In their relentless quest for bad news to continually report from Iraq, the major media surprisingly missed this major problem in the Bush administration’s rebuilding effort.

Headline Wired: Slow Going for Linux in Iraq

As Iraq emerges from years of stagnation wrought by a closed political system and tough sanctions from other countries, Iraqi interest in computing technology is finally burgeoning.

Reports from inside the country say curious citizens are keeping Internet cafes filled to capacity, that eager students are returning to universities to learn how to program and that high-end computer workstations can be bought for as little as $150 in city marketplaces.

But even with all the growth, there is still one aspect of technology that has yet to penetrate the country’s borders: open-source software. With software piracy so rampant that a CD copy of almost any program can be bought for just 2,000 dinars, or , the demand for free software just isn’t there yet, according to Ashraf Tariq and Hasanen Nawfal.

The two graduate students at Al-Mansour University in Baghdad are among just a handful of Iraqi citizens who are familiar with Linux — and that has them deeply worried. If nothing is done to educate computer users in Iraq about open-source software, what is now a blank canvas will quickly be painted over with expensive, proprietary Microsoft products, they argue. And if that happens, the country could end up spending millions more than it needs to on software purchases and hardware upgrades, they say.

But unlike the computer experts who have traditionally advocated the adoption of open-source software in other countries, Iraq’s technocrati have yet to grasp the benefit of using an operating system like Linux, Nawfal said in a recent e-mail interview.

"Most of them just heard about Linux but are afraid of trying it. For home users things are worse — for them, a computer equals Windows, and vice versa."

Apple Computer, too, is a mystery to Iraq’s new computing class. In a February Q&A session on Slashdot.org, Minnesota Public Radio’s Adam Davidson, who is stationed in Iraq, wrote, "I’ve found exactly one Iraqi who has heard of Apple, and maybe a few dozen who’ve heard of Linux. So, just letting people know there is an alternative is a big issue."

It is obvious that the Bush administration either did not have a plan for promoting and distributing open-source operating systems at the termination of the war in Iraq, or worse yet, they are in the pay of Microsoft. I expect Ted Kennedy to condemn Bush for removing Saddam Hussein only to replace him with Bill Gates, and for Al Gore to call for additional resignations due to this scandal.