GEEKLOG: The new gulf war and it's effect on operating systems,
Yesterday morning I wrote about the war and it's possible effect on the Operating System market in the third world. A friend sent me the following Email which led to a neat exchange. I won't use the person's name as this is used without permission.
I have edited the following a bit:
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It's a big problem for the software industry. Once you build the expectation that everything is free, it's really hard to get folks to pay for other software packages.
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Yes, what I am also concerned about is a backlash from the war affecting our tech sector. On one hand tech is the driving engine of the war effort and every tech weapon that gets blown up is a tech weapon that will be replaced (hopefully with an improved version.)
But; that does not result in a product that improves society or build emerging markets. If defense becomes the primary market for tech (rebuilding the military-industrial complex) and we alienate emerging markets other sources that supply those emerging markets will emerge! Our tech sector will become even more isolated to our shores.
Forced purchasing of software by strict license compliance built into the product could lead to greater growth potential for the Free Software Movement (FSM.) The learning curve for *NIX variants is steep, but the GUI's are getting better all the time.
After a few years down the FSM path will potential buyers look back? By then Longhorn will be as alien to them as KDE or GNOME is to most Win.x users. They may then be asking, "neat, but can I run my favorite version of StarOffice or GIMP on it?" That is if they even consider buying American.
One of the best thing Linux may have going for it is that Linus is a Finn.
--Steve
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Linus moved to the US ... He lives in Santa Clara. So much for avoiding American-made software. We just import the best.
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He was working for Transmeta last I heard. I saw him at Linux World a few years ago, before LinuxWorld went totally corporate, I ran into him at Starbucks even. But, Linux wasn't invented here. Linus was holed up in his closet for a long Finnish winter when he wrote Linux after getting frustrated with Minnix.
I read his book. I have read several books on him Linux, GNU, Open Source and FSM. I've read Stallman's book, Eric Raymond's book and even tried to model my running of the union on "The Cathedral and the Bizzare." It seemed like unions and the open source/FSM movement had a lot in common. It seemed like modeling a volunteer organization (like a union) on an open source development project had a lot of potential.
Yes, he is in America. Perhaps he is a citizen by now. But Linux is very international, I think. This is all my opinion, but from what I have read Linux (and the development of Linux OS) is percieved by some as being very Un-American (almost socialist) in it's concept . I don't think Linux has the international perception as being as linked to US Industry as McDonalds, Microsoft and perhaps even Apple.
I'm talking about perceptions here. In politics perceptions seem to me to be as important, perhaps more so, than reality.
--Steve
8:38:24 AM 
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