H1B

[Patrick R. McManus]

A different pov - and one, shock of shocks, that is actually relevant
to linux.

Linux is an international phenomenon. We owe the industry around it to
the amazing open cooperation of its developers and the fact that bits
seem to see physical boundaries as less important than people do. Without
this cooperation we would have but a shadow of the industry that many
here are complaining should be reserved for americans.

Just browsing my linux mailboxes this morning (representing perhaps 12
or 18 hours of mail) I've come across the following 'foreigners' who
have contributed more to creating the linux industry than most anybody
on this list. Some of these people work for american companies. Some
of them even work in America. The horror!

linus torvalds - finland
alan cox  - british 
andrew morton (vm, ext3, etc..) - austrailian
alexey kuznetsov (network stack) - russian
david woodhouse (mtd) - british
rik van riel (vm) - dutch
Miguel de Icaza (gnome) - mexican
Lionel Bouton (sis chipset support) - french
Andries Brouwer (block devices) - dutch
Petr Vandrovec (netware) - czech
Jens Axboe (block and CD support) - german
russell king (arm support) - british
marcello (2.4 maintenance) - brazillian
Anton Altaparmakov (ntfs) - british
Alessandro Rubini (coauthor fabulous ldd book) - italian
Ingo Molnar (scheduler)  - german?
maxim krasnyansky - vpn, bluetooth - russian?
Zwane Mwaikambo (numa) - canadian

Somehow they all find a way to communicate too. go figure.

We (americans) are not independent of the world. And I don't want to
be. When the computer industry resorts to protectionism for its
workforce (a typical pattern for recently emerging industry that is no
longer emerging) is when it gets remarkably uninteresting and its time
to question what we're doing.

-Patrick