Re: [tlug] "Open source: Made in Japan?" blog

[Jim Grisanzio <Jim.Grisanzio@example.com>]

Curt Sampson wrote:
> This is not really all that new. The KAME IPv6 stack, used today in all
> of the BSDs, was developed in Japan in the '90s (and there may have been
> another one, too--I don't recall). Japan has for many years, possibly
> even a decade or more, been the country with the second largest number
> of NetBSD developers, after the U.S. of course. Ricoh has been using
> NetBSD as the OS for their network-enabled copiers for many years. And
> these are just a few bits of anecdotal evidence.
>
> I think that the language and culture barrier has just been keeping
> westerners from noticing the amount of OSS work being done here.
>   

I totally agree on the language/cultural barriers. I find very few in 
the west interested in development taking place in Japan, but I also 
find very little interest here in exploring anything outside of Japan. 
It goes both ways. There are obvious exceptions, of course, but I've 
been quite surprised by the size of the divide.

I think that was previously true with China, as well, but recently when 
I go to China and visit the universities I find the students much more 
willing to learn from and engage with the west. They are loud and 
enthusiastic, too. I'm no expert on China, and I could be seeing only 
one part of that market because they have so many students these days, 
but it seems to me that the trends are clear and distinction with Japan 
is now very big. I think another factor is that Japan is a mature (and 
expensive) market and suffers from the massive attention (and resources) 
going to China and India because those guys are very much emerging.

That's interesting about NetBSD, though. I wasn't aware of that.

Jim

--
http://blogs.sun.com/jimgris/