Well, `hacker' is a loaded term for sure, but yeah, OSS had its roots in the 1970's.  It was called UNIX at the time.

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At the heart of OSS is a wonderful idealistic notion that appeals to our caring, sharing side.
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At the heart of it, is that programmers like to program.  Fsck off btch.

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The OSS vision is of a world in which there are no greedy corporations run by megalomaniac billionaires intent on screwing users out of their hard-earned cash in return for bloated, unstable, insecure software which only operates properly with other products from the same manufacturer and has laughable customer support. Instead, there are communities of gentle, altruistic individuals working together voluntarily for the good of mankind. Unsullied by the sordid world of commerce, the code that they produce is somehow purer and more ethical than proprietary software.
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God, you do like to babble on, don't you.  The heart of it is programmers like to program.  Did I mention Fsck off.

We LIKE what we do.  We would do it even if we were not paid.  You don't understand that concept do you?  Starving artists?  Aspiring actresses/actors waiting tables?  Writers in dives?  What the hell do you think a programmer is anyway?

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This utopian vision of technology is championed by high-profile pressure groups such as the Free Software Foundation and embraced by cyber-liberties groups such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
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As opposed to a low pressure group such as Microsoft's marketing department.  Blow me.

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However, OSS would not have become the powerful force that it is today without also having wider appeal.
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Damned, you finally got something right.  How many sentences did it take you?

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However, OSS would not have become the powerful force that it is today without also having wider appeal.
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Blow me, I was never a hippy.  Fsckhole.

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OSS also appeals to a deep-seated fear within many hard-nosed IT managers in organizations whose reliance on a particular software product may be critical to their business.
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No sht.  So you want me to count the number of proprietary software companies we have important applications from that went belly up?

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Such organizations tend to have major concerns over the risk of inadequate or diminishing support for the product, either through product obsolescence or if the vendor goes bust.
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Um, Duh.

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They become locked into an endless cycle of product upgrades, which can be almost impossible to break free from.
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I did mention Duh, right?

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With OSS solutions, users have the comfort of a large developer community that is unlikely to disappear anytime soon and there is always the option of supporting the software in-house as the source code is freely accessible.
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Damned, you bought a clue!

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Despite the overt counterculture
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Great I am still a hippy.  So what is your past writer boy?

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and anti-globalization agendas
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Stop the presses!  OSS is against globalization!  Film at eleven.  God that was so clueless.

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displayed by certain sections of the open source movement,
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Some names would be helpful here you know.  Oh wait, that would mean you know what a reporter does for a living...

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many governments are now also turning towards OSS in their quest for an information society for every citizen.
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Whatever the hell you meant by that.

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Many of the proponents of OSS seem to have been captivated by the idea of a free lunch
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Maybe perhaps, they have been captivated by the idea of understanding what their freaking computer is doing.

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and may have failed to consider the longer-term effect of OSS on our fragile software ecosystem.
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Oh great, software is now wetlands.  Save the freaking spotted owl!  What total blather.

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Let us examine some of the issues surrounding OSS that aren't normally aired in public:
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And on that note, I turn you over to Zen...