Sharing wins in recessionary times

Last week, I wrote a post about our newest version of the Red Hat brand story, which starts with two simple lines:

Your mother was right. It’s better to share.

Share Bear sez: Let's get on the sharing train, people!

Over the weekend, I stumbled across an interesting piece originally written for the Washington Post, entitled Recession Lesson: Share and Swap Replaces Grab and Buy.

According to the article, sharing is in again. Which is happy news for us open source folks. Here’s how the article starts:

The recession is reminding Americans of a lesson they first learned in childhood: Share and share alike. They are sharing or swapping tools and books, cars and handbags, time and talent.

The article goes on to cover examples of sharing in everyday life brought on by recessionary times: sharing gardens, sharing chores, sharing clothes– just like the old days, perhaps?

The sharing mind-set is not new to the American culture, but many Americans abandoned it when the nation shifted from an agricultural society to an industrial one, said Rosemary Hornak, a psychology professor at Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. They moved farther from their families and did not have time to connect with new neighbors because they worked so much, she said. Now that people are experiencing financial distress, they don’t want to be alone.

So give your mom credit. She not only predicted where the future of the software industry is headed, but also gave you some great ideas for surviving this tough economy.

Well played, mom. Well played.