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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."
That's a pretty funny rumor, whether it be true or not is of course another story....
The article points out that China can greatly benefit by not having a powerhouse like Microsoft established in China. Chinese companies will have a much better opportunity to gain a foothold in China now.
Electron Pulse...indie rock/jazz/blues
It appears that the Chinese understand the importance of a domestic software industry in the 21st century and are taking steps to improve their own. Choosing Linux immediately gives them a worldwide devloper network that rivals any private corporation, including Microsoft. If we gaze into the crystal ball to 10-15 years from now, the sheer savings in licensing alone will catapult them into the world arena. They have a captive market of 1.2 billion users that rivals North America, Western Europe and the Pac-Rim. Granted, it may take 20-30 years for the network infrastructure and standard of living to rise to a 50% market penetration of PCs but I don't see this as a good thing for M$.
"All Your Base Belong To Us!" would probably be a really bad thing for trying to get on their good side...
We have seen several different governmental organizations move to Linux over the past year, if the trend continues, does this increase the chance of Linux becoming the major OS in schools? Apple made a strong push to introduce the Macintosh to the education market, and as a result, they are still the primary computers at many elementary, middle and highshools in America. This could be a great way to introduce Linux to the general population.
The Microsoft XBox, as popular as it may become, also will not be sold in China. As you may know, Microsoft looses money on each XBox they sell. With the realization that piracy is highly rampant in China and they will not sell much software, the console will not be sold there.
0
Go here if you want to read up a little more on it... http://www.lik-sang.com/catalog/news.php?artc=238
The bit that got me was:
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...
I guess the Beijing government gets it and Gartner doesn't.
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)
Berkeley has Republican professors? Get out of here. No way in hell.
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
Microsoft has a history of doing what it thinks will make more money in the short term, even if what the company does is strongly against the interests of its customers. For example, the registry in MS operating systems is implemented in such a way that it provides copy protection, and also in such a way as to be a massive single point of failure.
Basically, when you pay money to Microsoft, you are paying money to someone who may decide to be your enemy. It is not surprising that a large organization would try to avoid that.
Also, there is the concern that the amazing number of security bugs in Microsoft software may be due to a deliberate intention of the U.S. government to provide points of entry for government spy software like the FBI's Carnivore.
I've gathered more than 600 pages of links from major news sources showing the U.S. government's interest in control: What should be the Response to Violence? It it any wonder that a foreign government would want to avoid being involved in this? The only downside is that the office tools are less capable. But the Chinese government's decision is support for closing the gap.
Bush's education improvements were
Isn't it bad enough that politicians fight over this nonsense.
First there was a story about the NSA key in the registry. Then the source code supposedly was stolen by hackers last year. And the law is that before you sell any crypto software overseas it has to get a license from the NSA.
Why would the Chineese want to open their systems to the US Government?
What comes around, goes around! Newt-dog
My Doctor prescribed daily nasal saline irrigation, hehe
Careful reading will reveal that these contracts essentially effect only Beijing, not the rest of China. Shanghai, for instance, recently negotiated a contract with Microsoft for Win2000. What remains to be seen, however, is how the seriously the Chinese government will crack down on pirating (the major reason for Windows' prevelence in China, as is the case for much of the world outside of the USA and Western Europe) and whether this will prompt a widespread movement toward Free Software. Sure, China is oggling free trade, but will it (or can it?) curb pirating?
:Peter
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
Many people have referred to open source at being communist. Well, I don't think it is, but the communists seem to like it a lot. Sure, it may just be because of the easter eggs in chinese win95. However, China being communist and all, doesn't have as many extremely wealthy people, as the US. What it does have is a billion not extremely rich people. The government of these people have most likely chosen *nix as their operating system of choice. The os of choice in china will most likely be linux in the coming years. Someone has to put out a good chinese linux distribution, and write linux software in chinese, etc. We need more people to use linux and not windows. Well, here is a billion of them.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I don't think that's true.
Links?
I will not admit to working in VB.
There are many applications where VB is totally inappropriate. Consider any real-time embedded system where all you have is bare metal and a compiler. I know you won't believe it but, such applications do exist. Most of the black-boxes on a modern aircraft would qualify.
Your enthusiastic lack of experience only makes me feel sorry for your clients. They are the ones getting the short end of the stick. Your difficulties configuring a few Linux machines highlights your inexperience.
It's probably a good thing you posted as an AC. Regardless, I can guarentee that you wouldn't have gotten hired on ANY team that I've ever worked with. You don't have the expertise or mind-set required (even in those cases where the team needed VB experience).
For another (earlier by > 24 hrs) take on this same story, see http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/23548.html.
The second-to-last sentence in the ChipCenter article explains a lot:
One of the many things that distinguish Americans from the rest of the world--and particularly from Asians--is the American social construct of "just business." I hope you understand, the tycoon says to his beloved, I had to destroy your father's empire and bankrupt all your siblings--but it was 'just business.' This is central to the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie, "You've Got Mail"--Hanks's character is a big-block bookstore tycoon who wipes the small businesswoman (Ryan) off the map--but she falls in love with him anyway. It is practically impossible to explain to most Americans how oddly this strikes practically anybody in the rest of the world. Particularly in Asia.
Nothing, in China, is "just business." You cannot trash-talk a country for their laxity in intellectual property rights and then expect to sell them software licenses. But you also cannot even begin to think that the son of the Chinese President is to be treated as just another vendor. The presence of Red Flag in the bidding guaranteed that Red Flag would win the bidding. That's how business is done in China.
What's instructive in this, however, is that six other vendors also "won" in the bidding--it might be very interesting to see what they offered (such as what OS and what word processors). It might not be particularly surprising to discover that one or more is a Microsoft reseller. One can spank a disrespectful suitor (Microsoft) by pointedly excluding them from the vendor list--but offer Microsoft an opportunity to regain favor by including a reseller (or perhaps more than one) on the list.
Microsoft got stiffed; the president's son won the biggest chunk of the business. Anybody in China could have told you that would happen. The real story is whether there are any Microsoft-OS suppliers on this vendor list, or if the Beijing government has embraced Linux exclusively.
First, remember that RMS was able to wreak havoc on the computing world only because he is in league with the aliens who abducted Elvis and assassinated JFK.
He is also a known cattle mutilator and evil character.
Do us all a favor. If you're gonna troll, at least do it with some taste. Spell names correctly. Try to make the troll have at least some sort of acquaintance with actual history. And for the love of God, don't quote Metallica in a discussion about technology.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
The U.S. Federal government is by far Microsoft's largest customer, and I believe that the assorted state governments as a group are 2nd, with 3rd place way behind. (Can anyone contradict that, or provide more concrete evidence?)
:)
Every time tax dollars go to buy a piece of Microsoft software, the money is funneled into software development / improvement for life on earth only in a certain limited way (because MS then can pay more programmers, hire researchers to make their SW better, do more QA, etc). In other words, sure, abstractly there's an eventual benefit, sort of, at least to MS customers, (and even more abstractly, there's benefit to competition that future MS software inspires). On the other hand, the more tax-dollar stewards (local school systems, say, or your local Department of Extortion) put the same money they normally would put toward MS software instead into non-secret-source* software, the results are instantly free for public consumption and improvement. That sounds to me like "promoting the general welfare." The government (remember, your government is spending your money) should never use a proprietary product when a freely available product can fill the same needs.
timothy
* Skipping Free vs. Open Source this time
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
It's always funny to read on how people mistake communism (which is an utopian ideal) with countries which claim to be communists (such as China) while they are but totalitarian state capitalists. I really think that, as far as adopting Linux is concerned, it's much more a matter of nationalistic pride (since they've developed their own "flavour" of Linux) than communist idealism...
:-)
Similarly, it's also quite a treat to see all these people saying that they're "capitalists" while they are nothing but employees of corporations. A capitalist is someone who has capital and uses that capital to invest in or create corporations, i.e. making money with money, without actual production-related labor. They should rather say that they wish they were capitalists!
In any case, the whole open-source approach is an interesting take on the traditional business model, but then again software is not a traditional good, being just a string of commands, values, expression, i.e. an immaterial commodity.
Reminder: find a new sig
Four dead in Ohio, killed by a few trigger happy National Guardsmen does not compare to the government of a nation crushing a revolt and killing between 200 and 4000 people, and throwing thousands more in prison. There are estimates that more than 240 people are still in Chinese prisons because of thier actions at Tiananmen Square.
e _p ages/declare.html
t ml
/ ch inese.htm
You can not compare the organized slaughter at Tiananmen Square to the actions of a few frightened National Guardsmen at Kent State.
1. The Federal Government didn't order the attack at Kent State. The Chinese Government ordered the attacks.
2. Students at Kent State were not put in prison for thier actions, while protesters at Tiananmen Square were thrown in prison.
3. The National Guard at Kent State didn't send in Armored units to put down the protests, like the Chinese did at Tiananmen Square. Read the text of Deng Xiaoping's speech to the Martial Law Units from June 9th, 1989.
http://tsquare.tv/chronology/Deng.html
Those things, coupled with the Chinese oppression of the Fal Lun Gong, Chirstians, Tibet and the 20-40 million that died because of the Great Leap Foreward, give the rest of the world the right to shake our fingers at the Chinese.
http://www.intangible.org/Features/t_square/sit
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tiananmen.h
http://library.thinkquest.org/C002291/high/past
http://tsquare.tv/chronology/Deng.html
under communism your choice of OS is forced upon you by some huge faceless bureaucracy that tracks your every move and relentlessly encroaches upon every single right you have.
conversely, in the west you -- oh, right.
WTO ultimately means enforcing the values of the rich corporate US -- which is not the majority of the US -- onto the rest of the world. If other countries don't subscribe to the US-corporate view of intellectual property, they can't join the WTO. Furthermore, aside from not being able to join the WTO, they also get sanctioned as if they were despot nations like Iraq (i.e., Ukraine being sanctioned for not enforcing intellectual property). China has enough bad despotic laws of its own -- it doesn't need any of the US' information-owning laws on top of its own bad laws.
Really, what we need to do is take the fight against intellectual property beyond the US. Because the biggest intellectual property war is the war between the US-owned WTO and nations that are not WTO members. We need to take the fight against intellectual property to nations that have the most to gain from ignoring IP, and the most to lose from enforcing it -- Russua, China, India, Eastern European nations, and even Western European nations. Russia and the Eastern European states are the best place...that's where most warez comes from, and those nations have the loosest IP laws.
So, how do we do this? Well, for one thing, you start writing more software that they can use -- i.e., file-sharing, ripping, encoding, decrypting, encrypting programs written in Russian, Chinese, and Indian. For another, we can look to nations like Russia for a quazi-model of an intellectual property system -- though even those nations have IP laws which are too strict. Furthermore, Russia presents a practical example of where intellectual property clearly harms people. If intellectual property laws were strict and enforced in Russia, their economy would be even worse, because they'd have to be paying US-based corporations.
Intellectual property is really just a way to suck even more money away from the already-poor (or at least not rich) -- be it foreign nations, or US-citizens -- to the already rich.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Oh come on.....a few members of The Ohio State Guard got nervous.....hardly a mass murder of citizens
Friends of mine have, and they say not only software, but EVERYTHING is fake in china. Windows XP was selling for $1. $2's for nike shirts and the like. Imitation everything they said. He came back with an imitation $450 north face jacket that got us started on the whole conversation, I wanted to visit just for the deals. The problem is VERY VERY large. Cheap labor plus demand, go figure, it runs rampant.
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I have read a couple articles in the past about China, Linux and Microsoft.
.Net or decipher CAL licensing? Use Linux. Don't want your expensive office software to suddenly become obsolete every two years at Microsofts whim? Use Linux.
I am of the opinion the key issue here is about control. Microsoft as we all know, basically dictates to the world at large, OK this is the how it is going to be done, so do what we say and everyone will be happy. Planned obsolescence, hidden APIs, "embrace and extinguish", along with shoddy documentation has historically meant that Microsoft always retained the upper hand.
What Linux has done, which before now your only choices were expensive Macs, and a fragmented Unix market, gave people a viable option, and in control of their own computing destiny.
Dont want a browser icon on your desktop? Use Linux. Installing a SQL Server that doesn't require a web browser? Use Linux. Don't want to subscribe to
These are the real reasons that China doesn't like MS. Microsoft and China are like two control freaks trying to establish a relationship.
That's still about $100 more than they're worth.
RMN
~~~
This is interesting in terms of OS share figures. One of the obvious things that statistics on OS shares frequently totally ignore is market penetration, especially in terms of saturation. The US (and European) markets are far closer to saturation that, say, the Chinese market, and it is these markets which stand to grow the most that are of most interest in terms of potential future share. Since these sorts of stories may well become fairly frequent, it seems that in the markets which have least been decided already, Linux, and otehr alternative OSes, stand to gain the most.
...which is good!
And I'm guessing your problem with this "communist" China is the fact that you're a Christian trying to promote your religion in a country that doesn't want you to come in.
t ml
Guess what, what we have here in America, where you can open up a 'synagogue' and confuse people into thinking it's actually a synagogue doesn't exist around the world.
I'm guessing this because you use this site to show the T.Square problem:
http://www.christusrex.org/www1/sdc/tiananmen.h
That group looks to be another "we don't have a ministry there yet" type of group.
If you want to bring democracy to China, that's great. You aren't going to do it though.
Get your Unix fortune now!
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.
It's hysterics to call that a declaration of war. It's common business sense.
You don't know how right you are about this. Rev. Pat Robertson, founder of the Christian Coalition and the tv show The 700 Club, has been quoted on live national tv (I think it was on CNN) as saying he's backing down on criticising China because he has a "business" going there. If you didn't know, he goes over there to talk about morality and China's need for it in the face of it's growing economy, basically converting them to his ministry. What Wyatt Earp failed to mention was how, in reality, some Christians are free to worship whilst others are actually "persecuted" (god, how overused that term is. I suppose Scientologists are "persecuted" in Germany too). I don't doubt the some of the horrible things going on there, but I wouldn't rely on all of it being true, seeing how it's more a case of he said, she said.
If software in China today is mostly pirated,
how can an indigenous software industry survive
and grow?
(Not ment to be a troll or flamebait, just to point out something i noticed.)
Why do we jump to conclusions with Linux?
It is entirely possible that a BSD could be used, as most BSDs are free as well.
I've got moderator access right now, and I wish I could moderate this up to +6, because it appears to me that most people have missed what really happened. A lot of people are saying, "Serves Microsoft right," or that Microsoft got their just desserts or something. That's not what's going on.
This is not about Microsoft.
The PRC doesn't give a rat's ass about what Microsoft said about them.
What's going on here is exactly what the article has said. China is a shoddy business opportunity -- very much unlike the USA. Here, we have 300 million eager consumers, and the government is usually more than willing to let whoever wants to sell whatever they want to try to do so.
China's different. Corporations drool over the nearly 2 billion "consumers," but this is not (yet) a free market economy. And few companies that try to move into China to take advantage of the market ever make money, because the Chinese government is determined to make more money.
This is then made doubly difficult by the fact that in China, the state is religion, and the system is really an imperial system, just like the one Mao supposedly overthrew and every dynasty before it. And in systems like this, success is based solely on who you know. It's not like here in the United States where people value you on your ability to work hard and benefit the company.
People piss on "corporatists" on this board all the time. But that corporate system, with a few exceptions, is what allows immigrants to come to this country with nothing but what they could fit in a pair of suitcases and become the CEOs of their own corporations. It's what allows the children of blue-collar workers the ability to become wealthy and respected white-collar workers. I've met immigrants from China, Vietnam, Egypt, Iran, and all over the place, and they love the fact that in this country, if they work hard, they CAN make a good living.
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.
This is not about Microsoft. This is about China. Only Western arrogance would assume otherwise.
I don't know in detail but I very much doubt that PRC taken as a whole has anywhere near the degree of investment in MS as US or european economies.
And as Chinese by some predictions will be the predominant language on the 'Net in a decade or less, it makes sense that china can choose a Linux-centric path today, in a way that would be more difficult for western orgainizations.
Who knows, perhaps this may be the dynamic that finaly puts linux into the desktop in meaningful numbers.
I believe I remember the Easter Egg story from back in the '95 days, between that and Gates' long-standing whining about piracy (again, other posts have covered this well) - It's not hard to see PRC snubbing MS <chuckle>.
I have nothing at all against closed-source. It exists, and for many applications it's the more sensible economic model. There will always be a degree of piracy, and there will be ways to manage that. Neither writing angry letters to 'the community', nor pushing this agenda the way MS likes to today is my idea of the best way to manage the problem but then I don't make policy at MS.
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
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.
If Linux takes such a foothold in china, and chine creates a nice cis or cs program for it's people...
Linux would far surpass microsoft in servers and desktops by the end of this decade.
think about it... what percentage of the population does china have? if all of them use linux then Microsoft loses in a really big way.
and think about this.. add 50,000 chinese programmers onto the linux factor. (and 50,000 is a very moderate number)
I cant wait for 2010 to arrive!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
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.
You're thinking of "totalitarianism" here. Communism is an economic system.
...wearing a skin-tight topless leather jumpsuit, with cutaway buttocks and transparent crotch panel.
RFL (backed, one of the linked articles says, by the son of the president) provides Linux in Chinese. (At least, it allegedly does ;) -- I've never seen anything besides a product shot of the box, and don't speak or read Chinese). Turbo Linux is supposedly very good in its Asian language support, too.
Do any of the BSDs have good Asian language support? Not saying they don't, I'm just not familiar with it if they do.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Germany: Prime Minister from Social Democratic Party or SPD [Gerhard SCHROEDER, chairman]
UK: Labor Party [Anthony (Tony) Blair]
Finland: Tarja HALONEN elected president (Social Democratic Party), Prime Minister Paavo LIPPONEN prime minister (Social Democratic Party)
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?
Only a punch-drunk leftist with the ethical standards of Mao is incapable of discerning the evil of communism. 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?
DFL
Never send a human to do a machine's job.
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Religon in China.
p en View&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall
The facts of "foriegn" religon in China are documented by Amnesty, the US State Department, the UK government and many other sources that aren't "christian".
What annoys me about China is that the PRC is a member of the United Nations Security Council and yet it thumbs it's nose at the United Nations Universal Decleration of Human Rights.
http://www.un.org/Overview/rights.html
"Article 2.
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.
Article 18.
Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."
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.
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.
It's that simple. What goes on in China is documented at Amnesty International. It's not just what I "failed" to mention.
http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/china?O
Assuming this is true, it wouldn't necessarily surprise me. However, when you run a company, you don't piss off your customers. You don't mock them, you don't ridicule them behind their back. They're the ones sending you money. You can choose to not do business with them, thats fine. But if you want to do business with them, you treat them with respect, no matter who they are, no matter what they represent.
I doubt the company itself endorsed such activity, but it reflects badly on them in any case. And doesn't Microsoft have enough problems as it is?
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
good things can come out of inferior motives. The Chinese, in an effort to avoid that evil Western propaganda, have chosen not to wed itself to that bloated monstrosity that is M$ Window$.
Because all the settings necessary to run a program are in the registry, it is not possible to just copy the program's files onto another computer, and run the program.
Most users are not able to edit the registry, even if they new what the registry keys meant and how to change them to work on a new computer.
Bush's education improvements were
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.
These parties do NOT question the capitalistism, they only strive for social corrections within the system (in wich they're not very succesfull but that's another story).
If only I could come up with a good sig
Given Beijing's position as capital of the country, your point was...?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Ignorant fool. Tell me, where are the hardware of your computers made? Chances are the majority of the hardware inside your computer at some point went through the Asian production line.
Secondly, why would any foreign government trust any software that is currently being produced in the US. The FBI has openly acknowledged that they are using Magic Lantern and Carnivore. Who knows what the CIA is using. And a number of antivirus companies have agreed [then backtracked] on "overlooking" the FBI key sniffing applications. If you were a foreign nation installing MS Windows on a top secret site, would you be worried that the CIA had secretly asked MS to create a backdoor allowing the US to access their top secret systems? Would you be willing to allow the FBI to use an OS that was produced in Iraq? Maybe Iraq is a little far-fetched of an example, let's say France?
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
This is a small peice of what I posted in the other China newsbit.
You guys are -way- too easy on China on this site. When did China stop being the evil, ruthless country that they are? How many tiannamen square massacres, Tibets and Falun Gong witchhunts (where the chinese government hired people to hack American servers that contained Falun Gong information!) do you guys need before you start taking a critical stance against China's government?
The reason that China cares about software development is probably because they're trying to stop getting their web pages hacked by human rights advocates, or they're building some more Falun Gong firewalls or something.
This isn't just some bland racism, or an overboarding sense of "patriotism", China is a brutal, dangerous country, and a testament to the powers of corruption.
Oh, and speaking on the specific topic, I do recall the president of China's son having some connections with Red Flag Linux (their communist-toted linux -copy-), so I'm sure that Red Flag is going to win in the end. I'd rather have linux be chosen for it's technical quality, and not for it's connections with a bunch of sleazy corrupt politicians. God help us all.
It's always funny how time and time again people set out to implement ``true Communism'' and every single time it fails to happen, they get despotism of one form or another instead.
Perhaps the entire concept is broken, and instead of trying to fix the system, we should be giving the people involved room and resources to fix themselves? With an earnest, altruistic population, almost any system of government will work well.
You won't get people like that out of Atheism, nor will you get it out of ``organised'' (read: politicised) religion.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Nazi is short for ``Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiter-Partei'' which translates into english as ``National Socialist German Workers' Party''. Yes, the Nazis had a lot to do with the development of socialism, since they were some of the most successful socialists of all history.
Crushed the country's worker movement? He placed it in total control of the nation, with himself as leader.
They feel in the love with the man. All they could think of was if the same thing could be done in their own nations ...
Fell in love with the man? All the other governments in europe feared the same thing happening to their own nations.
Best Slashdot comment ever
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?
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.
...and of propagating Nimda, but let's not dwell on that, because they were actually (so we are told) serving stuff, and that in itself is amazing. (-:
Ooh, what a giveaway! Kernel-level as in acorns? Those things harvested and eaten (and lost) by squirrels?
VB is about as well suited to low-level work as thongs are for total building-site safety gear. (That's why Aussies call them JSB's, y'know, Japanese Safety Boots).
Other than the bogus gcc version: why bother? Mandrake ships with Pentium-optimised binaries, and you're not going to get noticeably better performance except for very CPU-intensive applications such as ray-tracing.
If I had boxes doing that, I'd replace the boxes.
Actually, given that this is Microsoft we're discussing, I think you mean ``full-fledged marketing team.''
I run many SMP Linux systems, and most of them use a stock-standard Linux distribution which ships with a choice of three (3) different journalling filesystems. Memory protection was there from Day One.
If by ``work'' you mean chewing up resources, yes. Otherwise it sounds like you have the system names the wrong way around. (-:
Droll troll, how abut writing some software instead of baiting people?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
It's always funny to hear people still refering to China as being a 'communist country'. China is not a communist country anymore than the US or the UK are. The Chinese government refers to the construct as being 'socialism with Chinese characteristics' - a term first used by Deng Xiaoping in the early 1980s. Mao is turning in his grave at the abandonment of the communist ideal. Interestingly MS recently agreed to set up two R&D centers in China - one in Shanghai the other in the northwestern city of Xian. Total investment of around US$40 million.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
..as they have many times in the past. The following possibilities exist:
1. When the actual contract is awarded MS may actually win it -- they were not in the running but they have a history of winning anyway -- they learn very, very fast.
2. They may loose this one -- it's only one city -- and come back with a bigger/better effort for the next city. They have a history in this area as well. Remember -- they have the ability to price their product to have it bought (not unlike Oracle who is rumored to sell their software at 75% to 90% discounts to big/important clients). The lesson is if you want to sell your software you have to get them to buy it first. Give some away and then you will be able to sell it later.
3. China finds out how much it really costs them to support Open Source software and begs MS to come in and save them money. After all when they have to hire cities of programmers to make it functional for them they may find out they want to USE software, not develop it.
Don't forget back in 1776 when oh nevermind...
It's not a rumor but the truth. I think it is very normal. China government should make their own decision. Linux is enough, now.
"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?"
When the UNSC was created, 1945, only the United States had nuclear weapons. France, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and China did not have them.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) has never had nuclear weapons, even though it was on the Security Council from 1946 to 1971. The Soviet Union didn't have nuclear weapons until after it had been on the Security Council.
Fuck you, man. Think of it... That is just a business.
"they are both far-left"
Huh?
"Fascism seeks equality between race."
Huh?
The best historical example we have of Fascism is Nazi Germany, and the only racial equality they believed in was one race, everybody else is dead.
This philosophy is most frequently found in the far-right wing which disqualifies your first statement I quoted.
Wow. As liberal as I am, comments like this suddenly turn me into a right-wing conservative.
There is no moral equivalency between Kent State and Tienanmen square. If you do not understand the difference, you have lived in the US too long and have too little respect for your freedom.
Isn't it interesting how easy it is to make a conspiracy theory? Just take a few circumstantial events, tie them together with a common theme... and ta da!
I hope you don't seriously believe this crap?
i'm happy for the freedoms i have in america. very happy.
but at the same time, few know what happened at kent state.
i used to be annoyed when people would say "hey watch out for bullets up there" when my school would come into the conversation. now i find it distressing when people *don't* say anything about it at all. or worse... don't know what happened there on those fateful few days in may 1970.
Some people would say...
> No country would pour money into a project with no financial or social return. Linux development would be that for China.
Assume that China is eventually looking at 10% of its population working in government beauraucracy. That's 125,000,000 people. Assume each of them will eventually get a computer with an OS and an office suite. MS is moving to a software rental model. Let's assume a low figure of $80 per seat per year for a combined Office XP plus Windows XP bundle. That works out to *TEN BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR IN LICENCE FEES* !!!
At this point, it's fully worth their while to hire a bunch of Indian or Chinese programmers at $10,000 per year each to polish up an existing OS like linux, and existing open source office apps.
A large American mega-corp with 10,000 seats would be shelling out $800,000 per year in licence fees. Even they are at the point where hiring a couple of $100,000/year programmers to write bug-fixes, etc looks better than MS rent-ware. And we haven't even begun to factor in the cost of not needing anti-virus software constantly updated.
I'm not repeating myself
I'm an X window user; I'm an ex-Windows user
In China there is a tradition of fearing business people dominating the society. Nothing much to do with Communism these days now. Bill Gates is so well known in China that you can find lots of unauthorized biographies about him or books about Microsoft in the bookstores in China. But he is just admirable, not respectful. Thanks a lot to the anti-trust law suit perhaps. Look at the foreign companies that are really doing well in China, either they make a great relationship with the top government officials, or they do have great reputation.
And when US companies compete overseas, they are not just competing with other local companies on the quality of products and services, they are also competing with the local traditions and culture. That is the hardest!
Oh, I think people do know what happened there.
Kent State marked the beginning of the end of US involvement in Vietnam. Public opinion shifted almost entirely against involvement in the war.
Again, while tragic, it is hardly fair to call them morally equivalent actions as far as the nation as a whole is concerned.
I agree with most what Red Eyes said. The ironic thing is the image of China becomes more and more negative in the last decade, but, if you ask an oridinary Chinese, most of them (>80%) will prefer to live in the modern China, rather than the one 20yrs ago... Nevertheless, the Chinese govt has hell of things needed to improve, but, they are not devils.
The most difficult thing for worldwide audience is, they can only hear two voices for news related to China: 1) propaganda from the Communist party 2) one-sided argument from people against that party --for good or bad reasons... That's sort of expected. These 2 kinds of people are more inclined to translate what they think to English in order to lend support from the world. You know that's a big hassel. Their audience is not ordinary Chinese...
Religion freedom is a throny issue. We keep on hearing something like gross oppression of religion freedom in China. It is quite true, but, not as violent/brute as illustrated.
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
According to a mainstream Christian website that regularly send pastors to China for exchange, both legally and secretely, China allows non party members to choose what they believe. (The website is in Chinese. BabelFish may help). The number of registered Christian is about 10M in 1997. The registered church can teach what the Bible said, but they are not allowed to stick posters or preach in public and cannot organise private gathering outside the church etc. There are also underground mainstream church groups. The number of following may be 7-8 times of registered.
But, the ones that make the most headlines are those more non-mainstream church. Many of them are formed locally and claim the leader as modern day Jesus etc. While non-mainstream (or cult) does not necessary means bad, but.... I personally think China's heavy-handed religious policy backfires. With no good competition from good religion organisations, cult booms... Learning takes time. (Remember the European history in 18-19 century? )
Same applies to Falun Gong. Most of its followers are nice. But, "Master Li"'s (Falun Gong leader) teaching is very dubious. His early tape circulating in China contains something like "Upon the request of Li Peng (the infamous premier), Master Li stopped the Earth from imploding for a further 10 yrs"....
i understand. thank you. :)
maybe the assassination stuff is a stretch, but everything else is fact.
go search around the web already. i already gave you a link. use it.
Try
some time...And you don't have to have a card with a mac address on it to have an IP, (ethernet, TR, etc have them and slip, ppp, etc doesn't)
Still the mac address seems better to use, since so many runs NAT nowadays. The 10/24 and 192.168/16 UUID-namespaces must be getting crowded .
Actually, thinking about it... DCE doesn't require IP, you can run it over Decnet and all kinds of other weirdness, I wonder what happens then?
"An object declared as type _Bool is large enough to store the values 0 and 1." -- 6.1.2.5, C99 standard.
So what? Part of freedom is the freedom of morons to make moronic statements in public. I mean, Patrick Buchanan is allowed to campaign for public office here, LA County judge Lance Ito was once actually granted a law license, and look at all of the web sites making a folk hero out of Mumia Abu-Jamal. We've long since learned to tolerate morons and public idiocy in the US.
China's Communist Party is going to have to learn that they can't harass/intimidate/imprison/kill people for being idiots in public. That's the price of being allowed into the modern world.
BTW, "registered Christians?" Wow. Here in my corner of the western US, we don't even register guns!
Why on earth when the topic includes the word "China", people have to bitch and moan about some stupid history decades ago or how 1337 capitalism is compared with that L4m3 communism? And most ironically, they get modded +1 insightful... shouldn't they be modded -1 Offtopic or Flamebait???
OK, I know this post is offtopic, but I'm still posting it because I would like to see more ontopic posts instead of history flamewars.
Don't quote me on this.
Let's be realistic. Culture takes time to transform. It takes France about 50 years after revolution to establish the modern day balance between mornach, church and people. It takes US at least a century from the liberation of slaves (the Civil Wars) to the removal of all the racial discrimination policy against African American (around JFK).
It is just 20 years since Deng's reform (revolution)... There was no religion freedom at all in Mao's era. Anyone claimed to be a follower of any religion was sent to labour camp. Situation in fact improves quite rapidly in the last decade. At this stage, it is more important to persuade Chinese govt to accept the free practice all the more mainstream religion. After then, people will fight for their own "right of being idiots in public". Not only the Chinese Govt need to learn, the general public also need some time to figure out how a "normal" reglion should behave (and that's why devious cult in developed countries cannot attract much followers)... Completely out-of-hand approach is liable for radical religious problem that everyone worries in recent time.
Point taken that changes rarely happen overnight.
However, the state needs to get out of the way for changes to happen at all.
It's a common stereotype that old men tend to be stubborn and set in their ways. However, it's common precisely because it's often true. And the PRC's leaders are old indeed. As I understand it, the ones who are in their 60's are considered to be relatively young. Here in the US, that's retirement age. And in any country, that's old enough to be resistant to any kind of change and old enough to be firmly convinced that the young have no business having contradictory opinions.
Unless I miss my guess, important political decisions in the PRC are made by a committee from the Communist Party. And the only way to get on that committee is to be a party member, an old man, and in the right place when someone dies and a vacancy opens up. That's not a system that leads to much turnover. Low turnover means that bad ideas tend to develop a lot of inertia and stick around. As a result, there's a brake on favorable change that doesn't need to exist and doesn't serve much useful purpose.
Not only the Chinese Govt need to learn, the general public also need some time to figure out how a "normal" reglion should behave (and that's why devious cult in developed countries cannot attract much followers)... Completely out-of-hand approach is liable for radical religious problem that everyone worries in recent time.
It's hard to define a "normal" religion. All religions, even the established and stable ones, show up in abberant behavior. My girlfriend's family are Southern Baptist. Fine, peaceful people. Their theological beliefs are not that much different from those of the people who bomb abortion clinics. I'm a Roman Catholic myself. I'm a cop-one of the people who keeps the peace and stability in my society. It seems to me ironic that my own beliefs are identical to those of the Irish Republican Army, some of the most notorious terrorists in the English-speaking world.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is, religion is not the cause of violent behavior. It's often an excuse, but a poor one. Some people are naturally violent. Other people become violent for whatever reason. They'll grasp at religion as an excuse to commit violence, but if that doesn't work they'll find another excuse.
Yeah, the Chinese people will need to get used to freedom of religion and a few other freedoms. That'll take time. However, they'll never even have the chance until the government gets out of the way. People can't learn to live with something if they never are exposed to it.
I can second that, having learned Java and C, C++ in College and taking VB as an additional class, I can tell VB is a broken language and the speed is nowhere comparable to even Java
No, they're the ones with the flashy temples and immense geneaologies, IIRC. You, on the other hand, posted before you thought. Now is the time, if it hasn't happened yet, to do that thinking.
Yes. This world being what it is, real live people will refer to that troll, and the real live people referred to it will read it and note that nobody answered it. Sometimes neither individual is equipped to figure out that it's a troll. In fact, even a reasonably computer-literate reader could, on a bad day or if distracted, fail to actually process the content. It needed at least one sensible answer. Done.
Because it is on SlashDot, it needed at least one rash and ill-thought-out response, and it got those as well. Does being in a majority bring you good feelings? (-:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
What annoys me about China is that the PRC is a member of the United Nations Security Council and yet it thumbs it's nose at the United Nations Universal Decleration of Human Rights.
The permenent members of the UN security council are USA, UK, France, PRC and Russia. When it comes to thumbing it's nose at the UN the PRC is no match for the USA. Be it refusing to pay its dues or vetoing a resolution against state sponsored terrorism.
Also wern't the people at Waco some kind of Christians...
Isn't it interesting how easy it is to make a conspiracy theory? Just take a few circumstantial events, tie them together with a common theme... and ta da!
It helps to be the government and have the mass media not being too critical of your line. (Combined with not asking officials to explain the big problems with the official version of events.)
We have one going right now. Various bits don't make any sense, there are plenty of holes. But it's good enough to drop huge quantities of high explosive on the poorest country on the planet, whilst failing to actually achieve the aim.
True. Perhaps I needed to express myself more concisely: in the Real World(tm) it generally doesn't happen that way. By far the majority of hospitals etc in third-world countries, and likewise for other useful aid organisations are funded and founded by theistic religions.
Actually, so should the true Christian; and as I understand it both Islam and Judaism in their original forms would tend to be read that way.
While not claiming that theistic religions are free from the same fault (if only!), Atheism usually encounters a problem when trying to agree on a definition of ``goodness.'' Eugenics were an example of one particular set of Atheists' views of goodness, and during the Reign of Terror it seemed good to other parties of Atheists that they should do things like pass babies and children of theists from pike-point to pike-point along the streets to be dumped.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I had to try!
I just don't like the debate that Communism must fall so missionaries can file in and covert the masses.
You passed the test!
[if you notice though,Christian are the biggest fighters of Communism, while it's closer to the true belief than other forms of gov't.]
Get your Unix fortune now!
A chair stands on four legs. Knock out one... and the chair begins to wobble.
That is how debate works. You chip away.
Plus I have a general distaste for Christians who go into Afghanistan or the like just to convert peoples. If they are helping, that's great. But you aren't supposed to steal their identity away from them.
Get your Unix fortune now!
The facts:
Christians fight everyday to rip people of their history and identity. Just as Communism does.
Communism doesn't promote atheism. It relies on it's populace to put the state before religion. In a true communist nation religion isn't needed what so ever. The state provides all, not god. You can't have sects in a communist state as that breaks the chain. Communism doesn't teach no god... it teachs state only!
Tibet: Tibet wants to be a religious state on it's own! It's not a matter of religions, it's a question of freedom to believe what they want AND they want to split from China!
Christians will convert anyone. It's a Romanized version of Judaism, what do you expect?
Get your Unix fortune now!
I think you are confused.
We are talking about China... not the US!
Chinese can do what they want. You on the other hand have no issue.
The people who want to free Mumia Abu-Jamal however are the same people who want to 'free' China.
Get your Unix fortune now!
When RMS wrote the first version of the GPL, it aroused a storm of controversy on gnu.misc.discuss. I was one of many, arguing as "johnston@me.udel.edu", that the GPL was not communistic but rather a peculiar use of the intellectual property and copyright laws of the United States. One that has proved in practice to be sufficiently "iron-clad" in its legal formulation that large corporations like IBM and government agencies like the NSA have followed the GPL to the letter. I bowed out of the Usenet debates in 1991 when Linux took off, because by then it appeared to me that the eventual successful creation of a free replacement for unix - RMS's original goal - had become a fait accompli, the Hurd project notwithstanding.
And so today we hear that the largest nation on earth is choosing Linux over Microsoft. RMS could have told you that would happen 15-odd years ago, after he finished writing the first draft of the GPL. It doesn't matter how long it takes; free software in the RMS sense of the word will eventually win out over the black-box proprietary model. RMS knew it then, and so did Per Abrahamsen, Barry Margolin, Adam Richter, Eric Raymond, HJ Lu, John Gilmore, Larry Wall, Jon "maddog" Hall, and all those who were involved in the free software movement long before Linus Torvalds picked up a copy of Andrew Tannenbaum's book on Minix and decided to try to write his own operating system. The great thing about young people is that they are too young to know that big projects are too hard to try, so they try them anyway. So we thank Linus most of all.
-- Bill Johnston (wdj-netconsult@consultant.com)
That has nothing to do with communism. There's no way why in a communist society you would not be able to choose which OS you want to use.
0x or or snor perron?!
(* Is your hatred of Microsoft so deep that you will instead support a regime that has caused more human suffering than any in history? *)
You mean Native Americans?
(Granted, we cut down over the years)
Table-ized A.I.
Hi,
:)
As I'm currently living in China I'd like to comment on this. As was pointed out a few times allready (and therefor redundant) the decision of the Chinese goverment is not about Microsoft. Its about nationalism. China is always pushing the local economy and therefore all the foreign countries need to suffer. Even if Microsoft would give away their software and it would have been far better than any local then the Beijing goverment would still chose the local companies.
This is (very unfortunatly) true for every industry in China. The foreign companies will always have to pay more tax so that the local product will be more cheap. An foreign apple will cost about 20 times a local apple! Even when joining the WTO this will probably not change much since in China (like US) the goverment tries to control everything.
Also the foreign companies work around this by starting joint ventures. This means that 49% of the foreign company in china will be owned by a local chinese company (which has a CEO which has good relations with the goverment) and 51% will be the foreign company. The sales go to the foreign company (just a little), the goverment (a lot of tax) and for 49% in the pocket of the director of the local company. Thats how it really works in China... true capitalism..even worse than the US.
So now also the decision is made to push the domestic economy and probably a few party members
China economy is very similar with the US. Very corrupt.
(and one of the reasons I said "a certain limited way"), but in truth, I don't begrudge MS or any other company money spent on marketing. Sure, a lot of that money is misspent, but if it *really* is marketing -- taken literally, not just what it's come to mean -- then it's complementary to the other functions of any given company, including Microsoft (and Red Hat, and Kraft, and Exxon, and Whole Foods, and Grucci's Fireworks ... ).
;))
...
MS can't hire smart people to work at MS Research if they don't make money; they can't make money if they don't sell *something* (software, cheap flowers, novelty pens), can't sell their something if they don't market it. In fact, I think in that context, "sell" and "market" are redundant -- all of marketing is sales, really, and all of advertising is marketing. (Professors in the few marketing and business classes I took never really agreed with me on that point, but hey, I think their semantics are outdated and myopic
If MS were a producer of free / Free software (and I think they *could* become one, even if that's an unlikely outcome), they'd perhaps have more of the same world-changing currency that groups like the Debian project do. Debian couldn't afford to "hire" all the smart people who work on Debian software, packaging, etc (and substitute in your favorite free sw project), at least on the terms of source-secret companies. With the incentive of changing the world in certain ways, overlapping with some (justified, IMO) revolutionary fervor, Debian doesn't have to put as large a percentage of the project's total lifeblood into low-content advertising, paying high salaries, etc. People working toward what they consider a greater good (and probably some MS employees consider their brand of software creation genuinely better, but certainly not all) probably work a lot harder per dollar paid, too.
I doubt the arguments for greater programming freedom and other forms of abstract niceness are ever going to open the same kind of doors that arguments emphasizing the stability and practical nature of non-secret code will, though. Government spenders had better be thinking of those practical reasons when they redistribute the loot they've taken from us, so as not to inspire mobs of angry citizens to relocate their jaws.
timothy
sorry for ramble, I have a fever
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Who would imagine that the freedom-loving Chinese government would possibly consider a solution that was not open source?