Classifying a country such as China and India is difficult. Are they developing? The differences between urban and rural are simply too great to give a singular classification. Certainly the major cities equal any developed country in infrastructure.
When comparing the market in these countries to developed market like US and Europe, one has to keep in mind the human aspects as well. Despite the hard-wares (infrastructure, buildings) are the soft-wares (human resources, culture, social practices) are still lagging.
Opensource software development is an interesting model that had gain rapid recognition in recent years. Though its root can be traced back much further, commercial interest is a recent phenomena. Can this model work in China? Or any developing country for that matter.
I am naively working on this model, at the same time secretly fear the worst. Why?
The backbone of the opensource movement is the community, people doing many things, contributing for the greater good of the community. We cannot discount any private interest in do it but as long as any gain is a consequence of the effort, then it should be rightful. The community spirit is something hard to quantify. With time I might be able to dig up some papers on it. Fuzzily it can be viewed as an ecosystem, where there is give and take and the system thrived as a result.
An ingredient for opensource is respect and recognition for work done. I use an opensource software, due recognition is given. I declare I’m using this Serendipity blog, for example. I change an opensource application, I declare than it is a fork or derived from so and so application. I leave the original author information intact.
One factor least noticed or understood by open source believer is that developers need to make a living. In the good old days, open source, or a close relative freeware, is a hobby. This is my favourite example. Now because it proves to be a possible commercial model, people who do not have any backup income to support themselves are pinning on opensource model.
Related to the need to earn income is the concept of free time, leisure time. Traditionally opensource softwares are developed using personal leisure time. Now I harzard a guess that a substantial and rapidly increasing percentage of opensource softwares are developed on working time.
Now with the above factors in mind look at China. I do not see any of these ingredients featuring strongly.
Lastly, I added in the linkage to developing countries because I think these conditions are not limited to China. Siting India as an example because it is a rapidly growing IT powerhouse. The task of developing a workable opensource business model must be as challenging.
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