We've all been hearing a great deal about Open Source as the New Paradigm in the software industry. This brave new world of cooperative development frameworks and relaxed commercial imperatives promises -- or threatens, depending on your perspective -- to rewrite the rules of how computer software is developed, deployed and maintained. Many industry thinkers have declared that the balance of power has already begun to shift towards the Open Source Software (OSS) model. This apparent miracle of ingenuity and collective good will has certainly captured the popular imagination; Linux -- more properly Gnu/Linux, the most useful and conspicuous superset of Open Source leverage -- carries the hopes of millions to upset the Microsoft hegemony.

If the pundits are right, it won't be surprising if this paradigm shift is accompanied by a shift of regional strength -- in the software industry, at any rate -- from the United States to Europe.

It is clear Europe is already well ahead of the United States in Open Source utilization, culture, and awareness. A disproportionate number of Open Source development efforts are based there. Businesses, universities, and individuals on the continent are committing to Open Source offerings in relative numbers far exceeding their American counterparts.

What is not clear is why. To be sure, there are both economic and technical factors at work. But a closer look also suggests the intervention of much larger, partially submerged cultural issues.

The willingness of European business to embrace Open Source software has, at least on the surface, some plausible explanations. First and foremost, businesses in Europe are much more cost-conscious than their U.S. cousins. Xavier Cazin, a Chief Editor at O'Reilly Editions France, highlights the contrast. "Cost makes companies here look more closely at OSS arguments. A U.S. company will easily pay two hundred dollars for DNS service on NT, whereas a French company will be interested in learning that DNS has always been free on UNIX. Then, they will check whether it's really as good or better. U.S. companies often won't go that far, they'll pay to have it now."

European corporations are also much more wary of Microsoft dependency. Kalle Dalheimer, an author for O'Reilly Germany, says "Linux in Europe has a much higher position than reports I have heard in America. Scandinavia, Germany, and France are some of the main centers of Linux use. Some people say that this is because companies and the government want to avoid becoming too dependent on U.S. -- read Microsoft -- products."

But business' desire to minimize dependency, Dalheimer explains, is often overshadowed by technical pragmatics. "More and more [European] companies see that Linux is simply better than Windows and that they gain competitive advantage if their Linux mail servers work while their competitor's MS Mail Server has problems getting the mail through. Lots of European companies use Linux. These include IKEA, the Swedish furniture retailer; Deutsche Bahn, the German national railroad; Deutsche Post, the mail service; Daimler-Chrysler, and many others. Companies like banks and insurance companies also often use Linux without admitting it publicly. I know from friends who work [at such institutions] that the technicians are doing everything with Linux."

Cazin sees a similar trend, at least in France. "On servers, I do think Linux is replacing proprietary Unices at a very high rate, something I don't see for the U.S. For the rest, I think it's the same: in big companies, there is always a PC somewhere with Linux, more and more officially. In small companies that have a real computer department, chances are great that Linux is beginning to invade the company, replacing NT."

It is when one explores the role of Open Source in European higher education that the issues become distinctly less quantitative. Americans often perceive Europeans as highly politicized and philosophical. Whether that reputation is deserved or not, it's pretty clear that -- in the academy at least -- there are some pretty high-minded ideals in play. While academic tenure in the U.S. is increasingly a preamble to employment in the commercial sector, in Europe, state-run universities seem to prefer a little more distance from economic imperatives. Perhaps it is because they value (and fund) the Liberal Arts more vigorously. Perhaps it reflects government social welfare imperatives with which Europeans, for the most part, are clearly more comfortable than Americans. Maybe it's because the cult of wealth is less rampant than in the U.S.; certainly, higher rates of taxation make American-style amassments of personal wealth less plausible.

To be sure, at least some of the motivation to deploy OSS in European universities is cost-driven. But a large part must be attributed to cultural priorities. Cazin explains how the European perspective places higher education outside the orbit of rapidly-changing commercial technology markets. "OSS mostly originates in universities or public-funded organizations. What it means in Europe is that it is related to building the infra-structure of a society. Educators generally think that greedy, commercial algorithms are not optimal to this task. OSS and public organizations like universities share a common role in building what is considered at a given time the minimal base for individual members of society to build upon. Current trends that put infrastructure-building into the hands of short-term-thinkers are quite frightening to them. And the U.S. is considered the leader for this short-term ideology."

These kinds of value judgments enable a more philosophical approach to the go-go world of technology. "There is no furious need to discover new territories here. One consequence is that buzzwords and 'new technologies' from Microsoft or other companies hold very little temptation. Delays on wide adoption of the Internet is an example of that. Rediscovering UNIX -- mostly through its availability on PCs -- is not at all considered old-fashioned, but rather a clever way of reusing good thinking. Another consequence is that the Linux development model is considered quite good."

As computers become a daily necessity, Cazin asserts, the French philosophical perspective has led people to revolt. "Association of a price with a value is not mandatory here. The fact that something with a great value might have little or no cost is not troublesome. The more consensus there is that its role is essential (drinking, eating, health care, etc.), the less it should cost. People in general hate paying for something that is unavoidable. That's why French people didn't feel guilty in pirating Microsoft software for years, for example."

But the ultimate reason Europeans are more open to OSS may have more to do with social ideals than anything else. In comparison to the U.S., Europe enjoys a distinctly more socialist political climate, an emphasis on communitarian values, and an awareness of the problems that can result when too much faith is invested in commercial markets and Adam Smith's invisible hand. In the European outlook, working at little or no pay in the interest of the public good is a high calling. In a society offering more and sturdier social safety-nets for its citizens, the price of answering such a calling need not be homelessness. In a culture where many non-commercial endeavors -- in literature, politics, the performing arts -- can bring the highest social esteem, Open Source just feels right - because it reflects values embedded in the larger society.

Many might argue that American's fevered enthusiasm for the marketplace has created a cultural blind spot for the possibilities of Open Source. After all, turning one's back on the market is -- especially in the current soaring U.S. economic climate -- a heresy. Yet, amazingly, that's what the Open Sourcers have done. On the face of it, this must strike the majority of Americans -- caught up in a feeding frenzy of economic self-enrichment -- as fatuously perverse.

But it may be the most brilliant instinct of the times. If this proves to be true, Europe's communitarian reflexes may well play as a strength, while U.S. commercial prejudices and predispositions may cause America to take a back-seat, if not miss the bus entirely. Only time will tell.

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