In the years since my first introduction to free software, things have never been better, but they've also never been as frustrating. All indications are we have only just begun to see the full impact of open source on the computing industry because we have only just started to see the effects of the Internet on business — these two market forces cannot be divided — but we have also only just begun to see the first baby steps of the brave new enterprises who recognize what is happening to the world around them. That leaves a large majority still struggling to fit the new order into old molds. Yes, we have lucrative opportunities in crafting servers, desktops and embedded applications, we have new opportunities with Fortune 500's, governments, small businesses and startups, and an overwhelming opportunity to replace and adapt an aging infrastructure into new "eBusiness" applications, but we are also seeing a cultural friction of old proprietary idea-mufflers as they scrape along the pavement.
Over the coming years, I expect culture shock. I expect more new developers who would take tickets to "Hair" over "Cats" or "Phantom of the Opera". I already see more Linux jobs than could be staffed by a conference full of developers, but too many are grabbing at straws, hoping against hope that Linux alone will salve their wounds, and firmly stuck in a self-limiting Industrial Age mindset of control. They are ready and poised only to take a free ride on free software, still believing that their participation could only be a revenue drain and a security risk. I think many of those jobs are sitting unfilled because no one with any sense wants them.
Psychologist and NLP co-inventor Richard Bandler said, "When we do something and it works, we do it again. When it no longer works, we do it again ... HARDER"
I expect some great clawing at old ways of doing. Sad and maddenly frustrating as it is, it is business as usual. This is the same friction I saw in the shift from mainframes to minis, then from minis to desktops, and again from private networks to Internet. As consultants, we can only point to those free and open community players rising to the top of the IPO heap while even the giant control freaks flounder clueless, wondering why the old ways won't work anymore.
For those who have lasted with me this long, I have only one last parting bit of advice from an old timer to the next generation. Whether I am right or wrong about the philosophical changes about to sweep business-as-usual, please remember this: All roads are short roads.
Enjoy.