Words by Chris Mace
December 2003

Each issue when we talk shop with Mac users in different countries, we find that Macs are thought of as expensive specialty machines and that PCs are often hand-assembled on the cheap. There always exists an admiration for Macs, which have a reputation for style and quality, and a strong following.

Spain is an interesting situation, having begun a process of "returning to Europe," as it's commonly referred to, following the end of 40 years of dictatorship. Under Franco's reign, which lasted until 1976, Spain lagged behind its former rivals of the last 300 years or so (France, Germany, England and the U.S.) in terms of global sway and economic development. Internally it is more regionalized than America and its European neighbors, with fiercely independent autonomous regions playing key roles in national government. Spain enjoys economic aid as a relatively poorer member of the European Union, although those benefits are likely to lessen as Eastern European countries join, which is one of many issues on the table regarding the upcoming ratification of a new EU constitution.

Spain also wants to return to the world stage, as can be seen in its desire to define a proactive military stance for itself independent of the UN, largely under the leadership of prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. It does not want to define itself in opposition to the United States, like the U.K. under Tony Blair, and seeks a stronger role for the UN on the world stage.

Some of the world's great cities are in Spain - Malaga was founded near Gibraltar where the Atlantic meets the Mediterranean by Phoenicians interested in the region's mineral resources. Malaga was a central city for the Moors during their seven-century long occupation. Barcelona, on the eastern coast, is a metropolis on the sea, sprawling inland and home to many creative industries. Madrid, the capital city, is in the center of the somewhat square Iberian Peninsula (the Romans called it Hispania). Bilbao in the north is growing through investment as a business center and major Atlantic shipping port. The recently-completed Guggenheim Museum that looks like a giant wad of tin foil staked that city out as a cultural icon, while its highway system is being woven through the low mountains surrounding the port.

We contacted Miguel A. Hernandez Lasanta in La Rioja, the famous wine-growing region in northeastern Spain. The region is the smallest in Spain, in size and population. Most of the inhabitants live in the capital city of Logro–o in the mainly-agricultural Ebro river valley. Miguel is a web designer working on a G4 iMac using GoLive and Photoshop and trying to "avoid Microsoft software" such as Office apps, preferring open-source apps.

Miguel recently helped organize "Rioja Party," a yearly event taking place at the end of June when thousands of computer users convene in a large school gym to take advantage of a super fast internet connection (16 MB/s) to play and learn. Participants game together or otherwise take part in activities offered through the event. Like the high school cafeteria, participants group themselves according to common interests, so there is the "Mac zone" and the "Linux zone" and the "games zone," plus all kinds of workshops, demos and lectures. All this takes place over a long weekend, from Friday to Sunday night and costs 12 Euros, about $15. That includes breakfast (thick black coffee, chocolate and pastries).

Miguel is the founder and coordinator of GUM-Rioja (GUM = MUG, Mac user group) which has about 50 members. Five or six people make up the core of the group and Miguel says he is going to pass on the role of coordinator next Christmas when the group turns one year old. About once a month, they get together for demos and lectures such as a presentation on the use of iMovie3 by an expert user of FinalCut Pro. He insists it's "not just a social event or get-together, as many other MUGS here are." Usually about 15 people show up, partly because a lot of the members live in Madrid or Barcelona where the jobs are. To compensate, they have active forums and an iChat room "usually crowded in the evenings."

Miguel says the open source movement in Spain exists in certain regions, such as Extremadura and Andalusia, where they are "leading the revolution." A regional version of Linux called LinEx (Linux + Extremadura) is used in municipal offices and in the public school system. That means tens of thousands of PCs running LinEX, with the money saved going to around-the-clock tech support and training.

Consequently, Extremadura has the highest ratio of computers to students, 1:2, even though in some parts it's relatively poor.

Rioja Party is similar to the Spainish equivalent of the annual MacWorld Expo in the U.S., called CampusMac. The project arises out of efforts by two leaders of Spanish Mac publications, MacByte and, on the Internet, Macuarium, as well as various leaders of Mac user groups from Malaga, Sevilla, Barcelona, including Cool-Crew and MacForum. CampusMac started in 2001 to bring together Mac users who originally grew in number in the 1980s as a result of early developments on the Mac platform involving object oriented systems operation, local network managing, and the adoption of TCP/IP and PPP protocols in Internet use in the 1990s. Consequently, the age spectrum of Spanish Mac users is wide.