Thanks to J$ for pointing out Tim O'Reiley's article The Open Source Paradigm Shift. He's right, it's a fascinating read.
The crux of the article (or at least what i'm seeing in it) is that there's three things that companies need to think about doing if they want to succeed.
1. Think commodity
2. Collaborate where possible
3. Live for customization
i'd note that while there is some discussion about the merits of given applications (such as Apache,Linux and the sort), they're not particularly all that fundemental. In fact, what's important is the process and what they're providing rather than the actual application, much like email is successful because SMTP can run on anything.
in other words, Mr. O'Reilly has just put together a far more eloquent discussion of what i've been beating the drum for, presents an highly compelling case (using lots of prior cases) and made things a bit easier for me to sell some of my key ideas to various folks.
i'd note that none of my ideas are all that hard to do, or even implement, but they're almost all outside of my direct influence. Now comes the hard part where i have to beat it into people's heads.
Wish me luck.
