“It’s hard to ignore Asia lately, certainly from an open source
perspective. Many Linux and open source players are looking at the
potential customer bases on this continent (especially the eastern
nations) and practically salivating. And little wonder. Shaking off
the ill effects of their 1997 economic crisis, east Asia is coming
on strong, led by Japan, South Korea, and (increasingly) China.“Japan and South Korea’s economic strengths are well-known, of
course, and their interest in open source software makes a lot of
sense. They need to compete on the terms of North American and
European software firms, and any edge they can get is welcome.
China seems to be playing a little bit of catch up, and open source
use there could be perceived as a boot-strapping effort to get
themselves up to speed…”