[n00kie]

Agreed!

I worked for a large Japanese hardware company many years ago. They had an entire floor full of programmers (YES, not kidding!!!) who were working on a new software product and when the first beta versions started to surface our guys in Europe saw how bad and hopeless it was. So they assembled a small competing team of 3 guys in Europe (I did the software design and coding – it was actually my first real job!). The headquarters provided all the necessary documentation and 1 year later we had a working product finished before them!! I think one of the major problem was that they had incompetent managers and nobody questioned their authority/ideas. Everyone did what they were told! No independent thinking! Seems like a cultural thing to me.

[hozawa]

Correction request: "They had an entire floor full of people programming" lol Open source is not used too much in Japan because there aren't too many people who can modify and maintain them.