451 Group: Open source funding fell in 2007 [LWN.net]

The 451 Group has put up an article on the fall in funding for open source companies in 2007. "Disclosed funding deals were down 40.7% to $323.87m for the full year, compared to $546.3m in 2007. While a reduction in funding had been expected after the huge levels seen in 2006, a dramatic reduction in funding during the fourth quarter meant that total funding for 2007 was also lower than the $334.82m raised in 2006."

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451 Group: Open source funding fell in 2007

Posted Jan 2, 2008 22:50 UTC (Wed) by kornak (guest, #17589) [Link]

VC Funding in general went down last year so why would this be news? Unless 
open source companies are somehow special and are immune to economic
conditions.

451 Group: Open source funding fell in 2007

Posted Jan 3, 2008 11:39 UTC (Thu) by copsewood (subscriber, #199) [Link]

At a time when open source software development seemed counter cultural, in many software
companies it would have made more sense to outsource development requiring open source to
external specialist companies. As open source development becomes mainstream it makes more
sense for internal software teams to learn and practice open-source methodologies and
outsource less of this work. If this observation matches reality, the reduction in this
funding might be because more open source software development is taking place, not less, but
it is taking place more within companies that are not classified by this survey as "open
source" companies.

451 Group: Open source funding fell in 2007

Posted Jan 3, 2008 18:46 UTC (Thu) by rahvin (subscriber, #16953) [Link]

This is VC (Venture Capital) funding, not businesses buying service contracts. Some people
view VC funding as a statement on the growth potential of the market. The problem with this is
like the first poster said, VC funding went down market wide, and OpenSource is actually a
pretty mature business marketplace. 

How many new OS companies are really going to survive? Most of that is because new OS
companies really don't have a whole lot new to innovate in, most of the major proprietary
software markets have been duplicated in OS so there isn't a whole lot of potential for
disruptive business growth, which is the prime draw of VC funding. VC firms are on the lookout
for the new Redhat's, Google's or Yahoo's. Companies that disruptive and create new and very
successful businesses that either create new markets or destroy old stagnant markets. IMO
there aren't many companies in OS that fit that category anymore.