Free software, for the sake of regional identity

By at 5:04 am Wednesday, Dec 3

Nice Bruce Sterling editorial from this month's Wired on the move in Extremadura, Spain, to develop a local flavor of Linux:
The features may be mundane, but they add up to something quite new: a patriotic regional operating system. The emailer's logo is a stork, Extremadura's most beloved bird. The word processor is named after a famous local poet. The desktop is crammed with hallowed symbols of the homeland. Extremaduran schoolkids could stand up and pledge allegiance to this thing...

This deeply rooted regional approach could prove a more nurturing environment for Tux than either the EU, with its stifling bureaucracy, or the US, where lawyers for SCO are eager to sue the daylights out of anyone who dares to propagate the penguin. Right now, most of the action is in government, where officials are beginning to wake up to the advantages of open standards and malleable code - and not having to pay Americans for any of it. India is releasing Linux variations in local dialects from Assamese to Telugu. China, Japan, and South Korea are collaborating on their own OS. South Africa recently approved an open source strategy, and similar things are going on in Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, Peru, and Ukraine.

Link

Cory Doctorow

Upcoming appearances

* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference

Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)

Comments are closed.

Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.