@FIRST_LIGHT

As with previous surveys of this nature, I found the premises behind most of the questions bewildering.

For example, I couldn't understand the assumption that Red Hat was the paradigmatic Open Source company, and that any business that did well our of Open Source/Free Software was therefore going to be "the next Red Hat". Red Hat made it's fortune making free software look more familiar to corporate IT departments. There's little or no need for this service any more. The idea that there is any money to be made in selling shrink-wrapped boxes and something that looks like a per-seat license to use free software is a bit strange.

In general just the idea that companies drive the free software/open source economy seems odd coming from anybody with experience with Drupal. Drupal demonstrates quite vividly that the success or failure of free software projects depends on communities, not companies. Companies can (and should) be part of the community, but the project has to stand on it's own feet. A prerequisite for the success of OpenOffice.org will be Sun becoming one of many contributors instead of possessing a controlling interest, likewise Ubuntu and Canonical. Red Hat's a bit of a dinosaur. The fact that nobody else is still making make money from that model (anybody remember Mandrake/Mandriva?) is strongly suggestive that's it's day has passed.