Open source adoption within companies has occurred in a series of waves, each moving free software successively closer to the heart of the enterprise. First, there was Apache, whose rise is documented vividly in the Netcraft server survey. After the Web server, open source began to find favour for file serving, typically using GNU/Linux and Samba. GNU/Linux was also used to run proprietary databases like Oracle and DB2, but more recently open source databases like MySQL have proved increasingly popular with companies.
"Although the open source desktop is clearly reaching a tipping point in terms of broader adoption--not least thanks to the maturity of offerings like OpenOffice and the Firefox browser--it is arguable that the next bastion of proprietary software to fall will be that of the application server..."
