Take, for instance, what might happen if a particular tool doesn't exist and no single individual or small company has the time or resources to create it. The example offered by the Apache project's work on Web servers underscores the validity of this model. These companies are not in the business of actually developing or selling Web servers - they are in the business of using them. The software industry built on these principles may well become a dizzying blur of kaleidoscopic frenzy, populated by thousands of hustling enterprises endlessly reforming and recombining into new Apache Group-like networks and fresh alliances. And all the while, the common body of available open-source code will grow steadily, which in turn will encourage more businesses to take advantage of it.
Open source is no panacea, and it is has some very obvious shortcomings.
No one really knows. Nor does anyone have a good answer for how a small open-source company with limited resources will defend itself against such treacherous pitfalls as patent and product liability suits. Or what happens if, for example, Linus Torvalds wearies of overseeing the Linux development process. There's never been a more cost-effective way to contract out services than to use this type of free labor. Moreover, there are plenty of situations in which releasing source code plainly doesn't make good economic sense.