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Without Jobs, Will Open Source Suffer?

Posted by kdawson on from the worth-asking dept.

darthcamaro writes in with an interview with Markus Rex, Novell's top Linux exec and the former CTO of the Linux Foundation. While some open source vendors see the current economy as a boon to open source, the interview concludes with Rex's speculation on the contrary possibility. "The other thing is in both Europe and the US the rise of the unemployment rate is something that is rather unprecedented... The open source community to a certain degree is dependent on the willingness of people to contribute. We see no indication that anything might change there, but who knows? People need something to live off." Have you thought about scaling back open source work as the economy continues to contract?

2 of 275 comments (clear)

  1. Re:It should flourish. by Aladrin · · Score: 4, Informative

    I agree. For the reason you stated, and that I was bored, I did a lot more open source coding when I was jobless than I do now.

    And it -did- help me get a good job as well.

    --
    "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
  2. Opposite effect? by DoofusOfDeath · · Score: 4, Informative

    I would think that sacked software engineers would actually be more likely to start contributing to OSS ...

    • to build a portfolio
    • to keep their skills sharp
    • because they have the free time and it's enjoyable and/or civilly virtuous

    [I can't RTFA because of content filtering where I'm at right now. So I'm guessing about its contents.]