Illuminata Perspectives sums up the way Open Source is being used by a lot of companies:

In effect Open Source has become a free pass for all sorts of competitive actions that would once have been -- at a minimum -- roundly criticized. I don’t argue that (for the most part) such actions should be universally deplored or prohibited. It’s part of the way today’s software world works, and in many ways it provides direct advantages to IT customers. However, don’t mistake it for altruism -- and thereby get all shocked and disappointed when the same companies take some other action that is nakedly self-serving the next week.

What I personally love watching is the contortions - it was evil for Microsoft to make IE free in the 90's, but it's laudable for IBM to make Eclipse free now. Regardless of the availability of the source code, the net effect is much the same.