On Friday 31 January 2003 13:48, Jeff Ramsdale wrote: > Hi all, > > I'm just curious about something. I've been reading the Cocoon-users list > for a couple of weeks or so and I see a lot of folks in Europe (and > Australia--Jeff T!) interested in Cocoon. I'm sure it's not a matter of > Americans (& Canadians?) not being interested, I'm sure. (Oh, & Antonio, I > don't want to leave you out!) Right? > > With the utmost respect for the Project I observe that Cocoon is a bit of a > fringe product as far as web development is concerned. I happen to believe > this "fringe" is the leading edge of something big, which is why I'm here. > So here's my question: If any of what I've said above has truth in it, is > there a particular reason why Cocoon might have special appeal to > Europeans? Is there something about the mindset of European programmers > that leads them to Cocoon? Is Open-Source Software viewed differently, on > the whole, in Europe than America? Does this have anything to do with > Microsoft's influence in America? I guess that's more than one question! > Interested in your observations... > > Reason I ask... I live in Seattle (Microsoft-land), and I'd love to find > work using Cocoon and/or Java (but especially Cocoon!), but I don't see as > much mindshare here as I think it deserves.
Interesting topic. You might be right. A fair amount of OSS is started and lead by Europe-born individuals, although many now lives in the US (Linus for instance). I think I would agree with your initial assessment that there may be underlying values that infuence the mind set. Exactly what it is, I am not sure, but I don't think it is Microsoft in this case. Perhaps more reasonable is the "overall american attitude" of "I'm the best, I'm the greatest, I'm gonna get rich.", which promotes "proprietaryship" and "commercialization" of good ideas. Europeans at large are more modest and humble, and have stronger need of being "part of" than "in control of". Compare BeOS vs Linux for example. What were the driving forces behind each, and which path did they each take? (Also, who is still here?) Niclas --------------------------------------------------------------------- Please check that your question has not already been answered in the FAQ before posting. <http://xml.apache.org/cocoon/faq/index.html> To unsubscribe, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For additional commands, e-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
