New York University anthropologist Gabriella Coleman, a speaker at the recently held Linux.Conf.Au (which attracted more than 600 open-source software developers and enthusiasts), says the open-source software movement has emerged relatively unscathed from the economic downturn. She notes that most hackers (a term used by the community to describe people who write open-source software) have kept their jobs in the downturn, and there are tens of thousands of open-source developers involved in thousands of projects. But even the highest-profile initiative under way — open source server and desktop operating system Debian — is largely being driven by a core team of about 100, she says. A growing proportion of hackers are employed by information technology firms that have a commercial interest in the success of the open-source projects they sponsor. Conferences have allowed these virtual projects to scale, while reinforcing the community’s values and ethics, says Coleman.

Source: stuff.co.nz

Posted February 2nd, 2010 under Intellectual Property Marketing

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