The Marketcetera team is as aware as the rest of us that economic changes are coming fast and furious, and that open source software can have an impact on a company's -- or individual's -- financial future. Honestly, one could say Marketcetera is twice as aware of open source software's financial potential.

Today, Marketcetera released the first full production release of its open source automated trading platform. Aimed at hedge fund managers, traders, brokers and dealers, the system is standardized, open, scalable and modular. This, says Marketcetera CEO Graham Miller, offers users faster deployments, better integration, and the ability to customize everything from the public APIs to data models.

Want an open-source alternative to Quicken?  Look no further than GNUCash, a double-entry accounting program that offers a huge number of features, compatibility supporting a wide variety of accounts, currencies, and languages.  With a set of built-in functions that should satisfy most simple needs, and an extension language that allows you to write custom programs and reports, GNUCash is an application that deserves to be mentioned more in discussions of open-source productivity software.

As we posted earlier, Marketcetera announced this week its secured $4 million in Series A funding to develop a software stack designed to automate financial trading. While Marketcetera might be one of the first open source companies to "aim for the specialized world of Wall Street trading," it's not likely to be the last.

Between the continuous flow of venture capital funding toward open source projects and Wall Street's apparent readiness to embrace the open source philosophy, Marketcetera's new cash infusion looks to be just the tip of the iceberg. What does all this point to?