Linux in Europe [LWN.net]

Linux in Europe

Posted Mar 11, 2005 4:41 UTC (Fri) by dkite (guest, #4577)
In reply to: Linux in Europe by grouch
Parent article: Linux in Europe

I don't think that the adoption rates in US and Canada (probably similar)
have anything to do with patents.

There are a few linux installations in my area, but all the large users
are Windows. The only large site that may go linux on servers is the
local community college which currently is Novell. Talking to one IT
manager at a auto parts plant, he said you have to stay with the pack.

Back in the mid 80's I was shown an application from Europe that ran on
an Atari (I think, can't be sure) that did some graphics manipulation,
something far advanced compared to the stuff available for dos. OS/2 took
off in Europe compared to North America.

Maybe Europeans are more open to new and better ideas. The same pattern
seems to be repeating itself, and this time the levers remain in European
hands.

Derek

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Linux in Europe

Posted Mar 16, 2005 20:55 UTC (Wed) by roelofs (subscriber, #2599) [Link]

Maybe Europeans are more open to new and better ideas.

I think there's much more of a herd mentality in corporate America. It amounts to the same thing in the end, but one could argue whether the root causes are the same or not. (I don't know.)

There may also be an overdependence on paid "research" here (Forrester, Giga, IDC, whatever), but I'm not sure if that's really a factor or not.

Of course, if I were to guess based solely on employment experience, I'd come to the opposite conclusion. My old employer was European and extremely conservative; my current one is based in Silicon Valley and is very progressive. Of course, the former is an order of magnitude older and larger than the latter, and they're in very different lines of business, so I don't think that conclusion would be valid. Generalizations are tricky. ;-)

Greg