“Apache web server – free server software that powers 70% of all web sites. – one of the most successful business software projects ever. Brian Behlendorf, the guy who orchestrated the whole thing, did not make a dime off this. “If he had sold Apache for the same price as Microsoft’s comparable server software, he might have earned sales upwards of a billion dollars. But then, if had cost the same, it might never have taken off. And all of the inumberable value that is created around and by the Apache ecosystem might not have materialized, including the legion of small and medium sized businesses that are thriving on this low cost infrastructure. Behlendorf, now a veritiable legend in the open source community, has since gone on to found CollabNet, a successful company that provides workflow and colloboration tools to collaborate across firm boundaries and integrate self-organizing developer communities into their rigorously structured product development processes. Had Behlendorf not gained worldwide notoriety from the Apache project, it’s unlikely he’d be where he is at today.”
