If the boat sinks, you learn to swim, or you drown. It is important to understand the basic commercial benefits of open source software in order to see where the revenue opportunities lie. It is also important to understand that religious or moral justifications for open source software have no place in a business discussion of the commercial benefits of this new paradigm. Those type of arguments cloud the issues and impede the discovery of the true commercial benefits of open source. First of all, not all software will, or should ever, be released with full source code.
Open source is all about opening the gates between providers of value.
This frees the industry to select alternate vendors, encourages the proliferation of those alternate sources, and assures us that we will not have to pay some idle 3rd party a legacy fee each time we encounter their road block. IBM has actually shown, by comments from its CEO, that they actually understand this basic precept. Open source proponents who understand the commercial value of this paradigm are shooting for an open infrastructure and open data formats, not open source applications. They are looking for royalty free, open data formats and API's. If MicroSoft took the time to understand the new environment they have been thrust into, they could become leaders in providing the industry with the benefits of open source and fill their coffers at the same time.