When did "Open Source" start to imply "Swiss Army Knife"?

Todd Bishop mentioned the Higgins project this afternoon. For some reason this one just hit me wrong. I mean, we need a federated identity management system. Until we do everyone will have to roll their own solution and interop will just be a dream. But, just because Microsoft proposes something, does that mean that the open source community needs to come up with something different?

 

The quote that hit me was:

 

"Being an open source effort, Higgins will support any computer running Linux, Windows or any operating system, and will support any identity management system."

 

It's that repeated use of "any" that bothered me so much. It's as if it's going to solve all the world's problems. But, can it? Not really. Not out of the box. Instead, it's an "open" solution which I read as "download the bits, tweak them according to your needs, and hope for the best." Don't get me wrong, I think the OS community is doing great things. Sometimes though we just need a single-bladed pocket knife.