Software and Nationality
Jeremy Allison of the Samba project made some interesting remarks in an interview last week about the nationalist flavors of Linux distributions. To sum up: SUSE is popular with Germans and other Europeans; Red Hat and Fedora are for Americans; the Chinese have Red Flag Linux; and Ubuntu “seems to be more third world.”
In general, these descriptions make little sense. I know plenty of Americans who use SUSE, and plenty of Germans who don’t. When I was living in France a couple years ago, I failed to locate a single Mandriva desktop (in fact, the only free-software-powered computers I saw at all were a few FreeBSD email kiosks scattered around the Sorbonne), even though Mandriva is headquartered in the French capital. Even the French National Assembly chose Kubuntu over Mandriva when it made the switch to Linux last year.
Moreover, the idea that Ubuntu is a “third-world distribution,” which I suppose grows out of the fact that Ubuntu’s founder, Mark Shuttleworth, is from South Africa, is obviously flawed. First of all, South Africa is not exactly the third world (whatever that means in the first place); second of all, the national origin of a Linux distribution’s founder clearly has little to do with the distribution’s character or userbase.
Rather, Linux is extraordinarily transnational. Its creator, after all, is a Swedish-speaking Finn who now resides in California Oregon. The Linux kernel and Linux distributions are developed via contributions from people in almost every country around the world, and thus do not reflect any single set of cultural values. Ubuntu may have been first conceived by a South African, but it has been substantially influenced by people from many more countries.
Why cosmopolitanism matters
You might ask: while I feel warm and fuzzy knowing that Linux can so readily transcend cultural, linguistic and political boundaries, who really cares?
A lot of people care, or at least they should. Microsoft and Apple are fundamentally American. Sure, they might have a lot of non-American employees, and the United States may represent only a fraction of their total markets. But at the end of the day, Windows and OS X are created for Americans before anyone else. After all, an international business model based upon selling crippled versions of Windows to poor countries doesn’t exactly reflect cosmopolitan values.
The truly multi-national character of Linux, in contrast, is a strength that perhaps isn’t played up as much as it deserves. Ubuntu doesn’t exclude speakers of minority languages or deem citizens of non-industrialized nations unworthy of a complete, modern computing experience. And the cultural assumptions behind it aren’t skewed towards certain groups. This means that Ubuntu can be available in a much more genuine way to people outside the United States.
As an American, I might overestimate the importance to non-Americans and non-Westerners of using software made, at least in part, outside the United States. But cosmopolitanism is clearly an area where Ubuntu and Linux win hands-down over proprietary platforms. In the struggle for market share, this trait should be played for all its worth.
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You might wish to quote when referencing articles…
In particular I think you’ve misrepresented Jemery.
In particular this is the extract from [url=http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/-ubuntu-has-the-strongest-chance-to-take-linux-mainstream–486274]the interview in question[/url]:
[quote]LXF: You’re in the US. Presumably Fedora and Red Hat have more dominance over there than in Europe?
JA: Yes, I think SUSE is a lot more popular on the continent. In some ways you can look on them as national distributions. SUSE was created in Germany and is very strong there. Red Hat is from North Carolina, on the east coast of America, and is very strong in the US. Ubuntu seems to be more third world; I don’t know. Then of course there’s Red Flag in China, so maybe you’re seeing the beginning of national distros, or wider geographical areas. I’m not sure about that, though, because Ubuntu seems to have transcended it. [/quote]
You’ll notice the interviewer prompted that line of questioning, which Jermey states that SusE is ‘popular’ in Germany (numbers back that up), likewise with RedHat in the US.
He also goes on to say he uses Ubuntu these days and it seems to ‘transcend a geographical boundary.
Putting the comment in comment makes a lot more sense.
Hummm…
I read that interview and Jeremy quickly qualified his statements by saying:
“…., so maybe you’re seeing the beginning of national distros, or wider geographical areas. I’m not sure about that, though, because Ubuntu seems to have transcended it.”
It seems to me that you are agreeing with him, not disagreeing, eh?
Walt: I agree that the nuances of this argument can be confusing; thanks for asking for clarification.
Allison did qualify his statement regarding Ubuntu to some extent, but he seemed to stand by his assertion that SUSE is for Germans, Red Hat/Fedora for Americans, etc. I think he thinks that Ubuntu may be an exception in that it’s become so popular that it transcends borders, but in general he still seems to believe that Linux distributions are arranged along national/geographic lines.
So as I understand Allison’s argument, I’m mostly disagreeing with him, because I think that Linux itself is fundamentally cosmopolitan. Ubuntu is not aberrant; all distributions are transnational to a greater extent than Allison seems to believe.
One would think the distro would have its strongest showing in its country of origin but times are changing.
One of the great things about Linux and the global community is underneath it all, all of those distros are still Linux and there is plenty of similarity between them.
Then, consider all of the downstream versions (like based off of Debian) spread out across the globe where even more aspects of the operating system are the same.
Torvalds lives in Oregon now I believe. I like comparing the OS wars to politics
myself. It seems like the entrenched “old boys” are like Microsoft, and the agent for change Linux. This has caused me to rethink my political affiliations.
lancest: you’re right, Torvalds is in Oregon now. Thanks for the correction.
I like the politics metaphor too–especially the idea that so many people (at least in the United States) are so content to have only two real choices for anything, just because they don’t realize that it could be so much better if they refused to accept only A or B in an election. There’s also something to be said for the fact that Linux affords everyone a real opportunity to participate and modify to meet their needs, while the mainstream choices offer pre-packaged deals that you accept with no input. But that’s another post…
What can I say. If the Samba guy really did say such a a thing he needs to pull his head out of his anus. His sphincter is clearly so tight it’s cutting of the blood supply to his brain.
How’s this for cosmopolitan. I’m a Scott using Ubuntu which was conceived by a South African, who is now living and working in London.