Open source has survived the recession

A TOP New York University anthropologist has noted that the open source software culture has emerged relatively unscathed from the economic downturn.

Gabriella Coleman, who was opening keynote speaker at the geekfest Linux.Conf.Au held in Wellington, New Zealand, has made a name for herself studying the social habits of open source societies.

She pointed out that anthropologists know a lot more about the Maori than they do about open sourcerers, but the healthy turnouts at conferences like Linux.Conf.Au were critical to the movement's well being.

While open source tribes tend to have their ritual battles, these are more about showing off plumage and are a good sign that the culture is doing well.

Coleman also looked at the tensions that often arise between "free software" purists such as Richard Stallman and the slightly more pragmatic open source movement typified by Linus Torvalds and Linux coders.

She said that this was a sign of a healthy society in ensuring that neither wing of the movement stagnated.

Coleman highlighted how open source has a critical role to play in battles over how copyright law should function, especially in helping overcome "misguided assumptions" that there are "no possible alternatives" to existing intellectual property laws. µ