The Ongoing Saga of Linux in China

Dan Gillmor, who's currently on the road in China, has sent a report about the role of Linux in China. We've talked about this before. Dan hits on some of the high points for *why* the Chinese are interested, which makes for interesting reading.

Comments

The Chinese government chose Linux not because...

[frleong]

of the price, since MS software is largely pirated (piracy rates in China is more than 90%), but because they fear that MS has somehow planted a backdoor that helps the U.S. government to spy their communication channels (remember the NSAKey registry that was introduced in NT SP5?).

State of the PRC

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's not kid ourselves: Nothing is as easy and widespread as Windows XP in the PRC. The internet cafe I'm sitting in has had XP since XP's launch day. And I imagine the laoban paid 10 RMB for the one or two cds and proceeded to install it on all 20 or so computers. Maybe Linux is catching on a little bit with enthusiasts (a few of my Chinese friends have heard of it, and you can easily find it in stores) but wrestling with some install and Corel's Office lookalike is just not worth the effort. The whole pile of Office XP cds can be had for 20 RMB. Windows XP and OFfice XP can probably be had for 25 RMB if you buy them together. That's three American dollars.

Though to be honest I wish he'd stuck with Windows 98. An upgrade to XP without a hardware upgrade is a speed downgrade (eryi).

Also, if I could comment on the misperception presented by these somewhat sketchy articles that Slashdot features every once in a while, the Chinese "control" on the internet isn't oppressive, it's quixotic. I can read NYT, Reuters, but not the LA Times. And there's practically no restriction on any 'illegal' content bearing sites. Please bear in mind the reporting in the mainland is sketchy -- bad news, good news, it's all blown out of proportion or deflated down to managable levels. The best way to check out the real deal is to come out and see for yourself.

China's beautiful!

An American abroad,

c.d.

MS Helping Proliferation of Linux

[KarmaBlackballed]

There are two complementing strategies for proliferating an operating system:
1. Make it practical and easy to get.
2. Make other operating systems expensive and difficult to get.

Ironically, through WindowsXP's extreme registration requirements, it may be more of a hassle to install a stolen copy of windows than a legit copy of Linux. Linux with KDE and StarOffice is a practical solution for lots of business users now, all they have to do is discover it. Seems like several million Chinese are discovering it every day.

Can anyone say critical mass?

I'm not sure this is the effect Microsoft foresaw, but it is one I expect.

Re:My chinese labmates use Windows because

[Yokaze]

Well, getting Java to use unicode shouldn't be a problem :)
>One thing I'd really like to see is something for latex that would allow me to do typesetting and printing of characters.

What about CJK-Latex? Or the TeX extension Omega?

SuSE has some good information about its support of the CJK languages.
And there is always the Linux Chinese HOWTO, which you've probably already read, but could be helpful to other people, who are reading this post.