Tim O’Reilly wrote a message to the Free Software Business mailing list today that everyone in open source or in the Web application world should read. In response to a thread discussing why open source (in this case, Linux) sucks for the consumer, Tim responded that open source has been an incredible boon to consumers. It provided all of the key components that allowed the Web to blossom as a platform for deploying applications. It is, to a certain degree, a tragedy that Linux has managed to grab nearly all of the public attention in the open source world. It’s a great project, but it’s not the only project out there, nor is it the most important, in my opinion.