Linux in 2009: Recession vs. GNU

"The idea that software available at no cost will become popular in a recession is a no-brainer. As Peter Vescuso, VP of Marketing at Black Duck Software points out, "The recession is going to force a lot of people to be more careful with their spending, and look to get more and more value out of their resources as they spend." And, Vescuso adds, the pressure to do more with less will be particularly hard on IT departments, who are always under pressure to deliver efficient, uninterrupted service. Under the circumstances, interest in software that is available at no cost or only a small one is only natural.

"But FOSS has many more advantages than simply being a cheaper way of building infrastructure. Jim Zemlin, executive director of the Linux Foundation, points out that not only is FOSS in general and Linux in particular well-supported, with billions of dollars of investment from top tier companies, but that, unlike Windows, it is "massively hedged," by which he means that it is available in every form from cheap notebooks through embedded systems to super computers."

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