The software industry has always been caught between two perspectives: one anchored in supply, the other in demand. To the market s supply side (the vendors), commodities and "commoditization" have always been threats. To the demand side (the customers), commodities have always been useful.

The latter view is winning, thanks to open source. And we re only beginning to dis cover how much larger the market will be, now that it s filling with useful open source commodities. These commodities, in most cases, have little or no sale value, but are useful for building countless other businesses. The combined revenues of those businesses will far exceed revenues of companies that make their money sell ing software.

Use value precedes sale value in every market category. Think about it. Agriculture started with gardening. Textiles started with weaving and knitting. Meat packing started with herding. Construction started with hut building.

What did the software industry start with? In a word, programming. As Eric S. Raymond said in the first chapter of the original Open Sources, "In the beginning were the Real Pro grammers." To Raymond, real programming was both legacy and destiny a source that began with "guys in polyester shirts, writing in machine and assembler and FORTRAN," and ran through Unix programming and the free software movement, to arrive at "Linux development and mainstreaming of the Internet."