Keen comes off as a n00b, which buries any real points he may have, but I'm sure his points sound obvious to most people who don't get Open Source and only use a computer to watch YouTube.

I did enjoy the Mahalo wins over Google bit. Because human editors of the Intertubes are cheaper in a downturn, or something, never mind the sunk cost and established dominance of Google. Funny.

Most organizations sink a huge chunk of their dollars into maintenance for both development environments and enterprise apps. But Open Source gives users a chance to manage maintenance differently. Rather than writing a huge check for support that you may not need, you can opt to self-support with Open Source. If Open Source doesn't work, there is a great variety of arrangements available in the Open Source space (for example, contract with an expert or possibly the software distributor). Most of the available options are less cost than the typical support contract in the closed source space. In a time when companies are looking to cut costs, Open Source can look pretty good.

Web 2.0? In the 80s and 90s, synergy was a pretty groovy word used to describe the good results that come from getting good minds together. Web 2.0 is a natural evolution of that synergy thing. As companies and other organizations face the pressure of tough times and look for “out-of-the-box thinking”, bringing disparate groups of people together will be a great source for doing so. Web 2.0 is the means by which we can bring those people together.

The upshot to this rather long-winded comment (sorry Jake)? The economic downturn is not a death knell for Open Source or Web 2.0. In fact, I expect that the momentum for both will build as the downturn deepens.

I read somewhere that a large percentage of Open Source now comes from big companies like Sun who support large projects like MySQL, VirtualBox, etc.

Most of those developers would keep committing, even if they left, and many have.

Not to mention that Web 2.0 and Open Source aren't equivalent and never will be. Lots of issues with Keen's post.