Is open source now politically correct?

Has the open source movement become politically correct?

The charge of political correctness, when it's made, refers mainly to assumptions people feel forced to hold, whether true or not, in public discourse.

There are such assumptions in terms of open source. One, that it's good. Two, that it's inevitable. When speaking before an audience of open source advocates (or writing for them) you don't want to question these assumptions, lest you come in for a nasty hazing.

I may have engaged in such hazing myself, right here. Last week an executive approached me, after I published a critique, complaining that he'd been misunderstood.

This surprised me, because every report I read about the event in question seemed to have him making the identical set of points, points which were a severe critique of the long-term viability of open source companies.

No, no, the executive responded, those stories were a sort of "groupthink," a conflation of some legitimate claims with politically correct assumptions. Remarks concerning the future of specific open source businesses were turned into an attack on open source itself.

Unfair.

Well, maybe. As proprietary vendors work to live in an open source world, they do try and develop strategies and business models that give them some competitive advantage. Is there something wrong with that? Is there a limit beyond which open source as an ideal gets in the way of the nitty-gritty of making a living?

I don't think so, but I'm just a reporter. How do you experience this? Do you find yourself pressured to agree with certain open source assumptions you feel are still subject to question? Which ones? And if you do feel pressured, how do you deal with it?