Contributors to Debian code per country
perrier.eu.org
perrier.eu.org
Wonder if it's worth pointing out Northern Ireland != Ulster, he seems keen on correctness
Pedantically "Republic of Ireland" is not the name of the state, it is merely "Ireland". "Eire" is likewise not the correct term either. It's from the Irish word for Ireland "Éire", and was common in UK to prevent calling the state "Ireland" (since part of the island of Ireland was in the UK (Northern Ireland)).
When being a pedant, the key qualifying aspect is accuracy and correctness ;)
(mod me down if you want but I'm proud we are #3)
I'm guessing poor English proficiency and lack of access to computers, internet and higher (CS) education is the reason poorer countries, even though they have big Linux userbases, don't contribute as much as the richer ones.
We have English proficiency, our internet infrastructure might be the best in Europe for home users and we presumably have good CS education.
The reason CS students (or professionals) don't think about contributing to open-source is because it's expensive to do it yourself and the employer doesn't ask them to afterwards. Also because they don't think they are able to or because they don't care.
Some students do have some 'phase' when they discover open-source, but it rarely lasts enough for them to contribute something meaningful. By the time they are hired, contributions are almost non-existent.
I am glad though to see that some companies here do open-source but it's quite rare.
So a combination of can-do attitude and money is needed to dare contribute to open-source. If you are from a rich, developed country these are actually a given. But in a poorer country, not so much.
- Lack of trust in the society, which ought to generate a cynical attitude. It is the parameter which seems most different from [Edit: West European] countries. I assume this is both from the communist history (secret police etc) and that the present politicians are more or less the same thieves as before 1989.
- A Microsoft domination in the infrastructure. Open source seems more prevalent on Linux/BSD/et al.
"USA continues to go down (by 3 this time). We're constantly losing developers over there (-3 in one year)."