I do work on web applications for a living. So I get to use lots of great free software. But all too often, the fruit of my labor is heavily restricted by copyright and licensing or, worse, neither used nor allowed to be re-used because the idea didn't take off. Yet the shareholders still want to fiercely protect it.

Why can't there be more open-source companies? Gittip is the only example I know of so far. The catch 22 seems to be how can a company grow if its products are open source, or how can it remain open source while somehow charging customers?