> but try to find a country with higher Linux/PGP/OpenStreetMap use. I am still trying to put my finger on what the culture difference is Those examples stem f

> but try to find a country with higher Linux/PGP/OpenStreetMap use. I am still trying to put my finger on what the culture difference is Those examples stem from Germany's strong care about privacy, which is rooted in the Nazi regime, showing how data can be used to discriminate people and then the surveillance in East Germany by the Stasi. While there are many aspects to critizise Germany did mostly well to educate the own population about the Nazi crimes (which also kept right wing parties out for a long period compared to other European countries, while that changes currently ...) In addition the West did propaganda against East and Stasi surveillance which told the West society about the dangers of surveillance (while at the same time CIA, NSA etc had quite some power in Germany ...) And then, after reunification, they didn't simply burn down Stasi and forget, but again did a huge program to study the surveillance programs and publishing about it and allowing everybody to request their Stasi file. Thus on the aspect of privacy the society is confronted with the risk. The other aspect about German culture is the pride about "German Engineering" thus thinking though and trying to avoid problems. This brought quite some industry, however in a highly dynamic field, like modern IT based systems it prevents coming up with solutions compared to the Silicon Valley "move fast and break things" attitude. Germany is. More like "move slow, but robust" Those in the early days, Germany was quite well with IT (think Use, Siemens, Nixdorf) but when the core engineering lost relevance and software took over lost ground, so that basically only SAP survived, which is a very German product, again. Also the Nuclear exit, I argue, is partially caused by the cold war: Chernobyl caused notable increase in radiation etc in Germany, where children were forbidden to play outside, hunting mushrooms was forbidden etc. and as being located directly on the iron curtain and as one could directly observe how differently the reporting in West and East Germany was (shared language across the fence ...) it was symbolized.