"For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the software industry lately, I have some bad news. The open-source business model is broken." Yes, if you have

"For anyone who hasn't been paying attention to the software industry lately, I have some bad news. The open-source business model is broken." Yes, if you haven't heard that open source as a business strategy is broken, it's because you aren't paying attention. Or perhaps the real reason you haven't heard that is because not many people are reaching this conclusion anymore after so many astonishing open source exits in the last year alone. "This will require many to adopt a new mindset, viewing open source more as a means than an end in itself." Agreed, giving away software and source code for free does not directly translate into revenue. Point scored for knocking straw man on his ass. "The traditional open-source business model that relies solely on support and service revenue streams is failing to meet the expectations of investors." I think the only thing disappointing investors about open source business is missing out on opportunities like: "Consider Sun MicroSystems' (JAVA) $1 billion acquisition of open-source database software vendor MySQL." Now I know it wouldn't have supported the position about how much open source business sucks, but it's worth mentioning some more examples here: January 2008 - Nokia buys Trolltech for $150M One from my own industry, open source network security: March 2007 - Sourcefire raises $75M in IPO I'm not sure exactly how many other software companies went public in 2007, but it wasn't very many. 5? 10?