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Beijing Snubs Microsoft For Municipal PCs' Software
jsse points to this Gartner article which says "that on 28 December 2001, the Beijing municipal government selected among seven vendors to provide operating system (OS), office automation (OA) and antivirus software for government PCs. Beijing selected six bidders, including Red Flag, but rejected the seventh bidder, Microsoft -- the only one that was not selected. Gartner listed several reasons why Microsoft lost the bid, but missed out the famous rumor that Microsoft has built a bad relationship with China since the first Chinese Windows 95, which was written by Taiwan programmers, contains Easter eggs carrying anti-communist messages."
do a find on that page for 'easter' and you will get this relevant part:
There are also persistent rumors that the official Chinese version of Windows 95, which was written in Taiwan, not Beijing, contained hidden text (easter eggs) such as "Communist Bandits," and "take back the mainland."
is that a little easier for you?
See this article which was one of the best I found in my Google search.
Don't speak of what you don't know. One of my friends at college is Chinese, and whenever he goes there on vacation he comes back with many, many new pirated CDs. The stuff is practically professionally done -- very detailed CD cases, instructions, etc. He says it's incredibly cheap and incredibly prevalent.
Don't try to pin everything on MS. China is known as a haven for piracy because it actually is.
For another (earlier by > 24 hrs) take on this same story, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23548.html.
The 2nd and third reasons are goo, but the first was a huge misconception...
LSA: Local Security Agent
NSA: Network Security Agent
People back when that story was published saw 'NSA' and jumped the gun.
In China, and most of the rest of the world, you are not valued for the quality of your product or for how hard you work. You're valued for "who you are" -- the son of a famous general, the brother of a diplomat, the cousin of the President.
Sure, nepotism never happens in the U.S....
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
Yes, I'm very aware of this. Problem is, the UN Security Council was created on the basis of countries having nuclear capability. Rediculous, no? Or maybe they think security can be maintained by those who have guns?
Now, on to Scientology and Germany. German courts have ruled that Scientology is not a religon. Yet in Germany Scientologists are not arrested, nor is the worship banned. It is simply not a religon in the view of the state of Germany.
Well, those Christians allowed to practice in China are allowed because their religion was "registered". Not too sure what this means, but I'm supposing you have to have government approval to be recognized. Yes, the Scientologist weren't arrested or banned, but they still called it persecution. What's a country to do? In China's case, I don't know if this or that "Christian" is truely being persecuted because they could simply be stretching the truth, to gain sympathy, using China's terrible reputation to score points. But China's still responsible, in the public eye, if some group were to suddenly commit mass suicide (their choice). Remember the UFO cult from Taiwan that relocated to Texas in 1999? The Taiwanese government sent reps there to make sure the cult didn't plan on committing suicide (would've looked bad seeing how Taiwan "was apathetic" to mass suicide by its citizens). On a related note, when the Solar Temple cult committed mass suicide in California? (or was that the European group, I don't remember clearly), the government got some flack because they couldn't stop it.
Even if the government of China does not want Falun Gong or Christians in the country, because they are a member of the United Nations and the UDHR, they shouldn't be banning a religion.
No, I'm sure they're more worried about incidents like the Taiping Rebellion. I personally know some people who say they practice Falun Gong, and while I can't say they're evil (they're quite nice), looks can be decieving and you don't want Microsoft telling you want comprises excellent software. But, you're right they shouldn't ban religions. Too bad some beliefs are just so unreasonable (read radical Islam).
It's that simple. What goes on in China is documented at Amnesty International. It's not just what I "failed" to mention.
Yes, but "failing" to mention key points could easily cause your argument to be one-sided. One-sided arguments usually lead me to believe the arguer has an agenda to promote. I appologize for sounding rude, but I'm sick of all the same banter about China this and China that. Everyone just seem to use the strawman argument whenever China comes up (geez, I think we need an amend. to Godwin's Law). There's no doubt horrible things are happening there, but I don't think there's a quick fix for all of China's problems, specifically democracy. I'd like to see democracy (yes, in your words Republic or Democratic) there, but it's unrealistic to expect them to suddenly change. There supposedly are democratic elections on the local level there, but news organizations don't like to report on "mundane" topics like that. No, they'd rather talk about "unusual" (our definition, not theirs) topics over there. Heck, there supposedly are elections within the Communist Party, but most people assume it's voting for Happy Jiang or Sad Jiang. It's this cynicism mixed w/ revile that's a cause for concern for me.
i go to kent state. i probably know the history of that day more than you would like to position yourself as knowing.
...by the way... 60 shots hardly constitutes much of an "accident" triggered by jittery ohio guardsmen. but that's just my huble opinion. i guess.
furthermore, it was governor james a. rhodes who ordered the men to be sent to kent. last time i checked, the position of a governor is that of a government office.
why were the men armed with real bullets?