Today's software business model isn't about writing software; it's about the enablement and servicing of software. And that just happens to be what the open source movement is all about.

So far, the open source movement has tended to develop software that mimics commercial products. We will soon see it graduate to creating entirely new solutions. One of the great freedoms of open source is the ability to take just the bits we need and recombine them into new applications, accelerating innovation and time to market.

The first change we'll see is the elimination of the general purpose operating system for servers. We'll no longer need to drag around senseless OS components with their broader security and availability vulnerabilities when we just want to deploy a database server, an application server, or a Web server. Linux is a great OS, and it's an even greater repository of discrete OS components.

Open source allows startups to take the bits of Linux and other open source projects they need and combine them in new ways that deliver new capabilities. Companies have already started down the path of designing configurable Linux configurations meant to be combined with other software components to create purpose-built solutions. Open source allows us to move beyond the stale traditions of certified stacks of software to truly integrated solutions that home in on specific needs.

Open source licensing promotes this type of innovation, and the market will ultimately reject proprietary licensing models that prevent it. The freedom to innovate is the greatest freedom of all -- and the perfect building material, in the form of existing open source code, will accelerate it to unprecedented levels.

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