Today Marten Mickos asks a very big question. “Can the open source movement adapt to include a sustainable commercial products?” Well, I think eventually it will, but not yet. Yes, that was pretty vague. But you have to look at the big picture here. At some point, I believe that Open Source and closed source software will have to learn to work together as the lines between the two continue to blur.

In the 1960s and 70s, all software was open source, so customers could customize for their exact needs. With the rise of packaged software, that trend waned in the 80s and 90s, but it has now re-emerged with the rise of Linux and the internet. These days, a broad range of open-source infrastructure software, tools, and applications is available. CIOs are developing entire open-source strategies, and identifying which pieces of their IT environment can be made more effective with open source.