Linux And Beijing

Headed by an unnamed correspondent, many people have written about this story: "The China Red Flag Linux has surfaced again, this time in the New York Times. Turns out there may be some truth to the story that Linux is being pushed by the Chinese government." I do like this tidbit, even though it demonstrates the article's overall superficial tone: "Nonetheless, Great Wall Computer, one of China's biggest PC makers, has already shipped 200,000 desktop computers loaded with the Linux operating system, which looks much like Windows though it cannot yet match all of Microsoft's features." I can think of some features we can do without ...

Comments

What do they firewall their country with?

[x-empt]

The "Great Firewall of China" which blocks a lot of news sites but not porn sites. Do they use their tweaked out "Red"hat version to firewall the country?


Free Porn! or Laugh

New Microsoft PR

[chowda]

"Do you really want to use a communist operating system?"

Re:GPL

[davejenkins]

It doesn't matter if Red Flag becomes 'proprietary' due to the same licencing 'problem' that you point out as well as the open source model itself--

1. One of two things could happen:
2. Red Flag is always a day late and dollar short as far as Linux versions, in which case you shouldn't care what they do with it (unless you REALLY want to use it for some reason)
3. Red Flag comes up with some cool stuff for their version, in which case you would want to use it.
   • This case has two possibile scenarios:
   • Go ahead and use the Red Flag, because they will respect the open source nature of it
   • Go ahead and use the Red Flag, but then China would try to pursue legal action-- in which case the original GPL acts as your defense.

Either way, the Red Flag poses no threat to the Linux evolutionary track. In fact, having an isolated 'gene pool' behind the great wall being worked on by Chinese programmers may ultimately prove to be very interesting. The Eastern mindset, including basic philosophies, problem-solving methods, and group dynamics are fundamentaly different than westerners. Who know what they'll do with their kernel?

Sai Chien,

Dave

Re:nothing to do with Communism

[Detritus]

China does have legitimate security concerns about using a closed source operating system. U.S. intelligence agencies have a history of arranging for design modifications in equipment provided to intelligence targets.

Would the NSA sign off on the use of an operating system for sensitive data by the U.S. Government if they weren't allowed to audit and evaluate the source code?

Re:what's unfortunate

[blakestah]

is the WHY behind linux in china. Basically they decided that they can't have a capitalist OS like M$ Windows being supported by a communist country.

No, that is not it at all, not at all.

If you read the history of this a little, you would find that Taiwanese programmers were responsible for making Windows Chinese friendly. They inserted quite a few Easter eggs making fun of the Chinese.

If there is one thing the Chinese government hates, it is a lack of respect. They would actively hurt their own interests to avoid using Windows at this point.

Here is a quote from the (no account required) article in the NY Times


The turning point in Microsoft's image was the introduction of its Chinese-language Windows 95 operating system, which was programmed to display references to "Communist bandits" and to exhort users to "take back the mainland." Beijing, infuriated to learn that Microsoft had used computer programmers in Taiwan to write the software, demanded that the company hire mainland programmers to fix it.


Just another case of Microsoft rushing a product to market before checking it out thoroughly.

Missing the point.

[Shoeboy]

If you're worried about the Chinese Gov. not respecting free as in speech software, you just don't get it. This is a government that doesn't respect free speech period. Much as I dislike GPL violations, it sort of pales next to the imprisonment and torture of political dissidents.
--Shoeboy

nothing to do with Communism

[BenHmm]

there's going to be a misunderstanding here...

China is no more a communist country than the US. In fact, if you've ever lived there you'll find its probably more capitalist.

Anyway, the Chinese govt isn't embracing Linux because it is Open Source. It's embracing it because it is FREE. As in Beer.

the 50 quid a machine that Microsoft charge OEMs is a lot of money for the average Chinese. Multiply it by the number of PCs that belong to the Chinese govt and the effort they spend promoting Linux is well spent.

GPL

[Frac]

What if China decides to hold back their modifications and make Red Flag Linux proprietery? How well does the GPL stand in China?

Problem is that we don't even know yet if the GPL holds in the US, and just because it holds in the US, doesn't mean the Chinese government will play by the rules.

Go get your free Palm V (25 referrals needed only!)

Open Source and the Numbers Game

[RNG]

I must say that I find the widespread adoption of Linux in Countries like China and India interesting (to say the least). If it's true that open source really does enable the un-guided cross-breeding and sharing of (software) ideas, thereby transforming a centrally run engineering process to the sort of creative/fruitful chaso that we see in organic systes (and I for the most part believe it is), then the long term impact of two countries with together 2 billion people joing the computing scene will be enourmous.

Between the two of them (or even by themselves), they have numbers to (statistically speaking) produce a quite few geniouses and quite a large number of superbly intelligent people. Open Source, being software without secrets that can be understood and analyzed if one is determined to spend the time, enables these people (and anybody else who cares to) to join the programming feast of Linux, Apache, BSD, etc. I would think that over in many ways we will be starting to see the center of gravity of the software world shift away from silicon valley ...