Joel's Strategy Letter V talks about why big companies produce open source software - what's in it for them?

And the thing is, there is always a reason, and that reason is never altruism. Which is no surprise.

The reason for IBM's conversion has been obvious to me for some time. They don't make a lot of money from hardware and software any more (the iSeries aside). They make money from services and consultancy.

It is worth pointing out, though, that Java isn't open source.

Update 18th June: Slashdot have picked this up. Lots of heat, not much light.