[jondubois]

I think now is not a good time for open source. There is just too much advertising in the tech industry.

The advantage of open source used to be that it could help you to grow the user base of a product very quickly for free through only word of mouth. Open source is a low-margin, high volume industry.

These days, tech industry advertising is so strong/competitive that traditional 'word-of-mouth' marketing has become ineffective. I think open source products have a hard time reaching the kinds of volumes that they need to become profitable.

On the other hand, show me any open source project and I can quickly find a proprietary alternative which is not as good, costs a fortune but which thrives in this economy because they have received a ton of funding and are just spamming the internet with their ads.