On Thursday 30 May 2002 18:53, T. J. McCarthy wrote: - I generally agree with your points, but Linux offers whatever level of - localisation/cultural preferences people want. If there is enough demand - for a particular type of culturally neutral/biased Linux, or support for - a particular language, it can/will be provided. You can be as - American/Texan/European/Dutch/Asian/whatever as you wish to be- freedom - in short! In theory and in practice, at this point in time, yes you are largely correct. There is a big caveat, however. That is with regards to market forces. Using Europe as a metaphor for the Linux community, one could say that Linux is at the pre-EU stage. Linux is a relatively new "wanna be" in the OS market place (i.e. Mac, Win) so this is only understandable. The issue isn't so much whether the freedom to create a new distro exists, because it does, but rather if the distributors of these distros are visionary enough to create not just an economic/political union of Linux distros (yes, please note the political, because I do mean political), but to go far enough to create a Linux Airbus type of distro. Why? There are a number of reasons, some of them I have spelled out in my earlier posting. The main issue will continue to be "market forces". While I guess I could be called Euro centric, I am that in response to what I have seen in the Mac and Win OS worlds. It is vital that Europe (including the EU, the Baltic States and Russia, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Armenia, etc.) maintain the ability to have localized software that is "commercially viable" If it isn't, it will not continue to exist. In this area, I do not believe that the Linux business model will result in a very different outcome than with other OS's. You have to be able to make money in some fashion. This isn't onerous pandering to evil mammon, but a fact of life in the real world (unfortunately). So what is the problem? Well there are a number of problems. One problem is the difference of view on the opposite sides of the Atlantic. Many Americans view painting, literature, software and cinema as a marketable product plain and simple. Why? At least partially because the US has for the past 25 to 30 years, turned away from the common European heritage, partially as a result of changing demographics, but partially because anything and everything in the US is considered to be marketable or potentially marketable. If the theory doesn't fit the market interests, than a new one is created. But, let's face it, if Europe hadn't spent hundreds of years in developing the theory through often times bloody experience, the US would not exist today. Europeans on the other hand, have not turned their backs to their cultural roots and heritage, as is more or less official US policy. For them, language and culture is not just something marketable, but define their identity as to who they are. Is this marketable? Sometimes, yes. There is a lot of whining and complaining among many Europeans about American commercial and military dominance. Some of it is justified, some of it isn't. The fact of the matter is however, that deep down, Europeans consider it a right to express themselves in their own language, whether it be through literature, cinema, etc. and they consider it to be a right to have software in their own language. None is more aware of that than the populations of newly independent states or those that potentially have access to information technology for the first time and without state control. Lets take an example. Latvia has a population of about 1.5 million people. Half of which have Russian as their mother tongue. How viable is a Latvian distro of Linux? Not very. What about a Baltic distro? Well, population size comes close to being viable, but Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian are very different languages. Estonian is closely related to Finnish, where as the closest related languages to Latvian and Lithuanian are Sanskrit. Latvian and Lithuanian share common words and word roots, but they don't more or less understand each other or pretend to understand each other ;-) like the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes do. There is also another Baltic language spoken by the Liv population in Latvia and Estonia. While it is also related to Finnish, it is not closely related like Estonian is. To add to the mix, there are very few people in Latvia that speak and write the Liv language anymore as there was a massive effort by the Latvian government in the 1930's to assimilate the Liv and turn them into Latvians. There are a relatively large number in Estonia, however. So, while a Baltic distro is doable, it still isn't necessarily viable seen from an economic point of view. This changes drastically however, if a Baltic Linux distro is created that includes Russian. Suddenly you have a totally different demographics. You have a potential market from the Baltic Sea to Sakhalin Island in the Pacific. From the Polar Circle to the Black Sea. A thousand pardons for this getting so long. I hope you get my point. Cheers, Brian