Assuming that the current belt-tightening trend in the industry will have long-term effects on budgets and spending practices, there's another effect you may not be anticipating. Namely, while companies as software consumers may in the very short term consider open source over commercial software for their needs where they might have otherwise not, the companies that employe the open source developers are just as likely to stop subsidizing open source development work.
Of course, not all open source development is done on company time, but for the most part, the most commercially-viable open source projects have some corporate sponsorship at a minimum in the form of subsidized headcount. The net effect is that we may see a decline in the output (both in terms of productivity and quality) of open source projects.
As someone who has purchasing influence across a few companies, I for one am thinking ahead and thinking twice about recommendations for committing to the use of open source software in this current economic environment. Who knows how many open source developers are going to lose employer support for their efforts (assuming they haven't already)?
Of course this is a potentially circular discussion w/regards to cause-and-effect. But the point is, one should consider ALL of the ramifications of the current economic climate before jumping to conclusions about the impact on software development, whether commercial or open source...
Slashdot Mirror
Assuming that the current belt-tightening trend in the industry will have long-term effects on budgets and spending practices, there's another effect you may not be anticipating. Namely, while companies as software consumers may in the very short term consider open source over commercial software for their needs where they might have otherwise not, the companies that employe the open source developers are just as likely to stop subsidizing open source development work. Of course, not all open source development is done on company time, but for the most part, the most commercially-viable open source projects have some corporate sponsorship at a minimum in the form of subsidized headcount. The net effect is that we may see a decline in the output (both in terms of productivity and quality) of open source projects. As someone who has purchasing influence across a few companies, I for one am thinking ahead and thinking twice about recommendations for committing to the use of open source software in this current economic environment. Who knows how many open source developers are going to lose employer support for their efforts (assuming they haven't already)? Of course this is a potentially circular discussion w/regards to cause-and-effect. But the point is, one should consider ALL of the ramifications of the current economic climate before jumping to conclusions about the impact on software development, whether commercial or open source...