Public domain/Open Source (GNU, Linux, Apache, Mozilla, Perl,...) produces software of overwhelmingly better quality than commercial companies. The reasons are structural. They are bound to the openness of software, to the dedication of people, to the empowerment of the people detaining the distributed information.
It has started with operating systems and tools. It will extend to applications, and network management, being a very basic component of potentially any sophisticated system) will not escape it.
Eventually, this may be the major driving force for a restructuration of our society in the next century. The equivalent of the effect of steam engine onto the raise of capitalism in last century. That is: (1) the rational centralized state, with planning, (2) the capitalistic companies, with competition and the market as a means of validation, (3) open free networks, with Darwinian selection.