How real are the 451 findings?

As Yogi Berra once said, "it's deja vu all over again."

I have been giving, and getting, this prediction since I first joined ZDNet almost three years ago. There is continuous progress, not just within projects but between them as well.

But none of the Fortunate 500 are ready to dump their IBM, CA, BMC or HP network management systems for open source. There remains too much work to be done from the bottom-up for that.

Ranga Rongacheri Rangachari(above), CEO of Groundwork, called yesterday to say an open source council in this area, launched last year at LinuxWorld, will be meeting again next week, bigger with the addition of Nagios and Network Weathermap.

In addition to meetings and a reception -- many project leaders are seeing one another for the very first time -- the leads will also drop by the Groundwork booth to answer your questions and offer demonstrations.

"There are a lot of best of breed projects out there with their own communities in network management. How do you knit them together? We’re building bridges between these communities," he said.

"Our communities interact, and all the projects continue to evolve."

Fine and good. If you've got 25, 50 or even a few hundred people in your company, you can knit yourself a decent network management set-up from these parts.

But that's a long way from having the Big Four quaking in their boots. Evolving isn't evolved.