In the realm of open source, what was once all-Linux, all-the-time, has shifted gears to encompass everything from enterprise resource planning applications to Web browsers and CRM.

Tiny startup companies and former pet projects of developers well versed in kernels and General Public License (GPL) now find themselves on the receiving end of millions and millions of investment dollars, while products like Firefox, MySQL and OpenOffice.org are now thrown about in a serious manner with household names like Microsoft Office, Oracle and others. Where there was once a jumble of FUD about open source software (OSS) in the minds of chief information officers (CIOs), there are now dollar signs and sound business models.

With the landscape for OSS changing every day and with the Open Source Business Conference less than a month away, conference director Matt Asay took some time to discuss some of those transformations -- both good and bad -- with SearchOpenSource.com.