I wrote in my last blog about the massive economies that companies such as Microsoft and Oracle have created. I also wrote about the massive tolls those very same companies take in the form of overhead in the procurement and licensing processes. What I find interesting are the parallels to other industries that can be drawn, most notably the oil and gas industry. When oil was first drilled in Pennsylvania it her I wrote in my last blog about the massive economies that companies such as Microsoft and Oracle have created. I also wrote about the massive tolls those very same companies take in the form of overhead in the procurement and licensing processes.What I find interesting are the parallels to other industries that can be drawn, most notably the oil and gas industry. When oil was first drilled in Pennsylvania it heralded a revolution and enabler of massive new industries never before seen. People celebrated the certain doom of the whaling industry which had acted as a major source of oil for lubrication and fuel. It caused the United States to have an explosively successful oil-based industrial revolution rather than one like England’s which was fueled by coal.Entire economies were created around the oil-industry to extract, refine, distribute and consume this fuel. Every time you drive your car you are using a machine that was fine-tuned to provide you comfortable, safe transportation while most efficiently using the fuel for your desired needs – power, speed, higher mileage; whatever you sought. You were at the end of a supply chain that sought to keep you, the consumer, ensnared within the economic infrastructure of oil. Now, think about our current need to move away from oil. Think not about global warming or dwindling oil supplies. In fact, for purposes of this argument, let’s assume that there is no global warming from using fossil-fuels and that there is an endless supply of oil. Many people would be very happy and content to continue using oil. But, what if your goals could be achieved more efficiently by using something other than oil? Wouldn’t you want to have that option?This is the very question that we face with closed-source vs. open-source software. Open-source software and its dependent business-models represent a number of opportunities at gaining greater efficiency. But there’s an opposing force. It’s the force that created closed-source software, the force that refines closed-source software and the forces that distribute and service closed-source software. Just like the oil companies that have a very large constituency that makes money off of oil, there’s a very large constituency that makes money off of closed-source software.Ultimately, the efficiencies of open-source software will win out over closed-source. But to get there we need to overturn an entire economic infrastructure dedicated to keeping the status-quo. The incumbents fear innovation and wish to squelch it; the new players bask in innovation and seek to create it. My money’s on the innovators every time. My money’s on open-source. Open Source