Where are the open source VARs?

Eclipse began life as an IBM project, he noted, and "that tradition of high regard for Intellectual Property (IP) was part of our foundation," he said.

Most large organizations have done similar things. Partly as a result IP issues are not as salient as they were a year ago. "The fear has gone down, but there is still a businesslike acknowledgment of the risks, and the right things to do to mitigate those risks."

Fine for the big boys, I said, but what about small companies? How do they protect themselves from these kinds or risks?  "Individuals need to sensitize themselves to the issues. Small organizations will either buy software from a packaged solution vendor or have a small number of programmers they can train."

Sure, but millions of businesses don't have a programmer on staff. It was at that point he said what I considered a magic word -- VARs (Value Added Resellers).

"I think we'll see the emergence of small companies to serve the needs of small businesses. I think you'll see an emerging number of VARs building their businesses on top of open source."

Sounds reasonable, but I haven't seen any. The question is, have you? Where is the open source channel? And what can we do to grow it?