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Linux and open source opportunities in the Mideast
By Robin 'Roblimo' Miller
on
January 16, 2004 (8:00:00 AM)
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RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Computers and the Internet are just starting to penetrate the Mideast, and since most residents of most countries here are dirt-poor, Linux and open source are "naturals" for the region. There is also a fast-growing market for Arabic-language commercial software (or software services based on open source applications), and it seems that half of the region's governments have decided their country should become "the" developer of Arabic-language software. Saudi Arabia, where I'm writing this, is pouring massive government funds into an effort to build a software industry. But it's possible that cultural and political factors may be more important than government aid in encouraging software development. If this is so, Saudi Arabia may be wasting its money, and should look at changing its society instead. Note: This is #5 in a series of five "Dispatches from Saudi Arabia." You may want to see #1, #2, #3, and #4 before you read this one.
Richard Florida's "Creative Cities" philosophy
Society may have a bigger influence on the software industry than most people generally consider. Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida is a best-selling author who has developed a whole set of theories that try to explain why one area becomes a vital "silicon valley" from which new inventions flow like grape juice from a vineyard, while another area that seems to have similar resources becomes a "silicon swamp" that produces the smell of decay from dying local businesses and neighborhoods. One of his more controversial methods of measuring a region's ability to build and attract creative people and businesses is by seeing how "gay friendly" it is. In a USAToday op-ed piece published April 30, 2003, he wrote, "...the big new-ideas and cutting-edge industries that lead to sustained prosperity are more likely to exist where gay people feel welcome."
Florida isn't saying that gay people do all the creating, but that the same kind of social tolerance that allows gay communities to flourish attracts people of all sexual persuasions who tend to think in new and original ways. He has spent more than 10 years looking at what kind of civic amenities attract the "creative class" of young and young-thinking people who build new technologies, new business strategies, new forms of art, and "new" in general. He sees conversation-oriented coffeehouses, art galleries, bookstores catering to a wide range of interests, "live music" nightclubs, and other culture-building amenities as being more important to a region's likely success in arts, sciences, and technology than government aid or other financial incentives.
By Florida's standards, Bahrain may be the Arabic-speaking country most likely to develop a sustainable software industry. It is a liberal, business-friendly state with a more active nightlife than its neighbors, and has for many years been "the" place both local residents and expatriate workers go to escape the stultifying behavior limitations imposed on them in other Persian Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia is the region's Linux leader
In the tech world, acceptance of Linux and other open source software may be the equivalent of Florida's "gay index." Areas with strong reputations for creating new commercial software also tend to be major centers for open source development, and many committed volunteer free software developers earn their livings creating proprietary software. Creation of open source software has become an established job-seeking aid, too. Potential employers can look directly at code an applicant has written instead of relying on a bland resume statement like "contributed to development of [proprietary program]."
While the linux-egypt.org site seems to be down as I write this, Saudi Linux User Group chairman AbdulRahmen Aljahadi says Egypt's government is actively pushing Linux and open source, but that Saudis are doing more actual Arabic Linux development than Egyptians.
Bahrain has a LUG. Iraq has a LUG. Lebanon has one. So do Syria and Jordan. But Saudi Arabia -- not exactly the home of "free thinking," still seems to lead the rest, although they are working hard to catch up.
If Linux penetration is an indicator of a country's "tech-hipness"' and Florida's theses are also true, something doesn't add up here. I suspect it's the fact that Florida's research has focused almost entirely on the U.S. and other western secular democracies, and may not be relevant in Islamic states.
Internal life vs. external society
"There is nothing to do here," is the universal complaint I hear from Saudi "guest" workers I talk to. "Just work, eat, sleep, work, and pray, pray, pray. That is all the Saudis do," says a chauffeur from Sudan. "They have a boring life."
You could describe the life of a truly committed software developer (anywhere in the world) as "Just work, eat, sleep, work, and code, code, code." Hmm...
And now, a secret about Saudi Arabia (and probably other repressive Islamic societies): There is plenty of intellectual activity, but most of it is hidden from public view. Dissent is common. I had many Saudis tell me -- either in private or in small groups of friends -- about their displeasure with the government. I saw the same phenomenon when I visited Jordan last year: Despite a government that has been known to open fire on groups of non-violent protesters, Jordanians of all walks of life happily express disdain for King Abdullah II and the concept of a monarchy in general -- in private. No question; Saudia Arabia comes down hard on public dissent too, and when it comes to religious freedom... let's just say U.S. right-wingers who want America to be a "Christian nation" and have their beliefs become law ought to be forced to spend a month in Saudi Arabia so they can see how a real theocracy operates. I don't think they'd like it.
(Thinking of religions, there is no evidence that religious beliefs -- or a lack of them -- have any influence on code quality or even the impulses that lead to the creation of free software. I have personally met committed free software developers who believe firmly in almost every religion there is, and aside from a few short-lived and comparatively polite religious flame wars in various Internet forums, they manage to work toward common goals despite their differences.)
Repression or no, Saudis are irrepressible talkers. Arabic is a language that lends itself to flowery phrases and endless discussion. The lobby of a Sheraton in the U.S. is usually a sterile place with nothing going on, but every evening in the Riyadh Sheraton lobby there are groups of people sitting around drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes (or sharing puffs on a huge hookah), and talking, talking, talking. (There are private rooms for women and families; only men talk, talk, talk in the main lobby. But, I assure you, those private rooms have just as much talking going on in them as the public areas.)
Not even the most repressive government in the world has the resources to monitor these endless conversations, especially the private ones. In Saudi Arabia, the basic rule seems to be, "conform in public and nobody will bother you over private behavior."
Call this hypocrisy if you will, but this is the way things are here. Music in public is strictly forbidden, but there is plenty of music in private. (I even wonder if at least a few Saudi women don't wear headphones under their black-bag-with-eyeslits public outfits; some of them seem to be moving with suspicious rhythm, nearly bopping as they walk.)
Without getting into a book-length debate on the merits of Dionysian vs. Apollonian cultures, let's consider the possibility that a culture that is repressive on the surface but is full of private intellectual activity might be better at fostering advanced software development than one where the young people spend their evenings going to bars and flirting with each other.
Israel: the Mideast's dominant software power
Israel has a strong software industry and no shortage of active free and open source developers. Computers are more prevalent in Israel than in any other country in the area. Some of the recent work on software "Arabization" that is necessary to produce more Arabic software is building on "Hebrewization" efforts that have been going on for many years. Conversely, a popular text editor for Hebrew is reportedly based on one originally written in Arabic.
Individual developers in Israel and Arab countries routinely email each other. Why shouldn't they? Many of the problems they face in adapting -- for example -- KDE for their right-to-left languages are identical. Mozilla finally displays pages in both languages decently, and this is a result, I am told, of efforts by both Arabic-speaking and Hebrew-speaking programmers. Alliances between Arab and Israeli software people help both parties. The overwhelming majority of developers I have met in Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- the only two Mideast countries I have visited so far -- seem to believe this, and I've heard similar thoughts from Israeli developers via email and IRC.
Sometimes we need to separate regimes from people. Saudi Arabia officially hates Israel and still has some public school textbooks that demonize Jews, but I am a Jew (in culture if not practice) and the people who invited me to Saudi Arabia knew it. The only time religion has actively come up so far was a friendly invitation to join two guys at a local mosque for prayer one day after lunch. I declined, saying I had no idea how to perform the rituals, and one of them said, "Just do what the guy next to you does; they'll just think you're a foreigner -- they can tell that from your clothes anyway -- and won't mind if you don't know the words." I went back to the hotel and worked on some stories instead, but if I had been on a less ferocious deadline I might have joined them at the mosque. I'm sure I would have survived the experience -- and might even have enjoyed it.
The Saudis with whom I am spending my time are not religious zealots. Some pray at every call, and some don't. Yes, I know: they are liberal technocrats, not representative of Saudi society in general -- any more than the LUG members, artists, and writers who are the majority of my friends in the U.S. are representative of American society. If I visit Israel, I'm sure I'll meet similar people there, and hear similar complaints about the government and how its policies make it hard to collaborate with developers in Arab countries.
Among the Arab states that are vying for software leadership, I believe the most likely winner will be the one that first allies itself with Israel -- at least in software development -- up to and including free travel back and forth. Right now, the two likeliest Arab candidates for an Israeli software alliance seem to be Jordan and Egypt, which are both at least technically at peace with Israel. But Mideast politics are in flux. Things could change by next year. A Palestinian settlement could change attitudes tremendously, and produce more changes in some Arab countries than in others. Which ones? I can't say. I've only been in Saudi Arabia for five days, and my plane leaves in less than an hour. I'll leave this speculation to people with more time on their hands -- and more experience at analyzing Israeli-Arab political dynamics.
Society may have a bigger influence on the software industry than most people generally consider. Carnegie Mellon University professor Richard Florida is a best-selling author who has developed a whole set of theories that try to explain why one area becomes a vital "silicon valley" from which new inventions flow like grape juice from a vineyard, while another area that seems to have similar resources becomes a "silicon swamp" that produces the smell of decay from dying local businesses and neighborhoods. One of his more controversial methods of measuring a region's ability to build and attract creative people and businesses is by seeing how "gay friendly" it is. In a USAToday op-ed piece published April 30, 2003, he wrote, "...the big new-ideas and cutting-edge industries that lead to sustained prosperity are more likely to exist where gay people feel welcome."
Florida isn't saying that gay people do all the creating, but that the same kind of social tolerance that allows gay communities to flourish attracts people of all sexual persuasions who tend to think in new and original ways. He has spent more than 10 years looking at what kind of civic amenities attract the "creative class" of young and young-thinking people who build new technologies, new business strategies, new forms of art, and "new" in general. He sees conversation-oriented coffeehouses, art galleries, bookstores catering to a wide range of interests, "live music" nightclubs, and other culture-building amenities as being more important to a region's likely success in arts, sciences, and technology than government aid or other financial incentives.
By Florida's standards, Bahrain may be the Arabic-speaking country most likely to develop a sustainable software industry. It is a liberal, business-friendly state with a more active nightlife than its neighbors, and has for many years been "the" place both local residents and expatriate workers go to escape the stultifying behavior limitations imposed on them in other Persian Gulf states.
Saudi Arabia is the region's Linux leader
|
|
| Saudi techno-geeks |
While the linux-egypt.org site seems to be down as I write this, Saudi Linux User Group chairman AbdulRahmen Aljahadi says Egypt's government is actively pushing Linux and open source, but that Saudis are doing more actual Arabic Linux development than Egyptians.
Bahrain has a LUG. Iraq has a LUG. Lebanon has one. So do Syria and Jordan. But Saudi Arabia -- not exactly the home of "free thinking," still seems to lead the rest, although they are working hard to catch up.
If Linux penetration is an indicator of a country's "tech-hipness"' and Florida's theses are also true, something doesn't add up here. I suspect it's the fact that Florida's research has focused almost entirely on the U.S. and other western secular democracies, and may not be relevant in Islamic states.
Internal life vs. external society
"There is nothing to do here," is the universal complaint I hear from Saudi "guest" workers I talk to. "Just work, eat, sleep, work, and pray, pray, pray. That is all the Saudis do," says a chauffeur from Sudan. "They have a boring life."
You could describe the life of a truly committed software developer (anywhere in the world) as "Just work, eat, sleep, work, and code, code, code." Hmm...
And now, a secret about Saudi Arabia (and probably other repressive Islamic societies): There is plenty of intellectual activity, but most of it is hidden from public view. Dissent is common. I had many Saudis tell me -- either in private or in small groups of friends -- about their displeasure with the government. I saw the same phenomenon when I visited Jordan last year: Despite a government that has been known to open fire on groups of non-violent protesters, Jordanians of all walks of life happily express disdain for King Abdullah II and the concept of a monarchy in general -- in private. No question; Saudia Arabia comes down hard on public dissent too, and when it comes to religious freedom... let's just say U.S. right-wingers who want America to be a "Christian nation" and have their beliefs become law ought to be forced to spend a month in Saudi Arabia so they can see how a real theocracy operates. I don't think they'd like it.
(Thinking of religions, there is no evidence that religious beliefs -- or a lack of them -- have any influence on code quality or even the impulses that lead to the creation of free software. I have personally met committed free software developers who believe firmly in almost every religion there is, and aside from a few short-lived and comparatively polite religious flame wars in various Internet forums, they manage to work toward common goals despite their differences.)
Repression or no, Saudis are irrepressible talkers. Arabic is a language that lends itself to flowery phrases and endless discussion. The lobby of a Sheraton in the U.S. is usually a sterile place with nothing going on, but every evening in the Riyadh Sheraton lobby there are groups of people sitting around drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes (or sharing puffs on a huge hookah), and talking, talking, talking. (There are private rooms for women and families; only men talk, talk, talk in the main lobby. But, I assure you, those private rooms have just as much talking going on in them as the public areas.)
Not even the most repressive government in the world has the resources to monitor these endless conversations, especially the private ones. In Saudi Arabia, the basic rule seems to be, "conform in public and nobody will bother you over private behavior."
Call this hypocrisy if you will, but this is the way things are here. Music in public is strictly forbidden, but there is plenty of music in private. (I even wonder if at least a few Saudi women don't wear headphones under their black-bag-with-eyeslits public outfits; some of them seem to be moving with suspicious rhythm, nearly bopping as they walk.)
Without getting into a book-length debate on the merits of Dionysian vs. Apollonian cultures, let's consider the possibility that a culture that is repressive on the surface but is full of private intellectual activity might be better at fostering advanced software development than one where the young people spend their evenings going to bars and flirting with each other.
Israel: the Mideast's dominant software power
Israel has a strong software industry and no shortage of active free and open source developers. Computers are more prevalent in Israel than in any other country in the area. Some of the recent work on software "Arabization" that is necessary to produce more Arabic software is building on "Hebrewization" efforts that have been going on for many years. Conversely, a popular text editor for Hebrew is reportedly based on one originally written in Arabic.
Individual developers in Israel and Arab countries routinely email each other. Why shouldn't they? Many of the problems they face in adapting -- for example -- KDE for their right-to-left languages are identical. Mozilla finally displays pages in both languages decently, and this is a result, I am told, of efforts by both Arabic-speaking and Hebrew-speaking programmers. Alliances between Arab and Israeli software people help both parties. The overwhelming majority of developers I have met in Jordan and Saudi Arabia -- the only two Mideast countries I have visited so far -- seem to believe this, and I've heard similar thoughts from Israeli developers via email and IRC.
Sometimes we need to separate regimes from people. Saudi Arabia officially hates Israel and still has some public school textbooks that demonize Jews, but I am a Jew (in culture if not practice) and the people who invited me to Saudi Arabia knew it. The only time religion has actively come up so far was a friendly invitation to join two guys at a local mosque for prayer one day after lunch. I declined, saying I had no idea how to perform the rituals, and one of them said, "Just do what the guy next to you does; they'll just think you're a foreigner -- they can tell that from your clothes anyway -- and won't mind if you don't know the words." I went back to the hotel and worked on some stories instead, but if I had been on a less ferocious deadline I might have joined them at the mosque. I'm sure I would have survived the experience -- and might even have enjoyed it.
The Saudis with whom I am spending my time are not religious zealots. Some pray at every call, and some don't. Yes, I know: they are liberal technocrats, not representative of Saudi society in general -- any more than the LUG members, artists, and writers who are the majority of my friends in the U.S. are representative of American society. If I visit Israel, I'm sure I'll meet similar people there, and hear similar complaints about the government and how its policies make it hard to collaborate with developers in Arab countries.
Among the Arab states that are vying for software leadership, I believe the most likely winner will be the one that first allies itself with Israel -- at least in software development -- up to and including free travel back and forth. Right now, the two likeliest Arab candidates for an Israeli software alliance seem to be Jordan and Egypt, which are both at least technically at peace with Israel. But Mideast politics are in flux. Things could change by next year. A Palestinian settlement could change attitudes tremendously, and produce more changes in some Arab countries than in others. Which ones? I can't say. I've only been in Saudi Arabia for five days, and my plane leaves in less than an hour. I'll leave this speculation to people with more time on their hands -- and more experience at analyzing Israeli-Arab political dynamics.
Comments
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How do both the Arab and Israeli groups coordinate with the English side of things?
at least in islamic lugs
this flamewar
http://www.linux-egypt.com/showthread.php?threadi<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =2548
was the result of muslims saying merry chritmas to christians
http://www.linux-egypt.org/showthread.php?threadi<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =2521
this flamewar
http://www.linux-egypt.com/showthread.php?threadi<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =2548
was the result of muslims saying merry chritmas to christians
http://www.linux-egypt.org/showthread.php?threadi<nobr>d<wbr></nobr> =2521
Shalom All,
There a lot of activity in Israel around Open Source & Linux. Since it did not appeared in the article - here are some of the links:
<A HREF="http://www.hamakor.org.il/english.html" TITLE="hamakor.org.il">Hamakor - Oepn Software Orgnization</a hamakor.org.il>
<A HREF="http://www.iglu.org.il/IGLU/index.php" TITLE="iglu.org.il">Israeli Group of Linux Users</a iglu.org.il>
If ANY of the Arabic counties Linux Club members isi interested in cooperation - please contact <A HREF="http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux" TITLE="tau.ac.il">Tel-Aviv Liunx Club </a tau.ac.il>. The mail can be found in the link.
<A HREF="http://www.haifux.org/" TITLE="haifux.org">Haifa Linux Club</a haifux.org>
I would be honored to hear from you guys,
Eddie
There a lot of activity in Israel around Open Source & Linux. Since it did not appeared in the article - here are some of the links:
<A HREF="http://www.hamakor.org.il/english.html" TITLE="hamakor.org.il">Hamakor - Oepn Software Orgnization</a hamakor.org.il>
<A HREF="http://www.iglu.org.il/IGLU/index.php" TITLE="iglu.org.il">Israeli Group of Linux Users</a iglu.org.il>
If ANY of the Arabic counties Linux Club members isi interested in cooperation - please contact <A HREF="http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/telux" TITLE="tau.ac.il">Tel-Aviv Liunx Club </a tau.ac.il>. The mail can be found in the link.
<A HREF="http://www.haifux.org/" TITLE="haifux.org">Haifa Linux Club</a haifux.org>
I would be honored to hear from you guys,
Eddie
Open Source and islamic business tradition/law is compatible.
These articles were interesting and informative.
I found some of the negative responses (rants and flames, really, rather than responses) to the earlier articles rather depressing, though. As well as learning about Saudi Arabia we learned something about the bigoted minority in America. At least, I sure hope it's a minority.
I found some of the negative responses (rants and flames, really, rather than responses) to the earlier articles rather depressing, though. As well as learning about Saudi Arabia we learned something about the bigoted minority in America. At least, I sure hope it's a minority.
There are far too many ignorant Western stereotyped
ideas in this piece (and the four others in the series) for anyone who has any idea about the Middle East to take it seriously.
The opening sentence itself is inaccurate - computers and the internet are just starting to penetrate the middle east. It reminds one of the ignorant middle east "experts" who fronted shows in the run up to the iraq war, saying "it is said to be very hot in the gulf during the month of March."
Has Miller heard of the United Arab Emirates? It is far more advanced in all things to do with technology, holds the region's biggest computer fair Gitex, (which has been running since 1988)?
Most people in most countries are dirt-poor - can we have some statistics to prove these assertions? Such uneducated statements only tend to make people treat the author as a joke.
A man goes to Riyadh and thinks he's seen all of Saudi Arabia. Ever thought why Riyadh is the way it is? Maybe, just maybe, those areas on the coast, places like Jeddah, Taif, Dammam and Dhahran - may be a little different?
You don't need some tired American theory to explain things in Saudi Arabia - no, you need to lock yourself up in a room and read works by Arab authors for a few days to understand the area.
It is better to keep quiet and be considered a fool than to open your mouth and confirm it.
I did read about Arabs by someone that was there. T.E. Lawrence commomly known as Lawrence of Arabia. He wrote "The Seven Pillars of Wisdom" I thought the part about how the Arabs had slave cities interesting being it was written after world war one. And the bit about how if one arab soldier had VD it spread through the barracks in a week or so very informative. If you don't beleive me read the book yourself.
Thank you for this post. I read the whole series hoping I'd find some really great information in English on technological development in Saudi Arabia; instead, the whole series is the author comparing two cultures, and almost NO information about open source in KSA. Though he probably believes he's done Saudis a great service and liberated them through his incredibly average journalistic abilities, he's actually insulted the vast majority of them, and depicted them as backward individuals. All 5 of these articles remind me of Orientalist travelogues such as those by Montagu.
If you're going to dabble in cultural judgment calls I suggest you have a thorough knowledge of the people in question, and that includes living with them, knowledge their language, and perhaps being a part of the culture yourself.
Let me ask you a serious question: If I as a Muslim went to France to report on open source adaptation there do you think I'd waste 75% of the text talking about people drinking wine, not praying five times daily, or women not covered according to Islamic standards? Of course not, because it's irrelevant to the discussion. Why do you then waste time talking about Islamic dress code, prayers, and other similar issues? This is our life; the vast majority of us LIKE our culture this way, just as you enjoy your porn and beer. Instead of sitting in your hotel all day smoking a 'hookah' maybe you should've been making connects with important open source figures there, technological decision makers that keep the Windows hegemony strong, or researching some of Microsoft's strong-arming tactics in the region. These are actually all things you should have done before even ARRIVING there. I'm guessing all the cultural descriptions are just fluff covering up the fact that you have no real content.
Anyway, for people interested in seeing how Arabic Linux is progressing in KSA (and other Arab nations) check out www.arabeyes.com. They've created, among other things, one of the first Arabic Live-CDs, based on Knoppix (I believe).
For the author, some lessons on cultural relativism may do you well. In the future please think twice before publishing such biased material.
If you're going to dabble in cultural judgment calls I suggest you have a thorough knowledge of the people in question, and that includes living with them, knowledge their language, and perhaps being a part of the culture yourself.
Let me ask you a serious question: If I as a Muslim went to France to report on open source adaptation there do you think I'd waste 75% of the text talking about people drinking wine, not praying five times daily, or women not covered according to Islamic standards? Of course not, because it's irrelevant to the discussion. Why do you then waste time talking about Islamic dress code, prayers, and other similar issues? This is our life; the vast majority of us LIKE our culture this way, just as you enjoy your porn and beer. Instead of sitting in your hotel all day smoking a 'hookah' maybe you should've been making connects with important open source figures there, technological decision makers that keep the Windows hegemony strong, or researching some of Microsoft's strong-arming tactics in the region. These are actually all things you should have done before even ARRIVING there. I'm guessing all the cultural descriptions are just fluff covering up the fact that you have no real content.
Anyway, for people interested in seeing how Arabic Linux is progressing in KSA (and other Arab nations) check out www.arabeyes.com. They've created, among other things, one of the first Arabic Live-CDs, based on Knoppix (I believe).
For the author, some lessons on cultural relativism may do you well. In the future please think twice before publishing such biased material.
If you visited a Western country and posted an article about it, that would be interesting to read, assuming that you took your assignment seriously and tried to understand what was going on. Everyone knows that a travelogue is as much about the author and his culture as it is about the place he visited.
Amsterdam must be the ultimate high of tech industry then.
By Amsterdam standards, Florida is conservative<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;0)
By Amsterdam standards, Florida is conservative<nobr> <wbr></nobr>;0)
Coffee shops
Posted by: SarsSmarz on January 17, 2004 03:02 AMWith today's society you have expand the concept from an intellectually 'safe' room, into a 'safe' broader space. I don't know how many developing countries have this.
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