DNS, firewalls and IDS, ... Open Source is here to stay: u...