Followup with the LUG of Iraq

Life is tough here in Baghdad, no
question. But Iraqis have plenty of food and not that many people
have been physically injured. What delights many Iraqis most right
now is that they can, for the first time in a lifetime, learn about
the outside world. They can read whatever books they want, watch
satellite TV, and, most exciting of all, get on the Internet and
see things they never have: open political criticism, chat rooms,
naked people, news from everywhere. There are dozens and dozens of
new internet cafes all over Iraq which, with their slow, lousy
satellite connections, are filled all the time.Sana'a Street, the main computer store strip in Baghdad, is
overflowing with quite up-to-date computers, cheaper than you'll
find in the US, with everything you could ask for. And you can
easily find people with surprising expertise in networking,
database programming, and general computer support. The software
pirates (there is no way to get legal proprietary software in Iraq,
and, even now, there are no laws against copyright infringement)
have set up countless shops all over the country and their
CD-burners are in overdrive churning out copies of Microsoft
Windows XP, or sketchy pre-release copies of the company's Longhorn
OS due to ship in 2006, along with everything that Adobe, Symantec,
and all the others have to offer. In a lengthy search, I found one
guy who sold Red Hat Linux 7.2, but he didn't know what it was.
Iraqis, until the war, had no idea what a cash machine was or a
supermarket scanner. Most had never ridden in an airplane or heard
an uncensored broadcast or touched a computer. Since few Iraqis can
get visas to any other country, their only way to access this
sudden abundance of free information is through the
Internet.This being said, virtually no Iraqis know anything about the
debate over open versus proprietary software. Since Iraq never
signed on to the copyright conventions common in other countries,
Iraqis have no sensitivity to the issue. They believe that all
software costs 2,000 dinars, or roughly one dollar, the price
software sellers charge for any copied CD. But this will change
soon. Iraq's basic laws are being rewritten right now, largely with
the help of US government advisors. And, without counter-advocacy,
it seems all but certain that Iraq will soon have some of the
strictest DMCA-like codes in the world.I am an American reporter, the Baghdad correspondent for the
public radio business show
Marketplace and a
Linux user. I've searched around and have found precisely two Linux
advocates in all of Iraq. Ashraf Tariq and Hasanen Nawfal have
created Iraq's only Linux
User Group and are, to date, its only members. (Another
group,
iraqilinux.org, is
made up of people outside of Iraq, hoping to encourage Linux use in
the country.) Ashraf and Hasanen are quite impressive. They are
young graduate students at the until-recently named Saddam
University.Ashraf studies lasers, Hasanen computers. Even under the
Saddam Hussein regime, Hasanen somehow developed a strong knowledge
of Linux and taught his friend, Ashraf, the basics. Hasanen wrote
his own graphics viewing program that seems world-class. Ashraf,
with a computer he built himself, including a bizarrely complex and
effective CPU water-cooling system he created out of old tubes and
a plastic yogurt jug, has tried, valiantly, to convince fellow
students to convert to Linux. They are smart, eager advocates with
grand ambitions. But they're graduate students who don't have a lot
of free time and need help from Linux users around the
world.Ashraf laid out the basic argument for why Iraq needs Linux
in a Linux Journal article. The
argument is simple: If they choose proprietary software, Iraqis
will be software consumers. They will buy expensive proprietary
systems and have no ability to compete in the international
software market. If Iraq develops a strong open-source base, Iraq's
ambitious, bright coders, with their 35 years of pent-up
exploratory energy, could become one of the planet's most
successful sources of new programming. And Iraq's government
ministries and private companies, who have not yet spent a fortune
on proprietary self-reinforcing systems, could become leaders of
broad Linux use.As Ashraf told me, Iraq is now a blank, unformatted hard disk
and can be loaded with anything. Everything is open in Iraq right
now. There are no regimented standards or massive expenditure in a
particular monopoly's software. Now is the time to convince
Iraqis--government, business, and users--that linux will meet their
needs better than proprietary software. This means getting large
and small deployments of Linux--from entire government ministries
to college student's desktops--and starting now to influence the
people who will write Iraq's laws so that DMCA-style restrictions
won't take hold. Those laws are being written now.You can help Ashraf and Hasanen. It can be as simple as
emailing a few URLs or offering to provide tech support or help in
developing their website. Or you can mail them books, periodicals,
and CDs. Or you can send them money, so they can fulfill their
ambition to create Iraq's first Linux Center to demonstrate and
train.Ashraf and Hasanen have determined a few priorities.1. They want to have a cadre of expert Linux users who can
help newbies set up their systems.2. They want to convert college and graduate students to
Linux, because students are most curious and eager to explore new
ways of doing things. And students soon become professionals in IT
and other disciplines where they can influence others.3. They want to convince government ministries and private
companies that Linux is a better solution to their computing needs
than proprietary systems.4. They want to convince Iraq's lawmakers that open-source
friendly laws are crucial for Iraq's future.To that end, Ashraf and Hassanen would like to have some
evangel tools: basically a few-page fact sheet that they can hand
out to different sorts of users along with CDs of some distribution
or other. They prefer Mandrake because it's easy to install and use
and Arabbix, because it's a bootable CD, based on Knoppix, that's
in Arabic. But they're open to suggestions.They would like to develop some kind of basic intro to the
advantages of Linux, with special sections targeting government
ministries, private companies, students, computer science
professors, and regular end-users. And then another package of
denser material that can help convince lawmakers that
open-source-friendly laws will help Iraq. Ideally the material
would be in Arabic, though English is fine.There are obviously tons of materials on the Internet that
can be used to support this effort, but it's hard to get good
Internet access here and suggestions of help would be most
appreciated.They also are hungry for any hard copy Linux information,
including books and magazines and CDs of distributions or useful
docs and software. Please note there are still export control
issues that prevent some software from being exported to Iraq. See
the
letter from the Silicon Valley Linux Users Group to the US
Department of Commerce for why US Linux users still can't
send current distributions to Iraq.To set up a Linux Center, Ashraf and Hasanen would need
enough money to buy a few computers and rent a space. These things
are cheap in Iraq, but not free. $5,000 to $10,000 would create an
incredible space that would transform Iraq's computing
culture.Certainly, Iraq is a country that needs all sorts of
immediate material support. But the US government and countless
NGOs are about to pour countless billions to that effort. But it's
also a country hungry, no, famished, to catch up with the
information revolution that has so changed the rest of the world.
There are plenty of computer-savvy, eager people here who just need
a little help, and assistance; just a few of you, offering a bit of
help, can go a long way.Please send offers of help, URLs of appropriate and useful
information, or simply some encouraging words to: Ashraf Tariq at
ashraftariq_398@hotmail.com and Hasanen Nawfal at
sigmentfault@yahoo.com.Adam Davidson is the Middle East Correspondent for Minnesota
Public Radio's Marketplace (www.marketplace.org) the daily public
radio business show. He can be reached at
adam@adamdavidson.com.