In this guest column written for ZDNet, Michael A. Olson, president and CEO of Sleepycat Software (the developer of the open-source Berkeley DB, an embedded database engine), offers a perspective on the business merits of Open Source Software . . .

“The movement exploded onto the business scene several years ago, with breathless hype about Linux and the impending doom of Microsoft. Open-source upstarts and established software makers spent most of 2000 hurling press releases and venomous op-ed pieces at one another. If you were paying attention then, you might think you've heard it all by now.”

“You'd be wrong.”

“Quietly, over the past two years, open-source software has made an enormous difference in the way businesses operate. It's already deep in the Internet. More importantly, though, smart companies are finding ways to use open source directly. They're building better products faster — and more cheaply — than they ever could before. If you're not at least thinking about doing that yourself, you could be in trouble . . . “

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