I've been interested to read the musings, as I always wondered what it was about open source that got people so excited. Little of value is ever really given away, and it does seem to spawn a myriad of different flavours. At least in the closed source world we have a controlled number of jellies to nail to the wall.

But I must take issue with Steve's suggestion that most commercial decisions in large companies are based on economics. My experience is that most of them are taken through fear. What will my boss think? What will the shareholders think? What will the auditors think? Does it fit with the buzzword I read in that management book I bought at the airport?

The sad thing is that most of the decisions that really drive value are smaller ones taken daily by the cube dwellers. Can I be bothered testing a little longer? Do I need to rethink this algorithm? Should I challenge that practice? And then most of these can be wiped out by management ignorance or destructiveness, or simply by management fear that breeds employee apathy: "I can't be bothered doing that one more test because I'd have to fill in a form and anyway I got no pay rise and they want to move all our jobs to this week's off-shore location."

And today's Dilbert email hasn't even arrived yet.

Bill.