The potential importance of open-source models is beginning to dawn on mainstream business and government. How companies and nations respond could help to determine who thrives in the growing knowledge economy. Yet a high proportion of decision-makers is only dimly aware of what open-source is and why it matters.

It is only 14 years since Linus Torvalds, then a computer student at the University of Helsinki, tentatively solicited collaborators to help build a free operating system. By 2002, the system that resulted, Linux, had a quarter of the global market for server operating systems.