Ask About the Iraqi LUG

Yes, there is a Linux Users Group in Iraq. When it was first mentioned on Slashdot it only had two members. It's grown a little since then, as has The Iraqi Linux Group Portal. Adam Davidson, an American reporter in Baghdad who helped start the group, has agreed to answer your questions about Linux in Iraq. Please post only one question per comment. We'll email Adam 10 of the highest-moderated questions, and post his answers verbatim (except for HTML formatting) when he gets them back to us.

Comments

Which distro?

[bc90021]

Which distribution of Linux do most Iraqis use? RedHat, Mandrake, Debian, Slackware, or other?

Age group?

[Leffe]

What is the age group(s) of Linux users in Iraq?

OK, I don't even know what it's in Sweden, but it would be interesting, right?

Re:Age group?

[hasanen]

me (hasanen) is 21 , and my friend Ashraf is 22 , others r betwean 20 and 26.

Computer density in Iraq

[MajorDick]

What is the density per capita of PC type computers in Iraq ? I mean how many people even own computers ? What is the average computer available for use in Iraq ?

Whats Iraq really like?

[bluGill]

We all know that the news only plays the parts that sell (normally the worst parts) of reality, which leaves everyone with a twisted idea of what it is like. So if I was born and raised in Iraq, what would my life really be like?

Re:Whats Iraq really like?

[chrisatslashdot]

I had been watching the network news stories on Iraq since the war began. Then one day last week I turn on MTV and there is a reporter doing 2 minute piece interviewing young Iraqis in the music stores and arcdes. I learned more about Iraqi life in 2 minutes on MTV than countless hours on CNN, FOX, MSNBC, etc.

Encryption

[onyxruby]

For years strict encryption rules were an issue for Iraq. Has the US now stopped it's encryption restrictions for Iraq or do you simply get your crypto from elsewhere?

Re:Encryption

[I8TheWorm]

Not trying to be a troll at all, but with Linux, does it matter? It's not produced (in many cases anyway) by a US company which is bound to US law. Are there any other reasons, i.e. international law, that would restrict the use of stronger encryption than the US allows in Iraq?

One of the finer points to be made regading use of Linux is none of it (again, unless you use a distro from a US company) is bound by US law, and least that's how I percieve it.

Re:Encryption

[pla]

Actually, Sun Microsystems for example makes sure that your IP belongs to a well-known and trusted subnet before it allows you to download code that may infringe on export rules.

Which accomplishes... Nothing?

"Hi, Mom&Pop's Hometown ISP? I'd like to sign up with you. Yup, great, can I pay for a year in advance via direct deposit? Good. Okay, yeah, I'll need a shell account, does that present a problem? No? You'll have it active in fifteen minutes? Great. Thanks, bye".

Poof, any amount of attempted IP-to-geography mapping completely defeated. Saddam47@momnpop.com now appears to come from Sandusky, Ohio, not Tikrit, Iraq.

And that even goes so far as to assume someone has to pay for such obfuscation of their physical location... Personally, although I live in the US and don't need to circumvent export rules to do anything, I have a number of accounts in various places to get around strange policies I've encountered (such as "only from a .edu", or "only from South Dakota"). And not a single one of them have I ever needed to pay for (nor steal them, which a "real" criminal probably would not hesitate to do).

How can people outside Iraq help?

[bc90021]

How can we in the global community help the Iraqi LUG? Are there resources available for computer donation, etc.?

In the long run...

[inode_buddha]

how do you think Iraq will merge very old and very new cultures in a beneficial way?

What will the Iraqi government use?

[rueger]

I'm presuming that any government computer infrastructure has been destroyed, and that they will be more or less starting from scratch.

Am I correct in assuming that Microsoft is in there big time locking down contracts to rebuild government computing sytems?

Can we help you in some way?

[herrvinny]

Can we help you in some way? Old computers, networking equipment, webspace, etc?

Domestic vs. Foreign Talent

[Evil Schmoo]

Is the recent growth in your user group due to an influx of homegrown Iraqi talent, or are there more foreign users (ie, contractors) coming incountry?

War coverage

[koh]

I'm eager to ask, does he think that an increased presence of Linux in Iraqi homes during the last war would have had some impact in the way information was delivered to the outside world ?
Would it have improved the way the major news channels "translated" the events ?

The numbers.

[Mr2cents]

Well, on question should go for the numbers: do a lot of people have computers in Iraq? Is linux well-known there? How is it welcomed compared to the competition? IIRC the internet was outlawed under Sadam, so is it becoming available rapidly?

Of course we all know the fastest way to get network is to get a bunch of linux-geeks together.. Is the next linux beer.. erm.. thee hike going to be in Bagdad?

Mullah density in Iraq

[bstadil]

What is the attitude of the Clerics toward technology?

Any undertanding at all or just considered foreign and evil?

Legislative issues

[temojen]

Given Iraq's clean-slate status:

How can the international community promote the freedom to use information technology for fair and lawful purposes (ie no DRM, free use of strong cryptography)?

Infrastructure

[Golias]

If one believes western media, Iraq is a nation under constant seige, in which the plumming and electricity is absent for large swaths of the nation, and order is just barely maintained by the massive presense of unwelcome US troops. Also, many in the west believed that Iraq under Saddam was a very backwards and un-developped place (apart from military development), and one was not likely to find many computers at all, let alone connected ones.

So, as somebody who's actually there and actually knows what life is like for a techno-geek in today's Iraq, perhaps you could give us a detailed account about current network infrastructure, how easy or difficult it is to buy computer parts, how much Iraqi people (and Iraqi computer geeks in particular) use Internet technologies to connect to one another (e-mail, blogs, instant messaging, the web, etc.), what cultural attitudes in Iraq concerning the Internet, the global community, and the West, etc.

Most people in the United States (which is where most of the readers of /. come from) know very little about day-to-day life in Iraq. A detailed account would probably be very educational and broadening.

Mandrake??

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you allowed to use Mandrake, or
are you forced to boycott french products in the new Iraq??

Re:Mandrake??

[Bender Unit 22]

No no no,
Mandrake refuses to install itself in Iraq.

State Of Intellectual Capital

[RenegadeTempest]

After living under totalitarian rule, what is the state of the country's computing talent? What disciplines have the strongest computing talent?

How can we help?

[PenguinRadio]

What sort of help / donations are you seeking from the US and the West? Would some old manuals, parts, or anything else we might have laying around be of use to you guys and how would we send it to you (i.e. mailing address?)

Programming Experience in Iraq

[ChilyMack]

I'm not entirely educated about the average computer experience in the Middle East. I know that, comparatively, very few people have up-to-date computers with reliable internet access, but how much more uncommon is it for an Iraqi civilian to have experience in programming? In the previous regime, was coding mostly government-sponsored, or else discouraged or at least difficult to pick up? Everything grows slowly and somehow, I suppose. Good luck to you.

Chance to return to old glory?

[rossz]

Once upon a time the Middle East was the center of learning the world over. Scholars of all religions and nationalities flocked there to exchange ideas and learn. This tolerance made the Middle East rich both economically and culturally. Then fundamentalist religion reared its ugly head, stifling all types of learning except for the Koran. Is there any chance of overcoming the fundamentalist shackles of intolerance and return the Middle East to its former glory of knowlege and economic vibrants?

Re:Chance to return to old glory?

[TheSync]

More precisely, Baghdad itself was the center of global scholarship. From About.Com:

In about 762 A.D., the Abbasid dynasty took over rule of the vast Muslim world and moved the capital to the newly-founded city of Baghdad. Over the next five centuries, the city would become the world's center of education and culture. This period of glory has become known as the "Golden Age" of Islamic civilization, when scholars of the Muslim world made important contributions in both the sciences and humanities: medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, literature, and more. Under Abbasid rule, Baghdad became a city of museums, hospitals, libraries, and mosques.

Most of the famous Muslim scholars from the 9th to 13th centuries had their educational roots in Baghdad. One of the most famous centers of learning was Bayt al-Hikmah (the House of Wisdom), which attracted scholars from all over the world, from many cultures and religions. Here, teachers and students worked together to translate Greek manuscripts, preserving them for all time. They studied the works of Aristotle, Plato, Hippocrates, Euclid, and Pythagoras. The House of Wisdom was home to, among others, the most famous mathematician of the time: Al-Khawarizmi, the "father" of algebra (which is named after his book "Kitab al-Jabr").

While Europe festered in the Dark Ages, Baghdad was thus at the heart of a vibrant and diverse civilization. It was known as the world's richest and most intellectual city of the time, and was second in size only to Constantinople.

After 500 years of rule, however, the Abbasid dynasty slowly began to lose its vitality and relevance over the vast Muslim world. The reasons were partly natural (vast flooding and fires), and partly human-made (rivalry between Shia and Sunni Muslims, internal security problems).

The city of Baghdad was finally trashed by the Mongols in 1258 A.D., effectively ending the era of the Abbasids. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers reportedly ran red, with the blood of thousands of scholars (a reported 100,000 of Baghdad's million residents were massacred). Many of the libraries, irrigation canals, and great historical treasures were looted and forever ruined. The city began a long period of decline, and became host to numerous wars and battles that continue to this day.

Internet in Iraq

[Ianoo]

What are your feelings about the Internet in relation to freedom of the press and global democracy?

Does the Internet help opressed peoples in dictatorial regimes to see the rights and freedoms that their governments deny them, and to see around the official views that are put out through party propaganda machines? Is it our responsibility to help people in nations like China circumvent their government's censorship mechanisms (using systems like the ill-fated SafeWeb) and see what's really going on in the world, much as Voice of America and BBC World Service have been doing on the radio for so many years?

How many people have you spoken to in Iraq who used the Internet in some form under Hussein and what did they think of the content? Impressed? Disgusted? Did the Internet have any influence before or during the war, perhaps persuading people not to resist or fight for the regime?

What uses have you found the for Internet in post-dictatorship Iraq? Communications, fostering democratic thinking?

Does Linux (being free and hence requiring no capital investment) represent the ideal way to get people online in Iraq when money is tight and perhaps better used elsewhere?

IT jobs in Iraq

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Out of curiosity, might as well ask someone who's in the field and there: what are the typical IT positions in Iraq? What skills are most sought after?

What does Linux give Iraq that Windows does not?

[Anonymous Coward]

What features does Linux offer Iraq that Windows does not? Does it offer any special advantages besides the standard ones for open source? For example, are there better translations or special software used by people in Iraq?

Re:Wow!

[Frymaster]

One has to ask, would this have been allowed under Saddam Hussain?

well, according to the linux users journal, it sounds like it was. the article is here - you could have found it easily by reading the article.

additionally, it should be noticed that saudi arabia - a country that has consistently been in the top three worst regimes as far as human rights violations are concerned - has a lug as well.

Baghdad Internet Cafe

[TheSync]

I organized a chat between the College Perk coffeehouse near the University of Maryland and the Baghdad Internet Cafe. The Cafe has about 50 computers, and during the chat they had six people in the Cafe for an Internet training course.

They reported being able to buy cheap computers ("200 USD FOR P4"), but power was an issue - it goes down a lot - fortunately the Cafe has a generator.

I plan to do another chat with them in February.

It is important to keep in mind that during the mid-70's, Baghdad was practially a "European" city in terms of infrastructure, based on high oil prices and Saddam's desire to create a showplace for the glory of his regime. Things didn't really go downhill structurally there until the war with Iran, then Gulf War I, the sacntions, etc.

Also, a lot of businesses now depend on email for communications to and from Iraq, as the phone lines are often less than dependable.

The Baghadad Internet Cafe opened August 1. It is my feeling that it would not have been possible to have an open public Internet chat like the one we had before operation Iraqi Freedom without some kind of government political official there to monitor things. I'll have to ask next time.

At the college/university level

[no longer myself]

What kind of courses does Iraq's higher educational system have in regards to computers? Do they have many classes regarding Unix/Linux type systems or is the emphasis more on proprietary software such as Microsoft's? In general, what kind of careers goals do the Iraqi computer students have?

General

[billsf]

Are there any restrictions of any sort on using computers in Iraq in general and Linux in particular?

What is currently the most popular OS and hardware platform in Iraq, both by numbers and total computing power?

Issues:

* Crypto importing
* Access to Internet to maintain a Unix system
* The ".iq" top level domain
* Who runs the providers?
* Keeping Microsoft out (their own EULA forbids its use in Iraq)

Overall

[YrWrstNtmr]

Is the average Iraqi better off today than one year ago?

How do you think they will be one year (or 5 years) in the future?

Intellectual Property legislation

[Elektroschock]

I read in other news that Iraq as under US occupation will get a copyright legislation written by a RIAA official. But nobody talks about software patents in Iraq. Will the United States pressure for a US style patent legislation in Iraq? I heard that patents are incompatible with islamic law. Some muslims in my neighborhood were much in favour of free software because of religious reasons. Do the Iraqis LUG guys also believe that the GPL unlike proprietary software is according to Shariah law.

State of the Iraqi network.

[Lodragandraoidh]

What was the state of network infrastructure before the war, and what is the current state of the network?

I.E. is broadband available? Is it mostly dialup etc...