Adam Jordens@littlesquare:~/

That quote can be attributed to Bob Shrimp, Oracle’s VP of Technology Marketing. Although, I bet a few VC’s out there have been known to wear the ‘hippie’ seal of approval.

It was made in a Investor’s Business Daily article talking about open-source successes and the impact they’re having on traditional software verticals.

Mark Fluery originally recommended the article (and this one too), and I think it’s an interesting read.

Basically there’s little doubt in my mind that the large vendors have to start accounting for open source solutions. Whether or not it encourages/forces them to develop better solutions is up in the air. What we do have now, are companies like SpikeSource committed to the productization of open-source. They’re VC backed, but if they stray too far from their roots they’re not going to be successful. On the flip-side, the reason a company like SpikeSource will be successful because they are committed to helping and improving already thriving communities. Open-source companies have agendas (which without doubt are financially motivated) but many are directed at enabling not splintering the communities for which they serve.

For what it’s worth, I like JBoss. It does what it’s supposed to and right now, I don’t see a reason to look at a BEA or IBM solution. Likewise, I’m perfectly content to develop against PostgreSQL, but not adverse to deploying Oracle in a production environment. I think it’s important (for me, as a developer, at least) to keep an open mind and use the best tool for the job. As the article says, there’s an open-source solution available in nearly all verticals. Some are great, many are average, and a few are downright awful. They should be included in decision making, but I wouldn’t let the perceived value (either positive or negative) of open-source movement in general overly influence a decision. There’s a lot of good commercial software (be it proprietary or open-source based) that warrants purchasing.

The way software is distributed and built may change, but commercial software vendors as we know them will likely be around for many years to come.