Rich, developed countries at the top; poor and undeveloped countries at the bottom. Why is that so?
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.
From what I've seen in Romania it's actually even simpler than that: money and attitude.
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.
I am far from an expert on Romania, but would guess there are two more factors?
- 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.
A large factor might be that in a lot of less developed countries longer work hours are the norm, so they have less leisure time for things like contributing to free software?
I don't think development level has much to do with work hours. The obvious example is America, the US is one of the most developed countries in the world, yet Americans work really insane hours. Japan would be another example.
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.