Is Intel hurt by Cooper exit?

Job moves like this happen all the time, but some in the open source community may conclude that Cooper's move means Intel is less committed to open source.

Certainly such rumblings were heard when Cooper, and others, left Sun. It's often assumed that open source is rising or falling within Microsoft based on the comings and goings of individuals.

I have played that game, too.

Such fears made sense a few years ago, when open source was highly controversial. I am asking whether it matters now.

Is enterprise open source really dependent on having a few leaders advocating it within the halls of industry leaders? Or is this now no longer a movement but a simple fact of business life.

Cooper leaves a pretty deep bench of open source experts at Intel, judging from the company's blog. Among its more regular open source bloggers is Dave Stewart, who runs Intel's Open Solaris program on the Xeon chip and also writes a personal blog.

The point is that the Intel Cooper leaves is not the same as the Intel Cooper came to. My guess is that this was true of her days at Sun as well.

This is also true elsewhere, I'm certain. Open source is now an accepted part of business life. Its place in our largest enterprises is secure.

We are in a post-diva era. (Von Stade retired from the Metropolitan Opera in 2001 but still sometimes appears on the radio.)