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Economic Slump hits Open Source
adamjone writes: "C|NET and Yahoo! are running a story about the hit that open source software is taking during this economic slump. Open source development is a hobby for me, not my full-time job. I find that I have more time to work on my project during times when my full-time job is slow, or we don't have enough work. Is open source truly being driven by those who make it their full-time occupation? If so, is there a happy medium for keeping bread on the table and still working within the open source community?" At least Microsoft is doing well.
NEWFLASH! Open source projects aren't making money when commercial ventures aren't making money, therefore open source is fading!
The author of the article referenced here takes examples like VA Linux and says, "See, open source is on the way out." The point should be that times were so wild for a while there you could offer Free[dom] software and *still* make money.
Quoting a quote from the article:
"The development model of open-source software is wonderful. But let's not confuse a development model with a business model. Basic business principles were forgotten by some," said Turbolinux Chief Executive Ly-Huong Pham.
[end quote]
Mistaking open-source for a business model is exactly what this article does. The fact that open-source companies are struggling is not a good indicator that open source is "fading". That's like measuring the well-being of the Catholic Church by how much the Pope makes each year, after taxes, of course. *sigh*
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I believe it will become less important over time. Why? Because the high-flying VC money and gold-rush speculation that drove those fat boomtime salaries are what really paid for open-source.
Now that we have heard from Bill Gates, perhaps we can pump a little more reality into the discussion.
When I started using Linux in 1994, the Information Superhighway wasn't on the radar. MOST IT jobs were in the same sectors that they are in now: database management. At that time, I saw thousands of listings on usenet for DB administrators and sysadmins. What the hell did those jobs have to do with open source? Nothing! People got paid for computing and open source projects were flourishing. This momentary dip in open source funding does not equate to a death knell for non-proprietary software development.
But now that you have done your obligatory dance on the open source grave, keep this in mind: As long as there are programmers who are willing to collectivly contribute their spare time to a project, open source will survive. That may seem alien to you, but people contribute to all kinds of collaborative efforts without the expectation of monitary gain ($1BUSD donated to Red Cross).
You might not agree with the cooperative sentiment, but there is 400 years of history behind the open source philosophy.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"