Which leads me to my next question: Is that situation so bad?

Let's say this is the shape of the software industry for the next 10 years. A proprietary company comes up with an innovative idea and it's successful. The open source community scrambles to duplicate this idea. Eventually the open source version matures, it catches on, the product category becomes commoditized, and customers gravitate toward the lowest-cost option. Meanwhile, a new innovative idea has come along. Rinse, repeat.

Bill Gates told CNet, "The industry will always be a mix of free and commercial software." If he's finally fine with that, is it good enough for us, too?