When CIOs need help with their systems and software, they don't have to depend on vendors with their own agendas because when an open-source app doesn't work, administrators can look at the source code, figure out why and write a fix themselves. If they're having trouble, help is just a newsgroup away.

So far, the community that has grown up around popular open-source applications such as Linux have proven to be highly disciplined, ethical and extremely competitive, with pecking orders that exclude - sometimes brutally and profanely - all but the best contributors.

"Heroism in these communities means proposing an interesting improvement and getting everyone to acknowledge it," says John Sarsgard, vice president of Linux sales programs at IBMIBM in Armonk, N.Y. "That's the way these guys get their strokes - everyone recognizes that their way of doing it is the best way." When bugs are revealed in Linux or Apache, for example, the community begins posting fixes on the Internet within hours. Their work is good, and it's free. Alles zu IBM auf CIO.de

Free is good. CIOs who don't come to terms with this revolution in 2003 will be paying too much for IT in 2004.

Software as a Commodity: The Apache Story

The reason they will be paying too much is that in effect they will be buying the vendor's research and sales and marketing expenses when they don't have to. They will be paying for support that others will be getting gratis. They will be paying for hardware that's overpriced because it uses an arcane proprietary operating system. They will be paying for bows and ribbon - for packaging - when what's inside the competing packages is essentially the same.