If you or your institution are considering open source software in any form you might like to cast your eyes over this academic study commisioned by the European Commision to look into the economic/innovative impacts of free/libre/open software (link via Slashdot). Be aware that’s it’s a hefty report and may need several eyes to go over it . (1.8 MB pdf)

There is an executive summary which I’ll summarise in another post. 

However, some kindly slashdotters have pulled out some of the conclusions (from page 283) and other parts of the document are also discussed further down on the link given.