Businesses certainly profit by using high-quality software that is freely available, and unencumbered by restrictive licensing, so they must keep an eye towards its sustainability. That might mean an occasional donation of equipment, funds, employees' time and know-how, whatever it is you have to offer.

The stability of Linux and the growing set of open source tools is a Good Thing; people can count on getting what they need without paying through the nose for it, and without locking themselves into a single vendor as in the paired model.

It would be a shame, however, for I.T. shops to take that stability for granted, as if they happened upon a pearl and didn't realize how long and how much work it took to generate that pearl.

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