ZDNet UK has a nice size interview with open source advocate Eric Raymond of the Open Source Initiative. “Linux and the open-source movement have come a long way since the foundation of the Open Source Initiative in the late 1990s, Raymond says. It now has the credibility it needs to succeed in the business world”
For evidence that open-source movement now has the mainstream credibility it lacked in the late 1990s, Raymond points to Microsoft's failed attempts last year to discredit Linux and the GNU Public Licence (GPL) on which it is based. Now Linux and the open-source development model are well-positioned to succeed in the increasingly complex world of software development. What's happening in software on the broadest scale is that open source in general and Linux in particular is a disruptive technology attack on the traditional proprietary business model and its titans, including outfits like Microsoft and SAP and so forth. And the thing is that under conditions where everybody is under pressure to cut budgets, disruptive technologies get more and more attractive because they cost a lot less.