The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), a consortium of commercial Open Source providers, sent its members a survey as to the challenges ahead for free software and received some optimistic responses.

The nonprofit OSA consortium is "dedicated to making enterprise-class open software solutions work together." Its members include, among others, Ingres, Jaspersoft, Talend and Unisys. Those heads of companies who answered the five questions generally assessed the current economic crises as a challenge yet opportunity and expect commercial offerings of free software to be on the upswing in 2009. For one thing, the licensing cost advantages should play an increasingly larger role in these budget-starved periods.

The alliance is tasked, among other things, with establishing new markets, quality control and Web 2.0 functionality. CEO Brian Gentile of Jaspersoft explained that "Today’s young workers have much higher expectations of their software, and as they enter the workforce and expect the same Web 2.0-like experience in the workplace, we better give it to them."

Responses to the question about the impact President Obama will have on the IT industry were generally favorable. CEO Michael Grove of CollabWorks, however, feels that if Obama "proceeds with his stated tax policy, than we will see fewer jobs, less growth, and less IT spending."

The OSA Annual Prediction Survey 2009 results are available here.

The Open Solutions Alliance (OSA), a consortium of commercial Open Source providers, sent its members a survey as to the challenges ahead for free software and received some optimistic responses.