This letter has been sent to leaders around the country in an effort to stoke interest in an Australian Linux project, and sparking interest in FOSS support nationally.
Dear data center operators, esteemed professors, MPs, senators and other respected members of our community,
I am writing to you to call for Australia to develop its own Linux distribution, as a national project funded by the federal government and private sectors.
There are two dominant issues in our nation that I think this would address:
Productivity is slumped and we have no clear path to become a services oriented economy.
As a western English speaking nation with a high standard of living, we have an opportunity for Australia to compete with the best of the digital landscape offered by Europe and the United States.
So what is a Linux distribution and how would it help? Linux is a software ecosystem that powers much of the worlds infrastructure - large and small. Historically, tech companies have had a bit of a one sided relationship with the open source community who develops Linux for free. Over time, opportunities have been created to make money off of Linux via enterprise grade software and support level agreements.
I believe that Australia would do well to follow in Germany's footsteps with SUSE Linux. Germany's bold ambitious national effort to invest in SUSE Linux and create an official German Linux has elevated their nation and local tech industry. SUSE is a well regarded operating system that competes with some of the best. When we look at German technological products - we see the finesse in the software they produce. Not all of it is using SUSE, however the metaphor of a rising tide lifting all boats certainly applies here. If you want a real world example - look no further than the auto industry. It's not just about making cars - the network of businesses and industry required to support the auto industry provide jobs to individuals and resilience to the nation. By investing in the most primary software development industry - building an operating system - Germany's capacity to produce competitive technological products and services is world class.
In the 21st century, governments will be relied upon more and more to provide digital infrastructure and the public will no doubt see this as being as vital as the provision of physical infrastructure. We already see the beginnings of this with efforts like MyGov and GovCMS, but more could be done. It's kind of strange to me that we need private companies to provide us email addresses in order to access our government data, this is a gap that I think the government will be expected to look after in the future. Perhaps not today, but certainly in a few years.
As our world gets more complicated, we also need to be wary of the issue of national sovereignty in a digital world. By ensuring our hardware runs Australian built software, created by Australian engineers we can secure our future as an independent leader in technology. While we may not have the manufacturing capacity to replace foreign hardware supply, we can certainly do a lot on-shore such as assembly, customisation and software.
I hope this letter was helpful. I don't really know where to start with this bold idea, but I thought the best thing to do might be to just put it out there to people who have the resources and contacts to get it done. I would love to see this taken under the wing of the CSIRO. I would also love to commit myself to a project like this, but the funding for open source projects and IT business opportunities in Australia's economy just aren't there right now.
Thank you for your time
Paul Brzeski
P.S. for context and inspiration:
- Germany’s national Linux: https://www.suse.com/success/bundesagentur_fuer_arbeit/
- China’s national Linux: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kylin_(operating_system)