CNET News.com: The coming "open monopoly" in software

"...We've shown that there are a number of motivations for both traditional IT vendors and developers to get involved in open source. But ultimately, market forces will determine the outcome. In this case, time is on the side of open source.

Historically, market economies favor monopolies when infrastructure is needed. Consider the history of AT&T, utilities or railroads in America. But the infrastructure building period ends at some point--and we are rapidly approaching that point in the software industry.

Today, most of the Internet runs on open-source software. BIND, the software that allows computers and Web sites to have names instead of numbers, is open source. So is the aforementioned Apache, the Web server that runs 67 percent of the Web sites in the world. So, if you've bet your business on the Internet in any way, you've already bet your business on open-source software."

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