An old article on OSS

I just found an old Economist article about open-source software. Much of the article has to do with simply describing what it is and how it works. But there are two passages that give insight into how OSS is economically sustainable:

Most open-source projects are organised in much the same way. Their members are motivated mainly by fame rather than fortune; it is considered a coup to write a “patch� that passes the peer review of fellow developers and gets incorporated in the next release. And most open-source projects are governed by a “benevolent dictator�, an individual with exceptional programming, organisational and communications skills—such as Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux.

and

Ironically, it is IBM, the hackers’ original arch-enemy, that has gambled the most on Linux so far. Big Blue recently announced that it will spend $1 billion on Linux this year because it really wants the program to become a computing standard. It is doing this because it sees itself mainly as a provider of e-business solutions, and because a standard operating system would make it much easier to integrate them, explains Irving Wladawsky-Berger, IBM’s man in charge of its Linux operations.

The point is that the success of big OSS projects like Linux and OpenOffice depends on (1) enthusiastic developers that are willing to work, in part, for fun and prestige and (2) businesses realizing that having this software around — software that sets up standards, like OpenOffice’s ODT — is valuable for them, because they have easier integration and more standardization, and donating money to those developers.
Out in the open | Economist.com