Re: [tlug] Open-source Japan

[Gen Kanai <gkanai@example.com>]

On Mar 5, 2009, at 11:03 AM, Edward Middleton wrote:

> Gen Kanai wrote:
> > On Mar 3, 2009, at 3:00 PM, Noah Watkins wrote:
> > > I was recently reading the slides, 'Open-source in China', from
> > > O'Reilly's OSCON 2008. And it got me to thinking about what the  
> > > state
> > > of open-source in Japan is. Hopefully some people on this list who
> > > are in the trenches can chime in on the topic.
> >
> > I've been tracking this topic pretty regularly via my blog:
> >
> > http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/2008/07/16/significant-linux-contributors-from-japan/
>
> If you are looking at acceptance of Open-source in Japan, looking  
> purely
> at contributions distorts things because there seems to be a lot more
> Open-source consumers who don't contribute back to the projects they
> use.  When I purchased a Japaneses car navigation system it came  
> with a
> laundry list of open source licenses.  I don't believe the vendor had
> directly contributed to any of the projects these licenses applied to.


I agree completely.

Look at the new Sony VAIO P, which ships with a Linux "quick boot"  
partition and Firefox loaded on that.

Certainly a lot of consumer electronics, mobile phones, run Linux.

That said, I do think that contributions are one metric to look at,  
and within that metric, Japan contributes more than any other Asian  
nation.

gen