AlterNet.org: Techsploitation: Linux Apocalypse?
Nov 16, 2001, 14 :07 UTC (37 Talkback[s]) (7772 reads) (Other stories by Annalee Newitz)
"Is this the last tango for Linux? Is open source a dead end? No. Open source is just headed underground, where it will reproduce virally in the community of developers to whom it always mattered most.
Our hope for open source, and its demise as the market crashed, are reminiscent of what happened to leftist politics during the revolutionary 1960s. One reason radical ideas flourished during the 60s was that it was an era of unprecedented economic boom. People were affluent enough to consider social experiments, to allocate social spending for the poor and disenfranchised, to volunteer their time for political causes. As a result, there was a short burst of passionate radicalism which seemed about to overturn the old, "establishment" ways of doing things. And then the economy tanked in the 70s, and a whole generation of bitter hippies were left wondering where the revolution had gone.
But it wasn't gone. It just went underground. One might even say it remerged, vastly changed, as the open source movement."
