Slashdot Mirror
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."
First, let me state that I am a capitalist and firmly believe in the rights of companies and organizations to develop closed-source software and charge money for it. Many of my most frequently used programs (all for Linux) are closed-source and cost me a pretty penny to acquire. I believe in paying for software when I provides me with the services I need.
However, I also use open source software from time to time. Although many teenage Slashdotters seem to think that open source is necessarily good and commericial software is automatically evil, I believe the two paradigms can continue to exist side by side ad infinitum.
My contributing code for free to an open source project does not diminish my standing as a capitalist. Open source software is great. However, just because software is available for free (as in beer) does not make it a communist product.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
What does this article have to do with the "anti-communist messages" that were found in Win 95? There is a one sentence blurb in this article. And after searching google all I came up with was a couple of board postings that were from an e-mail that was from a guy who has a dog....
Sorry for the cynicisism, but if there is any truth to this there is little credibility behind it.
Please give your mod points to others, Im at the cap. They will appreciate it more
I was recently contacted by a school division interested in switching entirely to Linux servers and desktops. Their reason was that another school division nearby was hit with a Microsoft "audit" after refusing to get rid of their Linux servers.
The school division I work for has said that if they're ever hit with a Microsoft audit, all their computers will have Linux on them so fast. Microsoft is really beginning to piss people off with their tactics. They might just do themselves in in the educational market.
I aplaud the Chinesse on this. They told a corporation that was bad mouthing them to go fly a kite. The whole reason that China is known as a haven of piracy is work done by Microsoft and it's goons at the BSA. The fact that China had some piracy, mainly due to the fact that it could not legally import much of the software, was touted several years ago as a reason that they should not be allowed into the world market. The company leading this charge? Microsoft.
Microsoft figured they would leverage their way in by calling them pirates and then simply saying you can become legal by pay as a large license fee for all of the stuff you are using. The Chinesse understood what this was. Microsoft wanted a bribe to allow China into the world markets. China told them to go f**k themselves, and rightly so.
Hopefully this will make Microsoft look twice now at how their fanning the flames of piracy histeria hurts them more than it helps them. Missing out on a multi-billion dollar market tends to do that to a company.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
Disclaimer: IANAROC (I am Not A Resident Of China)
I just took one of those fancy "heres how the other half lives" college courses.
How will reducing software licensing costs transform china in 30 years, when its been an agrarian society for thousands, and poverty stricken for a couple hundred, at least ?
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
This is pretty old news, or at least a variation on a fairly tired theme. This was a discussion topic even back before Windows 2000 came out (and probably earlier): China doesn't want to use Microsoft. The code is kept secret, so they don't know whether the US (via Microsoft) is spying on them. And with all of the news about the FBI's ability to log keystrokes, you really can't blame them for being paranoid.
I think this here is the entire point. China is trying to support its industry. Microsoft seems to be doing fine without their help and the Chinese tech industry needs the boost.
China does see itself as the leader of the Developing World. With this in mind, the government there might also be thinking of trying to access IT markets in its region. India might be in a position to do that if it weren't for the massive brain-drain they are suffering due to open immigration. China, on the other hand, has a trapped workforce which it could potentially exploit to create the products it needs to gain a share in outside markets.
BTW, Noam Chomsky was just paraphrasing Voltaire:
Je ne suis pas d'accord avec ce que vous dites, mais je me battrai pour que vous ayez le droit de le dire.
`I do not agree with what you say, but I will fight for your right to say it.'
"How will reducing software licensing costs transform china in 30 years, when its been an agrarian society for thousands, and poverty stricken for a couple hundred, at least ?"
Many countries have been agrarian societies. But some countries in the last 100 years transformed themselves. For example France is one of the few countries in the world that is 100% self sufficient in terms of feedding itself. But throughout that time France organized and modernized itself. Hence they have more money and a better standard of living.
But the catch in the loop is that to take advantage of automation you need a specific sum of money. And you cannot become modern without the automation. Hence by lowering the cost to entry a society can transform itself.
Way back when with a 100 USD you actually used to get quite a bit of software.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Sorry to disappoint you, but Bush and Cheney are know to have ties to many, if not all, of the major oil companies in the US. I'm not even going to touch on the subject of stock ownership.
So is this about a legitimate choice in operating software, or is it about nepotism?
I think, before we look to any altruistic reasoning on the part of Beijing on choosing "Linux" over "Microsoft" we need to look closer to home ... to their homes.
Nope, I'm not a Christian.
As for finding the "christian" link, I hit Yahoo for stuff on China and that was one of the six links there.
I almost didn't post the http://www.christusrex.org link because I was afraid that I'd get crap about it because it is a Christian site. Then I thought, "It's Slashdot, they won't stereotype me for a URL."
I was wrong.
As for me bringing democracy and christanity to China, not my job. China would be better off with a Republic or Democratic government, and it will happen in the next 50 years, but I'm not doing anything about it. As for religion, I don't care what they worship or don't worship. It's a Christian link because it had the context I was looking for, photos of the assault on the demonstrators.
I will go further and say that I think every Communist government on Earth will not make it to 2050. Cuba, Vietnam, China or North Korea being the big 4.
Gartner Group is a company that claims to provide forward seeing information to companies. You would think that a requirement for this would be an unbiased evaluation of alternatives.
I am not sure how they can say things like the following and still claim to have a clear view of what is happening let alone what will happen.
"So far, Linux holds only a slight market share compared with Microsoft's offerings and represents a sensible deployment platform only in certain environments, such as entry-level and edge-of-network server implementations. For mission-critical functions, Linux still needs to catch up..."
At my work and a number of places I am aware of, mission critical applications run on Linux and typically work so well they get little visibility.
The commoditization of software built using the open source model is a large threat to Microsoft's and other closed source software companies business models. I suspect that Microsoft buys a large number of reports from Gartner Group and they are careful to say things that sound good to their customers.
there was a call to the Governor of Ohio by John Mitchell the night before the murders at Kent State. Some say this call was to urge the Gov to take whatever steps needed to stop the protests. Within days other students were killed in Agusta, but they were black and nobody cared.
There were no students within 90 yards of the Guardsmen. Seven of the Eleven were shot either in the back or the side. The leaders of the protest were singled out for liquidation.
JFK, ML King, Bobby Kennedy, George Wallace, all seen as threats by Nixon. All targetted by assassins who left a diary that implicated them in the murders. Wallace survived, but his chances of deciding the election that year were dashed. He would have siphoned off enough conservative votes to keep Nixon out of office for his second term.
The guardsmen were not out of control, they were acting under orders. If you look at the picture you can see the officers directing them, and in one shot you can see one with his sidearm taking aim.
photosMy Photostream
I don't know why everyone is down on communism. In and of itself, is a very good system. The problem is greedy and power hungry people that screw it up. And actually, the opensource community closely resembles a communist system.
----
All of whose base are belong to the what-now?
Maybe you should take your blinders off. Ideas don't kill people. People kill people. Your tired (and feeble) attempts to make the US into as big and bad a thug as the PRC are a waste of our time and your energy. Save it for your meetings of Sandinistas Anonymous, okay?
Feeble in your eyes because you refuse to listen. I never said the US was evil. All I've stated before was how some people turn a blind eye whenever others commit the same crimes that the PRC has.
Criticism of the corporate system is usually based on the ethics of that system. Ethics based on the idea that almost any action is justifiable by its value to the bottom line. In short, "its just business."
Its true that the corporate business environment provides a lot of oportunity. But it also exacts an increasing cost as leaders within that system take less and less personal, and generally ethical, responsibility for their actions as part of that system.
The bennifits do not invalidate the criticisms.
Disclaimer: IANAROC (I am Not A Resident Of China)
I just took one of those fancy "heres how the other half lives" college courses.
Yes, thank-you for sharing with us how ignorant the American education system leaves you.
How will reducing software licensing costs transform china in 30 years, when its been an agrarian society for thousands, and poverty stricken for a couple hundred, at least ?
First of all, while my ancestors (the celts) were still painting their faces and living in thatch huts (yours too if you are anglo-saxon descended), the Chinese had already developed the most effecient system of agriculture on the planet, mining and metalurgy, astronomy and mathematics, gunpowder and rocketery, government beauracracy, silk clothing, medicine and hygeine shall I go on?
Secondly, if you have ever been to China (and I have three times and have lived in Hong Kong for a year), you would realise that the Chinese ALREADY have the social and cultural structure to adapt to science, engineering and technology extremely quickly. If you visit Taiwan or Hong Kong you can see this first hand.
The only three things holding back the Peoples Republic of China in becoming a "first world", technologically advanced country is
(a) restricted access to information due to govt. policies
(b) lack of commercial and government transparency in financial transactions
and (c) lack of infrastructure development outside of the major cities.
If these three problems can be solved in the next five years, then within twenty years China will be the most technologically advanced and wealthiest nation on earth. Actually, the nation state is fading as a power, so perhaps I should say Chinese corporations will be the most technologically advanced and the wealthiest on Earth.
Now to address the original point, the Internet is one of the most tranformative technologies developed for 200 years. Equivalent to the development of the printing press. Used the right way, it has the potential to transform society as we know it.
In order to access the internet, you need a computer with a modem, an operating system that makes it easy to connect to the internet and an e-mail client and browser. Linux is an OS perfectly suitable for these requirements.
If you are a developing country, you need access to these resources as cheaply as possible, and paying the Microsoft tax does not meet that criteria.
Almost half the cheap motherboard manufacturers are now in Southern China around ShenZhen. All but two CPU foundries are in Taiwan. The only resource that China doesn't have immediate cheap access to is CPU design.
However, the majority graduates from American universities with the capability to work on CPU design are Indian or Chinese. When China's govt. begins to relax it's authoritarian grip, and the middle class in the cities become wealthy, these graduates will return home and begin work for Chinese companies working on designing consumer grade CPUs. China already leads the world in super-conductor research.
At this point, Chinese consumers and companies will have direct access to cheap hardware, and the best, most robust software in the world FREE! The take-up of computing technology will accelerate past the West.
Then, once there are ~500 million active users, Chinese software companies will be able to create incredible software, and sell it over the Internet. Even if they only make US$1 per sale, each title will make them hundreds of millions of dollars.
This will spur the creation of a software 'gold-rush'. Software development will explode in every conceivable area and for every conceivable application. Transport, manufacturing, government, business management, distribution, mining etc etc.
This software 'gold-rush' will in turn tranform every other aspect of China's commercial and productive development.
If you want to see 'Old China', I suggest you go now. Because in twenty years, there will be nothing left of it.
>>
I am the director, and this is my movie