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

Taiwan

[Moridineas]

I don't know anyone from China who lived there after about age 9 or 10 (all the families of my friend moved here [the US] at about that time) but I do know a good number of Taiwanese who went through higher schooling in Taiwan.

In Taiwan (at least from what I hear), FreeBSD seems to have become very popular, and to have a better reputation than Linux. One of my friends still connects to Taiwanese BBS type systems many of which are running FreeBSD.

So I'm not exactly clear why Linux making in-roads (which I'm not sure is really justified in the article--it seems a lot of if's, maybes, and predictions) in China is so important. Free software is in the Chinese speaking world and has been making in-roads for years--that is what seems important to me.

Scott

My chinese labmates use Windows because

[sam_handelman]

They don't like the Linux Chinese language support. None of the Linux boxes in the lab have chinese installed on them, in any case.

I don't know exactly what they find wrong with it, but Chinese readers who don't use Linux should take a look here; which btw is actually hosted from here and then give comments to people on sourceforge who will, given the attention this is getting, help to develop tools that better fit whatever people's needs are.

The Chinese language is very different from English and features that are hugely convenient for English users can seem irrelevant while things that it would never occur to English users to want, or which are downright inconvenient, are very helpful when you're typing Chinese. This is a situation where Linux needs.... marketing (dum dum dum) and in a terrible way.

Re:My chinese labmates use Windows because

[mizhi]

It's a nightmare getting linux to use chinese. But I have done it, at least partially... you can install language packs for mozilla/netscape to read websites, and also hack your .emacs file to make emacs able to handle chinese.

Those of us for which chinese is a second language would like to see better support for multi-language platforms. That said, I have gotten java to do Chinese using unicode. The biggest weakness tho, is input. Chinese has like 2 or 3 different ways to input characters. The only method I know how to use effectively is the pinyin method, however from what I've seen, none of the methods are supported very well. It's the same old story though, software is written in english and then translated, usually through a serious of ugly hacks. :-)

One thing I'd really like to see is something for latex that would allow me to do typesetting and printing of characters...

I'm rambling, I'll stop.

Nice balanced, realistic article

[Rogerborg]

In anticipation of the site being /.'d, or you lot being too lazy to read it, a few quotes:

• More than 10 percent -- possibly as many as 15 percent -- of the desktop computers sold in China this year will come pre-loaded with Linux [...] In a nation that is paying somewhat more attention to anti-piracy campaigns, PC vendors have more incentive to sell legal systems. [...] But she and Liu agree that most of the pre-loaded Linux computers don't stay in that condition once buyers take them home or to the office. It's only slightly more difficult than it used to be to buy an inexpensive, unauthorized copy of Windows, which tends to make its way onto many of the hard disks that housed Linux when they left the store.

This is very pragmatic stuff. The basic message is that users want Windows, and vendors will give then Linux only if they have to for budget reasons. But the important point is the 10-15% figure, and the following:

• Red Flag's Liu thinks even this is progress. If end users even touch Linux briefly, he argues, some of them will stick with it. [...] Sun Microsystems will soon release [Star Office 6.0] localized for the Chinese character set [that] will sufficiently close the gap with Microsoft Office

Bingo. If you haven't tried the Star Office 6 beta, try it now. It's the killer app. For Harry Homeowner or Cathy Cubeville, a KDE/Gnome/GNU/Linux distro with Star Office 6 will do everything they need, for a fraction of the (retail) cost of a Microsoft solution. And if it's pre-loaded, why would you pay even a few dollars extra to replace that with a pirated Redmond solution?

I say this not as a long time Linux afficionado, but as a recent convert. Red Hat 6.2 and Star Office 5.2 came off my drive after a week, but SuSE 7.3 and Star Office 6 beta 3 do everything that I need. There's no way I'd pay £444 (UK retail prices) for WinXP + Word 2002, but I will pay £60 for boxed sets of SuSE + Star Office (assuming 6.0 ships for the same price as 5.2).

And maybe that's the point in China too. You can afford to bundle real versions of non-M$ software, but the M$ stuff is just too damn expensive. The choice for OEM's and purchasers is to use open source, or to pirate Microsoft. Right now, many of them are still choosing the latter, but at least they're being given the choice. I really think that when Star Office 6.0 ships, they'll find to their surprise that there's just no need to do that any more.

Red Flag sponsorships

[thorsen]

In various hacker circles we have often discussed the China market for one reason: Why don't we see more stuff coming out of China?

Red Flag Linux is one of the biggest (maybe biggest of us all) Linux distributors, but you still see nothing coming back to the society. Try to think of the last time you saw a patch from a chinese developer - it's very rare.

I would really like to see the chinese hackers contributing to the environment in the future. Then it would be really interesting how Linux is doing in China.

Bo Thorsen,
SuSE Labs.

Fig Leaf?

[cygnusx]

But she and Liu agree that most of the pre-loaded Linux computers don't stay in that condition once buyers take them home or to the office. It's only slightly more difficult than it used to be to buy an inexpensive, unauthorized copy of Windows, which tends to make its way onto many of the hard disks that housed Linux when they left the store.

Excuse me for being cynical, but I know what software piracy in Asia is like. These are places where you can pick up Mathematica, STAAD, Oracle - for $20 or thereabouts. So is this bundling of Linux anything more a fig leaf from rock-bottom assemblers to not appear as selling "naked pcs" to clueless consumers?

The only two good points are -

a) since pc penetration in china is less than that of the US, the avg pc user in china is a lot more savvy than the avg us pc user. hence the chances of staying with linux is higher.

b) maybe (like the article notes) the users will dual-boot. At least the bright school/college goer will take a look at Linux and realize choice does exist.

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.