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Is Open Source Recession Proof?
DaMan writes "ZDNet asks Is open source recession proof?
'So, how might a recession affect open source software? Well, first off, I think that any business model that relies on volunteers could certainly see interest decline if times get tough. There are a lot of businesses that rely on people working for them for free because they get a pay check somewhere else, and I think that a recession would make people question working without getting any dollars in return.'"
If you are talking about the development and evangelization of Open Source, then I would say yes. People are going to volunteer regardless. However, when you are talking about companies that sell or service Open Source software, then I would say no...it is not recession-proof. Economics are economics, and money is the same everywhere. Where there is a crunch, money doesn't flow as freely, and both Open Source and proprietary models will suffer.
Now...had they have said "Is FREE software recession-proof" then I would say, "yes...it is."
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Of course nobody wanted it that way. But when some Wall Street firms lost data centers and desktops, Sun, IBM, and HP couldn't make hardware fast enough. So, beige boxes all over the east ended up in ad-hoc data centers, running Linux or BSD. And surprise, they ran as well, often better than their predecessors.
Open Source is going to do well whenever IT can't pay a lot for software and has to stretch its budget. Good times might be worse for Open Source, but I don't see them being terrible for it.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Don't discount people who just deploy OSS for a living. I know a guy who probably hasn't contributed 10 lines of code over his career, but who is so effective at taking poorly documented OSS projects and making them function beautifully in commercial deployments...He makes a good living, evangelizes the hell out of OSS (he's a true believer), and drives money back into the projects.
Most critically of all, he has the ability to see the flaws, and to visualize the next step that would make the project into something awesome. People like that, who know the features that really need to exist in the project, are almost more important than the people who end up actually coding the feature in. I can do the code, but the spark of genius behind a really good feature...That's special.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Agreed. In fact from my own professional history, if you have a job and convince your employers that open source is a good idea, when they fire you you can take your work with you. Open source is great job security from the perspective of keeping your toolset alive from position to position.
If an employer pays you to work on an open source project, but they never distribute that project since it is for in-house use, can you legally take your work with you when you go? Experience, sure they can't keep that, but the actual code, changes and fixes, would belong to the employer?
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling