The open source community defies definition. It's a diverse multitude of people with different motivations. This will ensure its survival even under challenging

The open source community defies definition. It's a diverse multitude of people with different motivations. This will ensure its survival even under challenging circumstances. There is a risk, maybe significant, of the generational hand off. A lot of folks who built this rich legacy were academics and pioneers motivated by ideology. Software has moved on from early pioneers motivated by liberty and freedom issues to being subsumed by establishment interests. At the moment there is also widespread cynicism about ideology in general and a lot of open source is increasingly developed by corporate interests. This could have repercussions for the 'nature' of open source as institutions and a connection to individuals beyond their identity as 'users' has not really been built.