Open Source: Beyond the Fairytales

Open source is a software development model that to many is synonymous with a free and free-wheeling operating system juggernaut destined to upend current computer markets. IBM is embracing Linux to unify its hardware product line, and Microsoft is screaming that open source is anti-American and destructive of intellectual property. Analysts and executive have been gathering around open source to find out what it?s all about, and people like Eric Raymond and Linus Torvalds once indistinguishable from society?s stereotype of the elfin programmers working in the dark on the software that powers the digital age have become heroes, spokesmen, and leaders in the new age of anti-monopolistic software. But is this narrow view adequate? Open source, for corporations, has more to do with a particular business strategy than it does with any specific technology. In fact, technology is just another piece of the puzzle for a successful technology company certainly it?s a necessary piece, but often it?s not the distinguishing piece.