I think the relationship between open source and for profit companies is rather like the relationship between us and plants. We like to think we are a more adv

I think the relationship between open source and for profit companies is rather like the relationship between us and plants. We like to think we are a more advanced life form than plants. After all we move, we think, we eat plants for breakfast. But the reality is, we can't exist without plants, whereas plants could happily exist without us. The genome of some plants (which is a proxy for complexity) is many times bigger than ours. And so it is with open source and companies. Companies tend to treat open source as a resource to be consumed. Their ability to concentrate capital means they can develop source code much faster than open source. They defend their IP with patents and litigate licence wars with gay abandon (to wit: Oracle vs Google over java), yet treat open source licences with distain, often ignoring them. But reality is almost all companies depend on open source now, and the largest open source projects are far larger than companies (eg, compare the source code Debian manages to Microsoft).