The next major wave in the open source movement is vertical market applications, as Eric Raymond pointed out in The Magic Cauldron . There is a fundamental flaw in the way software value is perceived. Software is not a factory produced, assembly line product . Only the packaging is.
Software is just as much art, as it is science.
If this were not so, there would only be one accounting program or one video store management application. It is therefore this combination of art and science that gives software its inherent use value. More often than not, a software package is chosen based more on art than science. This can be seen in the popularity of some office suites, where the slick user interface and familiarity overcome the underlying technical weaknesses to build huge market share. The same premise stands for vertical market applications.