Or look at Sun, which finally open-sourced Java last year. Or Oracle, which began supporting Red Hat Linux -- though its offer received heavy criticism because, as Haff puts it, "Red Hat is reasonably well-liked, and Oracle's move was so bloody flagrant."

Or take the wave of startups that are adopting open-source business models but shucking the ideological baggage. Like Interface21's Choksi, who cheerfully admits not having "any religious affiliation to open-source. It's just how we went to market from the start."

Redmonk's Governor believes the numbers of such accidental open-sourcers, as opposed to true believers, will continue to increase, because in this age of easily-developed and delivered software, "freemium" business models -- meaning a service with a free entry point and a more expensive premium offering -- simply make the .

"Success in IT is increasingly defined by what vendors or organizations give away, as much as what they charge for," Governor said. "The world is moving on. It's increasingly a commodity business. Brand, packaging in the broad sense, and the service wrapper are what organizations can charge for."