I just got an email from a friend, and in the middle of the email he said something that struck me:Open source is not a feature. It is a way of life.Or, in other words, it's a way of doing business, not just a product feature. I think this is one of the greatest things missing from much of the open source commercial world. There's a heavy emphasis on "commercial," and as light-an-emphasis-as-possible on "open so I just got an email from a friend, and in the middle of the email he said something that struck me:Open source is not a feature. It is a way of life.Or, in other words, it’s a way of doing business, not just a product feature. I think this is one of the greatest things missing from much of the open source commercial world. There’s a heavy emphasis on “commercial,” and as light-an-emphasis-as-possible on “open source” at times. With some companies, the idea seems to be to turn open source into a cheap lead generation tool/marketing gimmick. This not only dilutes the meaning of open source, but it also hurts the vendors as it hamstrings them between two very different ways of doing business: open source vs. proprietary. You may think that the two can happily coexist. I suppose they can, but not easily within the same vendor. The two require different cultures, development methodologies, sales structures, etc. You really cannot serve both open source and proprietary software (note the order, if you noted the literary reference :-). They force you in different directions.Open source is not a cheap marketing gimmick. It’s not “just another tool in the shed.” It’s a way of doing business. I think it’s a better way. It’s not a feature. Open Source