Ted Leung writes about Open source and mass amateurisation, and I agree only partly. IMO, for a long time open source software has been as good as or better than commercial products. The reference he cites - Apache HTTPD - is an excellent example. I doubt, however, that the Apache server was written by hobbyists. In fact I think it's largely due to Java and its ease of use that we now have so many crappy open source software projects. Back in the days when most of the GNU stuff was written, you needed to be fluent in Unix and C to build open source software. Nowadays, anyone with access to the Internet can start writing software almost immediately. Which is a good thing. Most of the times.