Posted by Kernel hacker on May 24, 2000 at 12:30:51 PM EDT:
In Reply to: " Linux c'est bien " MAO ZE DONG posted by Saloth Sar on May 23, 2000 at 09:19:44 AM EDT:
BeOpen: China as well, I assume. There have been rumors that the Chinese government would like to adopt GNU/Linux as the official state operating system.
Stallman: I don't know how valid those rumors are. From my experience, China represents the other extreme from India. In terms of the general public's readiness to sympathize with free software I would put India on one end. I would put the United States in the middle, because people in the United States put so much faith in corporations and corporate capitalism. I would put the the former communist countries at the other end of the spectrum. My theory is that in those countries the issues that free software promotes -- issues of community and cooperation -- have been so discredited by association with communism, which said it was for those things but was always in fact a dictatorship, that people have become very cynical about the idea of helping each other and helping society. If anything, people in China and Russia and other former communist countries have become more focused on making money, because they view it as the best way to distance themselves from the taint of socialism.