Filling the gapingvoid...

Hugh asked... how well does open source currently meet the needs of shareholders and ceo's?

Plain and simple: Open source does not meet the needs of shareholders and CEO's.

Shareholders and CEO's are driven by one thing; profit. There is no sense doing business, or investing in business, if said business does not turn a profit. If this were not the case then there would be a huge market for rat holes so that money could be thrown down them.

I believe that Sun Microsystems has the right approach to Open Source software. Here I am referring to OpenOffice. I believe Sun acquired OO for two reasons. First and foremost was to "stick it" to Microsoft. Second was an incredibly savy move; ingratiate themselves with the greater Open Source community. (Something that Microsoft has never attempted to do.) Sun may even realize a small profit from its commercial version of StarOffice.

Sun's real victory is the inroads it has made into the overall 'office suite' arena. Without leveraging the open source project, supporting it, nurturing it, Sun would still be trying to make do with an inferior MS product.