[ Thanks to Randy for this link.
]
“The third trend is a far more dramatic transformation now
engulfing the entire software industry. The same Internet software
culture that spawned many of today’s most profitable security
products has grown dramatically along with the ‘Net itself.
Particularly notable are the licensing terms under which such
software is most commonly distributed. Long referred to as “free
software” or “freeware,” this software comes with full source code,
requires no licensing fees whatsoever and has few, if any,
restrictions on its use, modification or redistribution. These
licensing terms are extremely favorable to end-users, though the
business world is still struggling to understand all of their
ramifications.”
“In early 1998 the term ‘open-source software’ was coined to
refer to software released under such licenses. At the same time a
concerted effort was begun to better explain the advantages of
unrestricted software licenses to the business world, with an
astounding degree of success. Today, several hot new startups have
based their entire business models around developing and supporting
software under open-source licenses. “
“Many existing software companies, such as Netscape and IBM,
have followed this lead, distributing key software products under
open-source licenses. Even Microsoft, which is innately committed
to the concept of leveraging its intellectual property through its
software licenses, is searching for ways to pay lip service to this
sweeping movement toward software freedom.”