looking east

My master thesis will be a paper which covers a rather “sociological” question in a computing environment. I have thus made a question catalog to analyse which are the necessary requirements for me to be able to write such a thesis (to be completed):

• Is the source code available? / Is is it Open Source?
• Who has invented it?
• Why was it developed?
• What is “Asian” about it?
• What are the commercial and/or political interests in its development?
• For whom was it developed? Who is using it?
• Which languages does it support?
• How is localisation handled and implemented?
• Who has contributed to it?
• It there a community/company promoting/distributing it?
• How is it licensed? What does it cost?
• Where can I get more detailed information (websites, community, chat, forum, mailing lists)?
• Which tests/analysis will allow to find out more about the structure/implementation of the software?