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Iran: Even If Windows Is Free, Linux Is Preferred
gpwiki.org writes "Iran, a country which does not abide by international copyright law, is reportedly moving toward Linux. 'All the software in Iran is copied. There is no copyright law, so everybody uses Microsoft software freely,' said the secretary of Iran's High Informatics Council. 'But we cannot continue like this much longer.' The article suggests that a desire to enter the WTO, and Windows security issues are prime motivating factors. 'Microsoft is a national security concern.'"
Yep, here too.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
Joining the WTO would require Iran to abide by internationally agreed upon IP regulations (Bourne Convention) and the impact of suddenly enforcing copyright law against its citizens would be very heavy.
Even limiting enforcement to the government computer systems would result in significant layouts of cash to Microsoft (and other software makers). Iran is simply not in a position to make that kind of investment.
Likewise, it is difficult to see how Microsoft could do business with the rogue nation. It is under trade sanctions by the U.S. meaning that no American company can do business there without governmental approval. Microsoft itself may not want to involve itself in the possible arming of an "enemy of the state".
But in the end, it is laughable that the Iranian government would choose Linux over anything else. Though open source, Linux is primarily developed in the U.S. by American programmers working for American companies. Even Linus, Norwegian by heritage, now lives in comfortable quarters in Silicon Valley. Just because the code base is open does not mean that it is invulnerable to back doors. The official does seem to mention this, but the rah-rah tone of the article drowns this out. The Linux codebase, composed of hundreds of different, separate modules, is virtually incomprehensible in the whole and a full audit of the source code is essentially impossible as the code itself continues to change and 'improve'.
China had the right idea: develop your own operating system. While this may lead to a problem of lack of software, it can also be considered an economic boon as the market itself will be created by the demands of the government.
Why? Well, what keeps so many people on MS software? It's that they have old programs that they have to use. They have to access old data. They have to interface with their office that uses MS software. People are "tied down" so it's harder to move. But very few people over there are tied down the way many people here are.
Second is security. People know Linux is relativly secure. People know about all the viruses, spyware, security holes, and other stuff on Windows. If you had no predisposition (like previous expiriance with Windows or software that needed Windows), then which would you choose?
And of course, there is the political. As the article mentions, some people run Linux because it's not MS, which comes from the US. Some people run it out of anti-US sentiment. And they are probably some that run Linux because not because of anti-US sentiment (in the death to all Amercians sense) but because of non-US sentiment (doesn't come from the US, might be a Iranian distro which would keep money/jobs there). Same reason some EU countries are looking a SuSe or other distros, or China is trying to make their own OS (or was it Linux distrobution).
This (and especially Iraq) will be interesting to watch, to see how new users with no/few predispositions (how many people in the US think ALL computers just run Windows, and there is nothing else?) will buy and use computers. Will they go for the standard (MS, Adobe, Macromedia, whoever), or go for underdogs that they like better or have better features (OSS, smaller companies, etc.).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
The GPL is predicated on copyright law.
So, ironically, when Linux has more proprietary software available for it, more people will be likely to try it.
I agreed up to this point. It's the fact that Firefox is no proprietary, and that people use it crossplatform more now that there will be comfort later. Same thing on a much smaller scale with things like OpenOffice.org. Proprietary software in Linux will not create ANY form of comfort, especially in the area's the rest of your post focuses on, which is comfort through past experience.
> There is still IMHO no games in linux.
If that mattered very much, we'd all be using Amiga or DOS, not Windows.
Windows was a *horrible* platform for games, and game developers avoided it
for _years_ (in some cases releasing games for DOS and requiring Windows 95
users to reboot in command-prompt mode), but eventually they had to embrace
Win32 because it was so widespread, and they needed to sell the games to
people who didn't know how to use DOS.
Amiga, in contrast, was *great* for games; game developers *loved* it. But
they gave it up when it became clear that it was going to stay a small market.
Games don't drive OS adoption. They follow it.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Which means if you only distribute your closed variant of a GPL'd project from a jurisdiction with no copyright then you are home free? Impractical, yes, today. But if the world ever does reach a point where electronic distribution of commercial software is the norm this might become more attractive to some, hardware drivers only available from *.co.ir?