AlterNet.org: Techsploitation: Linux Apocalypse?

“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.”

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