One of the issues that came up after Oracle acquired Sun was what would happen to its programming languages and free software systems. MySQL, Open Solaris, Open Office, etc. all belong to Sun, who was pretty proactive about the open source movement. Now that they've been bought out, it's interesting to wonder what Oracle does with these systems. Many people agree that the move was made so that Oracle could have more control/power over the direction Java takes, the programming language that runs the server Oracle makes a killing on. For both parties, the move makes sense.
However, there's no guarantee that Oracle won't pull the plug on any of the open source solutions and products Sun offers to "trim the excess fat," or "stop the hemorrhaging." If that happens to Open Office, for example, then what? It's easy to say look else where to find a comparable application but there isn't one that's as proven or reliable. More importantly, though, what happens when that application takes off and someone buys them out? There's a perception that anything free and popular in the technology world can make oodles of money if tweaked the right way (Facebook, Craigslist); or it needs to be bought out at a higher-than-valued rate to quash any competition (Google with YouTube). It's kind of like the old expression, "Information wants to be free. Information also wants to be expensive." Open source wants to be free, but it also wants to be bought, manipulated, and repackaged into something you have to pay money for.
This is a trend that is likely to continue. After all, if someone wanted to throw a billion dollars at me for something I created for free, there's no way I could say no. Still, I wonder if it's possible for a company or organization to not sell out and try to build an empire on open source software. The idealist in me says that yes, someone is going to make sure it's free. But the cynic in me says there's no way, the next big thing will always be bought out for vast sums of money.
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