As I write T2P's 2009 outlook for open source, I can't help but wonder how a tsunami of non-contributing adopters will affect the open source development ecosystem.

Most of the companies using open source software will not directly contribute to its development, nor will they directly recognize or compensate the developers who've contributed to their systems. Furthermore, developers who indirectly generate code for even thousands of mission-critical systems will have no way to cite that achievement.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: The open source movement is not a populist revolution. It's a technocratic oligarchy. If, as Eric Raymond suggests, prestige is the capital of open source development, the net impact of widely uncredited, unrecognized, and therefore uncompensated work could be quite oppressive, couldn't it?

In other words, when the majority of software users don't know or admire the developers, will those developers take their PHP and go home? Or will mainstreaming catalyze new open source business models that, by directly compensating developer communities, cultivate a richer, better supported, and more diverse open source market?

What do you think?