Open Source in a recession

[littleman]

I just read this article [opensource.org], and I am trying to figure out the net some gain of the open source movement and the slow down of the economy. VC is gone, corporate expansion is now contraction and there is a large pool of idle talent. Do you think the lack of development money strengthens or weakens Open Source?

[rcjordan]

Open-source database developer Great Bridge closes [computerworld.com]

Open source loses here. They were working PostgreSQL. I don't think there was any sort of transition of their knowledgebase. This was funded by heavyweights (Landmark owns 'The Weather Channel and weather.com, to name a few among a hundred other properties). I knew people inside, when it became apparent that monetization was going to have to wait some months/years until the economy turned around, they pulled the plug. That's their story, anyway.

[sugarkane]

I think core open source development will be unaffected by economic conditions - it was going strong well before big money got involved.

What will suffer is the push towards turning open source software into consumer products, but I'm not convinced this was ever a realistic goal.