Re: looks like it's happening everywhere but the US.

My gut response is that since the PC revolution, the majority of the 
software in the world came from the United States. And that majority has 
been - proprietary. So there is an established business sector in the 
United States which is an internationally dominant exporter. The same 
with music, the same with movies, the same with... just about anything 
that hinges on 'intellectual property'.

The country that is home to Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds, Eric 
Raymond... etc.... Red Hat, IBM... is also home to Microsoft, to Sun, to 
(don't flame me, but...) SCO, and a myriad of small enterprises based on 
the proprietary software concept. Plus FLOS is infecting music and even 
movies.

Groups with money form Special Interest Groups (SIGS) in the United 
States. SIGS lobby for what they want through dollars.

I could really get into it, but those are the main highlights. The sad 
part is that with countries that are dependant on the U.S. dollar - 
mainly through oil - you'll note that an Intellectual Property 
Colonialism is apparent. This is why Rosen was 'helping' the Iraqis with 
their copyright law after the 
liberation/invasion/whatever-you-wish-to-call-it. When's the last time 
you heard 'Iraq' and 'Free Software' mentioned in the same sentence?

Trinidad and Tobago is an anomaly, but still the government has not 
accepted FLOS as a viable solution for... anything. Guess who is among 
the largest purchasers of oil products from Trinidad and Tobago? Yes, 
you're right.

Foreign Trade agreements.

We celebrate the FLOS successes all around the world, but how little we 
focus on the problem areas.

How soon we forget that the United States ignored Copyright Law when it 
first became established as it's own nation.

Sorry, I have the flu and may not be very coherent right now.

Taran

lon jones wrote:

>	South Africa launches OSS center
>http://www.opensector.org/1066933242
>
>	Danish paper on the
>    	 Potential for major public savings in open source software 
>http://www.tekno.dk/subpage.php3?article=969&survey=14&language=uk&front=1
>
>	the paper in english (pdf)
>http://www.tekno.dk/pdf/projekter/p03_opensource_paper_english.pdf
>
>	The IDA Open Source Migration Guidelines
>http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&parent=news&documentID=1647
>
>	China urged to join Asian Linux push
>http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,7612224%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html
>
>	Open Asia: Open source in the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, 
>	and Singapore
>http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/09/200248
>
>  
>