Open Source Software Benefits from the Unpopularity of the USA

The CEO of Red Hat at the recent Open Source Business Conference claimed that open source technologies are benefiting from the unpopularity of the US. He suggests that people are resentful of sending billions of dollars back to the U.S. in "intellectual property" taxes. He claims that he's talked to governments like China and Russia and they are very keen on deploying technologies that are not tied to any IP laws of the US.

I have a tough time trying to follow this argument. I don't think that open source is flourishing due to the unpopularity of the US. In fact open source is flourishing right here in the US as well. A better argument would have to talk about how countries like to have access to underlying source code so that governments and businesses can fix problems without having to depend on US companies to come up with solutions for their particular problems. He could have also made a point about national security and their interest in controlling source code being run on sensitive government computers.

Other reasons why open source is gaining momentum today have to do with the current state of the economy. It was suggested, at the same conference, that a turbulent economy was good for open source. It is thought that innovations, especially in open source, are motivated by that lack of budgetary dollars. Many projects in large corporations that don't have budgets for software often turn to open source alternatives to get projects going.

Vassilios

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