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Where are all the opensource billionaires? At MySQL.

A few days ago, Hugh MacLeod kicked off some industry navel gazing by asking “why aren’t their any opensource billionaires?” Answers rolled in:

1. Jeff Atwood / Coding Horror: its fragmentation, competition, and the very nature of FOSS.
2. Seth laments that corporate aversion to risk and the difference between actual and apparent need holds back FOSS.
3. Dennis Forbes succinctly dissects all of Hugh’s logic, suggesting that Hugh’s analysis was pulled off-track by a poor understanding of sales and service channels.

At the end of the day, I’d agree most strongly with Seth’s assessment, but post script by saying that the era of opensource billionaires is on its way as corporate mindsets begin change on the credibility of FOSS-developed software. Case in point: MySQL’s coming IPO.

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