[Pessimist]

Why stop at software? Why not have everyone give away the product of their work for free?

[cicero2k]

With most companies spending 10 to 20 percent of their revenue on enterprise software, many IT managers would love to see more enterprise-class open source options.

I have to think this should refer to 10 to 20 percent of "IT budget" on enterprise SW, and even this includes in house DBAs, network admins, configuration and developers.

Any enterprise that spends 10 to 20 percent of revenue on SW licenses and maintenance fees alone would not stay in business long.

[ShadowAce]

[papasmurf]

There are those that think they must get paid for everything they do in life. Not everyone feels that way.

For those that contribute to the OpenSource community, there are, basically, two schools of thought.

1. My world doesn’t revolve around money. I earn what I need, and my contributions help others earn.
2. Experience has taught me that I get back far more “earning power” than I contribute.

I like the fact that there is a place for all in our world. The capitalistic and the altruistic. As we used to say in sales...there’s seat for every azz! LOL

[ModelBreaker]

I believe MySQL is installed in more corporations than any other database. Firebird is also very popular. Both are enterprise scale databases that are easy to work with and free. For a price, support is available.

So I don’t think it’s a question of when Open Source databases will become important enterprise tools. They already are.

[TChris]

Check out Firebird. It's open source and multi-platform. Very good for many mid to large projects.