If commercial companies cannot innovate fast enough, pressures from open source development will reduce revenues, including for research and development, Purdy said.

"If we can't find ways for people to get rich [in software development], we're not going to attract the best and brightest to the industry," Purdy said.

Johnson disagreed with equating open source with free. Enterprises use open source because it does the job, he said. Money is being made off of providing services related to open source software, according to Johnson. "I think we definitely are going to see that open source does make people rich," Johnson said.

Marinescu said open source software frees up developers to build value-added innovative applications. "That means more jobs for you guys," he told the audience.

Also during the discussion, Johnson touted aspect-oriented programming. "AOP is really going to change the shape of the application server market and change the definition," he said.