Seth Godin's book Linchpin talks about the collapse of the "two hundred year old promise" that as long as we go to the school, pass our marks, get a good stable job, do as we are told, and pay our dues diligently, society will take care of us in retirement. With the financial crises of the early 21st century, it is clear that this promise -- or contract -- is being broken, and thus the need for us to rethink the way we go about our careers.
The 2010-2011 revolutions in the Middle East are also an example of evolving social contracts: the old promise of "one man to rule all tribes" have been shattered in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya, and is continually being challenged elsewhere in the Arab world. Despots are being told: your promises are not enough; diversity cannot be undermined by dictatorship; the people's voices have to be heard.

Microsoft has taken up this challenge so many times, with varying mileage
Software development has recently faced its own evolution of social contracts. The old notion that "no one ever got fired for buying Microsoft/IBM" has steadily been challenged in recent years by the rise of open source alternatives, as well as newer players such as Google and Amazon. While in the past it was commonplace to hear about software developers signing Non Disclosure Agreements specifying that they cannot use open source software (I have), or encountered dinosaurs who frown upon learning that their key systems use open source libraries to power it (been there too), more software engineering departments and companies are shunning such obsolete attitudes.
I'm not here to pontificate on the superiority of open source software as some FOSS fanatics tend to do. I'm not saying products from Microsoft or IBM are not good, not at all, a lot of them are awesome, and a lot of them are the best for certain jobs. However that isn't always the case, and IT dinosaurs must recognize that there are open source software out there that constantly challenge the quality and relevance of the offerings from Big Blue, Redmond, Cupertino, or even Mountain View. There are also a lot of offerings out there that are not matched by the big corps at all.
There are various licenses that cover scenarios of business use for open source software -- not all of them are GPL or copy left, which terrifies the suits in the legal department and gives them nightmares. All it takes is due diligence, these are what those lawyers are paid for.
The social contracts are changing again. Time to face the new ones.