Open-source programmers gathered this past weekend to share ideas and dreams about new methods for distributing encrypted data across the Internet and plans for a peer-to-peer wireless backbone. Aside from a common love of computing, the crowd gathered in the dim confines of a nightclub at the edge of Multimedia Gulch here shared another trait: Most of them are unemployed.. . .

Open-source programmers gathered this past weekend to share ideas and dreams about new methods for distributing encrypted data across the Internet and plans for a peer-to-peer wireless backbone. Aside from a common love of computing, the crowd gathered in the dim confines of a nightclub at the edge of Multimedia Gulch here shared another trait: Most of them are unemployed.

While most of the programmers here were caught up in the dot-com frenzy not so long ago, the collapse of the market has left many skilled programmers without work--and with a lot of free time.

"Right now you are in the worst time if you are trying to do what programmers were doing three years ago," said Brad Templeton, chairman of the digital-rights advocate Electronic Frontier Foundation.

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