Linux in Europe
The widely reported decision of the European Council earlier this week to adopt software patent agreement highlighted the key difference between public participation in legal proceedings in the USA and Europe. While software patents were adopted in the USA without much publicity or protests, the European open source community has put up a strong fight and, at the very least, succeeded in delaying the adoption of the controversial law. It has mobilized many open source web sites to launch online protests against the patents, asked EU citizens to write to their legislators with explanations why software patents are wrong, and gathered a decent number of protesters, many of whom came from distant countries, in front of the EU Council in Brussels on the days when important decisions were being made. These actions not only resulted in several unscheduled trips by Bill Gates to Brussels to lobby for the speedy legalization of software patents, they have also attracted the attention of the mainstream European media.
As such, Europeans are probably more aware of the open source movement than citizens of most other parts of the world. SUSE especially has to be commended for maintaining their distribution agreements with many retailers around Europe. While practically all other distribution makers have abandoned the shrink-wrapped business model and rely exclusively on digital delivery of their software, SUSE Linux boxes continue to be available in book and software stores throughout Germany, Austria and most other European countries. In fact, walking into any medium-size news stand in Germany is like entering a Linux paradise, as you are likely to find perhaps a dozen Linux-related magazines in both German and English. Many of these magazines are regular monthly publications designed for Linux beginners, with friendly tutorials and easy explanations. This is in sharp contrast with the United States, where the only available Linux magazines are Linux Journal and Linux Magazine, both of which cater for senior system administrators, rather than general public. At present, there is no US-made printed magazine targeting Linux beginners.
Speaking about magazines, Poland's Software Wydawnictwo has emerged as one of the top open source publishers in Europe. It is currently offering a number of titles ranging from a general Linux magazine with a cover CD and DVD (Linux+) to specialist monthlies for PHP developers (PHP Solutions) and security topics (Hakin9). The publishing house also produces its own distribution (Aurox Linux), which it sells as part of the Aurox Linux magazine. All these publications are available not only in Polish, but also in German, French, Spanish and Czech, with more languages planned for the future. Recently, Software Wydawnictwo also launched a new title for the domestic market entitled "Linux w Szkole" (Linux in Schools), which leaves little doubt that Linux is already well-established in Polish educational institutions.
Mandrakesoft has emerged from its financial disaster two years ago rather nicely. It returned to profitability last year and has since been awarded two large contracts - one by the European Union and the other by the French Ministry of Education and Research. Its surprising acquisition last month of Conectiva, South America's oldest and best-known open source company might not be the only one; the recent trips of Mandrakesoft's CEO François Bancilhon to China and other countries seem to indicate that the company is looking around to further strengthen its position as a global Linux solution provider. Besides its successful range of Mandrakelinux products for the home user, Mandrakesoft has also been expanding into the corporate sector with its Corporate Desktop and Corporate Server editions.
Ubuntu Linux is another European project that has gained rapid momentum since its launch 6 months ago. The distribution has succeeded in creating large user communities in many European countries, as witnessed by several rapidly growing user forums and community web sites in Dutch, French, German and Spanish. Ubuntu has seemingly done everything right - as if they studied the mistakes of other similar projects and avoided them right from the start. Of course, the GNOME-centric distribution has the backing of a wealthy individual, but their work is still highly innovative, especially considering that no other distribution before has been able to build fully functional live CDs for PowerPC and AMD64 processors. With the upcoming release of version 5.04 next month, accompanied by a sister edition for the KDE fans (Kubuntu), the Ubuntu Linux user base is likely to grow even further.
No article about the European Linux scene will be complete without visiting Spain. Spain is one country that has gone further than any other in converting a large number of computers and users to Linux. It all started a few years ago by an initiative of the regional government of Extremadura (gnuLinEx) and spread like a virus to other parts of the country. Nowadays there are large areas of Spain where all school and public administration computers are running Linux exclusively! It is interesting to note that Spain has virtually standardized on Debian and Debian-based solutions and many of these regional initiatives are now forging closer ties with Ubuntu, which is seen as a more progressive project than Debian itself.
Other countries, regions and cities are, if not moving to Linux outright, doing feasibility studies or have set up pilot projects. Reports about the migration of Germany's Munich and Norway's Bergen have been well-publicized, but other large cities, including Paris, Rome and Vienna have also been in the headlines recently. It is likely that many smaller projects, both governmental and in the private sector, are under way without them wanting to raise any publicity. This is not only great news for Mandrakesoft, SUSE and Ubuntu, but also an opportunity for many smaller open source companies, such as the recently unveiled, Malta-based 2X Software, which is offering Linux-based terminal servers and thin clients for large-scale deployments. Many other small Linux companies are showcasing their solutions on this week's CeBIT exhibition.
All this evidence leads us to believe that Europe is now the undisputed
leader in developing strategies for migration to Linux and open source
software. In the process, it has created a vibrant open source economy, as
well as a strong awareness among its population to resist controversial
laws favoring large software monopolies and their commercial agendas. The
tide is unstoppable. Let's hope that other regions will follow Europe's
example.
| Index entries for this article | |
|---|---|
| GuestArticles | Bodnar, Ladislav |
Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:50 UTC (Thu)
by eru (subscriber, #2753)
[Link] (3 responses)
European? Wasn't it started by Mark Shuttleworth, who is South African. Even the name comes from an African language.
Posted Mar 10, 2005 11:58 UTC (Thu)
by ladislav (guest, #247)
[Link] (2 responses)
Posted Mar 10, 2005 18:34 UTC (Thu)
by ewan (guest, #5533)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 11, 2005 14:03 UTC (Fri)
by jamesh (guest, #1159)
[Link]
Posted Mar 10, 2005 23:49 UTC (Thu)
by grouch (guest, #27289)
[Link] (3 responses)
It also leads me to believe that the United States is well on its way to becoming a self-made ghetto. We allow nonelected entities to establish walls around our ideas, our publicly-owned data, and our public institutions. We then pay our feudal duties to these lords for the privilege of having ideas, accessing our data, and interacting with our public institutions.
Patents have been transformed from compensation for the costs of creativity and incentive to expend the resources to be inventive, to being claims upon whole classes of ideas, weapons with which to threaten economic ruin for being creative, and which require only the expenditure of resources necessary to file the patent and litigate or threaten litigation against those who cannot afford to research the patent claim or afford legal defense.
Our data, from taxpayer records to medical records, is largely locked inside the proprietary formats of a convicted monopolist. Data owned by the public and held in trust by federal, state and local governments is routinely and apparently thoughtlessly presented online in ways which require the use of this convicted monopolist's products. (My own state of Kentucky presents records of the state legislature online in the private .DOC format, which are produced using public funds and presented via a publicly funded webserver). As taxpayers, we will have to fund the conversion of this data to whatever formats the monopolist chooses to produce or fund the conversion of this data to open, public formats.
Somehow in the last twenty years or so we have replaced representation by election with representation by dollars. Those with lots of dollars get lots of votes to create laws for themselves. Those with few dollars get no votes and must pay for the privilege of even accessing information about what their government is doing.
Keeping public data locked within private formats and protocols ensures that all access to that data includes a payment to the private gate-keeper. Keeping education locked into using the monopolist's product via license terms that exclude FOSS ensures that future generations are even more inured to the omnipresence of the private tolls on public data. Keeping patents on ideas ensures that the penalties for creating ways of escaping the private walls are too great for the subjects of the fiefdoms.
Government at every level is merely the caretaker of our data. We need our data in open formats and travelling by open protocols in order to be sure our governments are doing their jobs.
-- DR. EDGAR DAVID VILLANUEVA NÚÑEZ
The use of GNU/Linux in government, including education, fosters open formats and open protocols. This directly threatens corporate fiefdoms and the erection of toll gates between the subjects of those fiefdoms and government. We need it adopted while those who wish to increase their power of influence need it quashed.
Terry Vessels
Posted Mar 11, 2005 4:41 UTC (Fri)
by dkite (guest, #4577)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Mar 16, 2005 20:55 UTC (Wed)
by roelofs (guest, #2599)
[Link]
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
Posted Mar 14, 2005 18:04 UTC (Mon)
by jeremiah (subscriber, #1221)
[Link]
Posted Mar 15, 2005 20:48 UTC (Tue)
by fergal (guest, #602)
[Link]
This whole article seems to have an unjustified attitude of European superiority to it (I'm European by the way). For example:
This glosses over the fact that all the relevant court rulings (which aren't exactly influenced by public protests) happened quite a bit before the free software movement became organised (the original software patent case was in 1980). If things had happened along the same timeline in Europe there's absolutely no way that the European developer community would have stopped them, in fact I'd say it's only because we can see the mess they've made in America that people have been motivated enough to protest.
Ubuntu Linux is another European project that has gained rapid momentum since its launch 6 months ago.
Linux in Europe
You are right. But as far as I know, he has been living in London for a while now and his company, Canonical Limited, is registered in the Isle of Man. I would say that Ubuntu is more European than South African, except for the project's name, of course.Linux in Europe
And aside from the tax haven registered office many of the developersLinux in Europe
are British based.
Many are Australian based too :)Linux in Europe
Linux in Europe
All this evidence leads us to believe that Europe is now the undisputed leader in developing strategies for migration to Linux and open source software. In the process, it has created a vibrant open source economy, as well as a strong awareness among its population to resist controversial laws favoring large software monopolies and their commercial agendas. The tide is unstoppable. Let's hope that other regions will follow Europe's example.
"To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is indespensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this free access, if necessary through the creation of compatible free software."
Congressman of the Republica of Peru.
http://www.gnu.org.pe/resmseng.html
I don't think that the adoption rates in US and Canada (probably similar) Linux in Europe
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
Maybe Europeans are more open to new and better ideas.
Linux in Europe
Somehow in the last twenty years or so we have replaced representation by election with representation by dollars. Those with lots of dollars get lots of votes to create laws for themselves. Those with few dollars get no votes and must pay for the privilege of even accessing information about what their government is doing.
Linux in Europe
I think this should read "In the last 20 years the general populace has become AWARE that "representation by dollars" is how the governemt works as opposed to "representation by election." It's always been that way, it's just more apparent now due to the media and communications. Which is why the governemtn tries to control them...
</tinfoil-hat>
Linux in Europe
While software patents were adopted in the USA without much publicity or protests, the European open source community has put up a strong fight and, at the very least, succeeded in delaying the adoption of the controversial law.