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Red Flag Linux: Real, and Reviewed
Over at NewsForge (NewsForge is part of OSDN, as is Slashdot), Roblimo has posted his impressions of the long-awaited, much-ridiculed Red Flag Linux (English version). It may not be a big seller outside of the Chinese-speaking world (despite the available English-language install), but it's not a hoax, and it's available as an ISO for download. Update from Roblimo: I did not write the NewsForge Red Flag review. Matt Michie deserves all credit for this excellent work.
For reasons I couldn't determine, Red Flag was installing slower than Tux on a Sunday evening after gorging himself with fish.
We need better jokes.
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Unlike a Red Hat install, I was never prompted to create a user or set a root password. I had visions of having to crack my own installation to even login. I tentatively typed in root, and wondered if I could guess what a Chinese developer would set as a default password, when I was presented with a root prompt!
That's right, they don't set a root password, and seem to expect users will be running as root right from the start. That's surely not the best way to introduce a newbie into best practices.
ObDisclaimer: This is certainly not intended as flamebait, although it will probably be modded so.
Given the mindset of a totalitarian government -- that is to say, all ideas and possessions are ultimately the property of the oligarchy (or in China's case the gerontocracy) -- doesn't it seem logical that a default install for an OS endorsed by the government to be open to the world by default?
Seriously, if you want to be able to access any system in your nation, and you know the average user doesn't know thing one about security, this sort of tactic would be on page 1 of Information Control for Dummies.
Or this could just be me being paranoid again.
They that would sacrifice their
it is safe to say:
right
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Why is this so contraversial? Does this perticular distro go through the hands of the Chinese govt or something?
Why yes it does as a matter of fact.
"...certified by the Information-system Product Quality Inspection Center under the Ministry of Public Security of China in June 2001."
From here.
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
I don't mean to become flamebait here but shouldn't all the *nix people be dancing around a fire singing the praises of Red Flag and the chinese govt's decisions to use it?
I mean, it says something that the world's largest gov't decided to pick Linux instead of any other operating system (Cough Cough; The Beast of Redmond). Sure their Distro isn't going to be the best - it's their first try after all. But eventually they could really but something together that is a nice, good, stable distro. Consider if any of the other Distros had the resources of an entire gov't behind them.
Allright, the chinese gov't isn't anything close to being perfect, or even tolerable, but you have to give them credit for making the right choice here by using a customizable, and free, product. Far from isolating themselves on the Tech Front i'd say they where doing a pretty good job of jumping in.
One last statement: Since Red Flag is GPL that means that the entire source code has to be realesed etc, etc. Quite neat isn't it? That a totalitarian, communist country is being 'forced' (yeah I'd like to see em prosecute them for a violation of the GPL) to release it's precious code to it's next-gen op system. Quite an accomplishment.
(oh wait...)
It looks like the rf24.iso is unreachable via the link provided. I belive that http://ftp.cqu.edu.cn/linux/iso/rf24.iso is the same release.
This tells me one of two things: one, the Red Flag people just took a base Red Hat distro (7.0? I run Debian, so I don't know when Red Hat first introduced kernel 2.4.2), s/Hat/Flag, and put it on the web. Two, they started with a Red Hat distro long ago, but took a long time to make whatever modifications they needed to and did not bother to update the kernel and programs. Both scenarios say volumes about the people who work on Red Flag. I mean, there are distros assembled by a handful of people that are more up-to-date than this! What are they doing, reading
I would be really interested if someone would do a security audit on this. Does Red Flag call home to Big Brother?
:Peter
errr my mistake this is the one
not sure if its a good or bad idea considering the no root password on install thing.
When encryption is outlawed, ou++1!@(93j++js-d9298yIUH(*Y24JKB!~
From the Red Flag Linux home page:
ControLinux finds application in lottery machine's operating system.
From Roblimo's review of Red Flag:
Unlike a Red Hat install, I was never prompted to create a user or set a root password. I had visions of having to crack my own installation to even log in. I tentatively typed in root, and wondered if I could guess what a Chinese developer would set as a default password, when I was presented with a root prompt!
That's right, they don't set a root password, and seem to expect users will be running as root right from the start.
Hopefully they have better security measures in place on their "other" distributions!
That's right, they don't set a root password, and seem to expect users will be running as root right from the start. That's surely not the best way to introduce a newbie into best practices.
Two words: CODE RED!
Red Flag Linux is made by Chinese Communists. Open Source software is not communist. The intriguing thing about Red Flag Linux is that it has been packaged specifically to suit the IT needs of the People's Republic of China. I know a little Kanji (which is called Hanzi in Chinese, but I don't know that) because I watch anime, but I'm going to install the English language version, because it seems like the least appropriate but most expedient way to review a Chinese distribution of Linux.
The installer is slow. Incidentally, I'm running it in a VMware window. I wish I knew why the installer is so slow! Now the installer has crashed! I bet I could bring my system back up without rebooting if I knew how.
This looks like Red Hat! I'll poke around in the menus. This looks like Red Hat! I'll use it for another five minutes, and then finalize my opinion. This looks like Red Hat!
I don't know how good the software is, and I don't read much of Chinese, but the front page definitely is quite an artistic design! With all those horses and stuff, it is *so different* from western style!
instead of "the choice of oppressive gov'ts etc" why not point out that you are forcing the Chinese gov't to release it's source code and pointing out the benefits of a free market system?
About the GPL, they are following it, the code is freely available. So far at least.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Contrary to popular opinion, not everyone on Slashdot blindly champions open source just because it's open source (and is the cool thing to do). Many (actually, I would say most) Slashdotters are champions of open source/free software because they like the freedom it provides. A love of personal freedom for one's self, generally transfers to a love of freedom for others. Since the Chinese government is an oppressive government that denies its citizens the level of freedom they deserve, many Open Source advocates do not see the Chinese Government embracing Open Source as something to brag about (much as we wouldn't brag about the knowledge that the KKK used it to keep track of lynchings).
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Look at it this way: the GPL is centered around the notion of freedom. Suddenly, a country that isn't exactly know for a natural proclivity towards freedom adopts your number one symbol. You experience a little cognitive dissonance, because on the one hand, you really think said country should be more respectful of its people's rights, yet on the other hand, are compelled by your own morals to allow them to use it.
This brings to mind another article I was reading, about how the Anti-Defamation League was exposing racist games produced by white supremists using...open source gaming engines. I imagine that the programmers may experience a little discomfort at that; after all, everyone knows that in a first-person shooter, all races (human and alien alike) should be shot into nasty little giblets, regardless of their ethnic origin. I'm sorry, I shouldn't be so glib, but you see my point; when you release code under the GPL, you have to risk someone taking it and using it for evil purposes. Very few people think that white supremists are anything but redneck losers who are so pathetic that they can't find their way out of a paper bag and need to blame someone for their own stupidity, but they have the same right to free speech as the rest of us. If you deny them that right, then you set up the very real potential of denying many more their right to free speech.
After reading the review, it doesn't look like this is much more than Red Hat with all instances of "Hat" replaced with "Flag." (See my prior comment above.) I personally am not expecting much new original code coming from Red Flag for a good long time, if this is how they produce a distribution...
:Peter
Disclaimer: I do not work at, nor own, Wal-Mart stock. I just find this fascinating.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The internet ready microwave oven is well on it's way to going in my shopping cart.
... the NEW icon.
I also like the way the "NEW" icon on their homepage is a hyperlink to
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
I don't want to be a flamebait either, but here goes my honest opinion.
Have you noticed that you are "demonizing" people who create your clothes for your, almost every material and immaterial possession you have is made in SWEAT SHOPS, and when you go to Walmart, you ask youself...
"boy, this is TOO expensive, I'd rather spend my dollar elsewhere"
Where the only way for the price to go do is for the NORTH AMERICAN stores to switch suppliers every month, thereby FORCING (along with other ILLEGAL tactics) the prices the be "cheapa"....
And most people refer to these people as:
(1) CHINA
(2) COMMUNIST
(3) "EVIl" (you're brainwashed by Bush)
(4) A billion people
When all they are, are just people just like me and you. In fact more humane than us, because we do more harm to them, then they have ever to us.
So please think things over,
Have a open mind, but most importantly an OPEN HEART. That's what opensource is REALLY ALL ABOUT.
Sincerely
A concerned and caring citizen
I have come up a few other players in this arena, competition is good. of course ;-)
btw, the one reviewed in the newsforge.com is 2.4 desktop. version 3.0 is coming (sorry, no more English and Traditional Chinese installation screens, only Simplified Chinese is available) and I've tried the beta CD, quite OK for normal use but some installation gliches.
Also... a Chinese-enabled desktop is possible (just click "Chinese" during install..) by the normal Debian/Mandrake/RedHat CDs.
When setting up our office in China last year, we decided to give Red Flag a try, as oppossed to using Mandrake (our new Sysadmin thought it might be easier for staff to learn). The idea appealed to us, because Mandrake requires a lot of tweaking to get Chinese input and display to work correctly. As all new employees had never used anything but Windows, we decided to install four distros on four different boxen and see which one they took to better:
1. Turbo Linux (has good Chinese support out of the box)
2. RedHat linux tweaked to support Chinese input, etc.
3. Mandrake linux tweaked to support Chinese input, etc.
4. RedFlag linux
To cut matters short, all workstations are now running Mandrake 8.1. For applications we are using the latest Chinese build of OpenOffice. Staff seemed to like Mandrake best, and it seemed to be most stable on the desktop. We share printers, disks, scanners, cameras accross the network, and once configured we have a very stable and FREE OS on every single desktop.
RedFlag was just a little too buggy (all gnome and kde config bugs, we did not play with it too long, as Mandrake was stable from install). We have not tried the latest version of Redflag, BUT, I have told our in house IT guys to keep looking at it.
One of our IT guys has been to the RedFlag main development center. It is government funded, but penetration in the Chinese market is low, because one can pick up a pirated copy of Win98 just about on any other street corner for just over 1$. The government is hoping that RedFlag will be a suitable option once they really crack down on piracy, and MS starts to bleed the country for OS and productivity software license fees.
The key for linux on the desktop in China is the same as the rest of the world--productivity applications. C'mon Open Office, we are all cheering for you!
Real men don't need signitures!!!
You're right, in China all OSs are free as in beer. It's the Free as in Speech part that lets them ensure they aren't being spied on.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Major Linux Innovations in Communist Asia
/
PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA -- Following closely on the heels of the recent successes in the Chinese information industry, known to have invoked advanced commands such as:
cd
find . | sed -e s/Hat/Flag/g
the North Korean Ministry of Information and Technology has announced its own groundbreaking Linux distribution bearing the state's official endorsement - Plebian GNU/Linux.
Also believed to be in the pipeline are other state sponsored distributions, including Yellow Snake, Handbrake, RuSE, and Blackware Linux.
http://www.linux.cu/
There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Ok, as far as I can tell, this wasn't written by Roblimo, but by Matt Michie.
;-)
:)
Also, I noticed this sentence to be a bit odd - "...although one thing I immediately noted was that they included Xine, which plays DVDs, DivX, AVI, and other media..." I find it odd that the author didn't note that, probably more importantly, Xine is a great VCD player. My understanding is that the Chinese pirate market is based very heavily on VCD's - I suspect having an Xine icon on the desktop is indicative of the extent of the VCD influence.
I would definitely like to hear what everyone's opinion on the NMAP results are, as I'm not knowledgable enough to know which are vulnerable and which aren't. More curiously, though, I wonder if the NMAP results were localized to the 192 network via some firewalling script, or if an external IP would have gotten the same results.
I also want to note that nmap'ing was probably superfluous, in the circumstances - all that was really needed to crash the system is logging in as a passwordless root on telnet, which is an extraordinarily wide open hole.
Then again, I imagine the english-only version would be expected to be run mostly outside of the People's Republic. Perhaps the localized version would indeed come with a root password. Hmm... Insidious plot?
I think that this story should definitely be followed up by an analysis of the localized version. Too bad I'm a mono-lingual individual. (Shh, don't tell my University or they won't let me graduate!
We may do a fair amount of harm to the average Chinese person indeed. The Chinese government, however, has done far worse in Tibet than we've done in China. Not that we haven't done it elsewhere (Central America, to say the least).
Haha @ "Global Stallmanism," and is Global Gatesism any better?
Actually that quote from Khrushchev, "Whether you like it our not, history is on our side. We will bury you." Is considered inaccurate and is the fault of our translators. The real quote (considered by some) is, "Whether you like it our not, history is on our side. We will leave you in the dust!" Stating that the Soviet Union was advancing farther than us in technology. Which could be true because of the Soviet's more advanced rocket technology and the fact that they were the first in space.
And IMHO China isn't Communist, it's State Capitalist (much like America was under FDR)
From where I currently sit in the capital of "Red China", there are at least a half dozen distros readily available at the local stores -- Red Flag, Linpus, Red Hat, Mandrake -- and Red Flag isn't even the most popular of them. And with CLE (Chinese Language Extensions, currently at version 1.0) nearly any distro can be converted to Chinese.
And back home (Taiwan) where Linpus reigns supreme, Red Flag barely registers. In fact, it wasn't till recently that it even appeared on store shelves, even though it's been available on the mainland for several years.
Nevertheless, the OS of choice in China, even in government circles, remains the Windows family, which is a readily available and as free-as-in-beer (read: widely pirated) as Linux.
I've had one of these bad-boys in my grubby mits for over a year. A friend brought it back from Hong Kong.
The funniest thing is Tux on the cover carrying the red flag. eerie....
I would have tested the Chinese version, because I would assume I could fine my way through a standard RedHat install without the real text. It would be interesting to see just how much of it still remain English.
[...snip...]/ 2211255) that you
expressed distaste for "Red Flag Linux", the version of linux sponsored
by the Chinese government. They quote you as saying:
While I can somewhat understand your view, it seems dangerous to drag left/right-wing politics into Open Source, surely the more people who adopt the Open Source philosophy the better, irrespective of how much you might disagree with their politics. For example, if the Chinese government were to express a desire to adopt the ideals of the Libertarian Party, would you make an argument like: Clearly, such an attitude would be deeply flawed. Regardless of how much you dislike a group, surely their adoption of something with which you think is a good thing should be encouraged?I was somewhat surprised to see in a recent NewsForge article (http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=02/02/21
If you disagree, I would be interested in your response...
First, the nmap results don't mean a damn thing. It shows that the system probably has more running than a secure install should, which is common even to my beloved Debian. The inability to characterize the OS TCP/IP stack just means that the reviewer is a moron. I've got three machines, one with a 2.2.17 kernel, two with different 2.4 (.13 and .4) kernels. The one running 2.4.4 was identified, the other two weren't. He's trying to suggest some insane conspiracy theory of a TCP/IP stack with back doors hacked into it based on complete non-evidence.
Second, telnet doesn't allow you to log in directly as root. You have to log in as a non-root user first and then su (without password... sheeshe). Not that no-password root isn't insanely stupid, but presuming that it doesn't even create a normal user account, this is actually -more- secure, at least in terms of telnet exploitablity. Weird, huh?
Third, having your "killer app" right on the desktop makes a lot of sense, no? It's like the Office2000 icon right in the quick-launch bar of win2k (ugh, have to use that pure shite at work for about 20 min of my day -- such is the pain of porting software to linux! Thank God and Red Hat for Cygwin).
Fourth, you're absolutely right that there should have been a review of the localized version. The whole review was a farce, made worse by the reviewer being an idiot.
The enemies of Democracy are
Actually that quote from Khrushchev, "Whether you like it our not, history is on our side. We will bury you." Is considered inaccurate and is the fault of our translators. The real quote (considered by some) is, "Whether you like it our not, history is on our side. We will leave you in the dust!"
"Ya vam pokazhyu kuzkinu mat!" is a fairly common Russian idiom. It literally means, "I'll show you Kuzma's mother!" Like many idioms, its literal meaning is, well, kinda meaningless. But it's used pretty much the same way as the English phrase, "I'll dance on your grave," meaning I'll outlive or outlast you.
Khrushchev's "My vam pokazhim kuzkinu mat!" can't be literally translated, but it can be idiomatically translated as "We will bury you." The translation was not faulty.
The interpretation, however, has been pretty loose. Many have interpreted "We will bury you" as a threat of harm. In fact, it means, "We'll be around longer than you, and we'll attend your funeral."
The oft-quoted "we will leave you in the dust" simply has no basis in fact.
In other words, ya vam pokazhyu kuzkinu mat.
Anarchists and Communists, confused again. It has played over and over again.
Whenever there is a revolution, there are usually two principle revolutionary sides, Anarchists and Communists.
Both have similarities, and both have sharp differences. Generally, they both have socialist ends. But they differ on the nature of government: The Communists want strong central control. The Anarchists want deeply diffused democratic control.
The Free Software / Open Source movement is a case example of working Anarchy. Free Software developers are generally anti-authoritarian, and believe that the people doing the work call the shots. It's generally socialist, in the sense of sharing (but not in the Marx dictatorship sense). Work is done by a series of agreements and shared interest. Many are motivated to get particular things done, or out of a sense of solidarity. There is no ruler that can tell you what to do. Decisions are generally based on a consensus, but there are a few Linus Torvalds, and consessions made for expediency. The work has no chain of command, rather, it works by confederation. For example, there is the overall Open Source/Free Software movement. (We can draw humerous/interesting comparisons with the CNT/FAIR, respectively; One is more practically based, the other more ideologically based.) Above the OS/FS organization (in a certain sense), there is the KDE project. Above that platform lives the KOffice project. Above that lives the KWord, KSpread, and Kivio projects. I imagine that within those projects, there are other projects. And there are documentation projects, and usability projects, and they interact between projects, and they all work together. This is an Anarchist society, with minimal rulers and ruled. It is almost unthinkable that a member of the KDE organizing team would command a member of the KSpread team to do some particular thing, and that thing be done because of "orders from above". This is not to say that people don't argue and strategise and haggle; They do. But overall, the whole thing works. The operating system is a little "poor", and has a sort of "poor man's operating system" feel to it, but this is more than made up in the fun of it.
A communist vision of OS/FS would be state control. Flip the pyramid. OpenSource/FreeSoftware as command structure.
When you hear people saying, "I don't understand, why doesn't the OpenSource community devote most of it's effort to XYZ", where XYZ is something like better graphics, or device support, or something that they see as critical (and could quite likely use a lot more work), they are assuming that the OpenSource/FreeSoftware world works according to a command structure, and that we are working on it because we feel like suplicating ourselves to some "great cause." The reality is that we are not supplicating ourselves to some "great cause". Rather, we are doing it because we want to. This is Libertarian (the 1890's version of the word, which was anarcho-socialist, rather than the modern, anarco-capitalist meaning of the word) beliefs incarnate and applied: By acting on our natural impulses, we can do good. Note that RMS and the GNU foundation has focused on the same. When people assume that we are command structured (authoritarian), but also working for the good of our fellows (socialist), they assume that we are Communist (state socialism). Rather, we are socialist libertarians. Or at least, speaking for what I see of the OS/FS movement, it is based and functions within socialist libertarian parameters. (Much has been written about the anarcho-capitalist ideas that many geeks like.)
This is not the first time that Anarchists have been confused with Communists. If you read the history of the Spanish Civil War, it's usually described as "The Facists vs. The Communists". But there was a third side, and a very powerful side at that. Several towns belonged to the Anarchists, and the Anarchists helped fight (but ultimately, defeated by the German & I believe Italy as well Fascists, commanded by Franco). The Anarchist revolution was very real, and quite extraordinary. But because the Anarchists were socialists, the war is usually just "simplified" into "The Facists vs. The Communists".
Now you know, and... {:)}=
This image from the Red Flag Linux English home page (just to the left of the word News) is the same colour layout as the Microsoft logo, rotated 90 degrees clockwise.
Coincidence?
Umm... hello!
This is not the Americans or even the Russians here, this is the Chinese, they can simply say that you have to use this OS or else they lock your head to a wall. This isn't a popularity contest or a free market we're talking about here - this is China. If windows is illegal than only criminals will run windows, or debian, or Mac, or anything other than good old RedFlag.
There are a thousand forms of subversion, but few can equal the convenience and immediacy of a cream pie -Noel Godin
The difference between the two is compultion. That's the same as between any other "system" and Anarchy.
Everyone already cooperates and compromises every day. You deal with the people you wish to deal with, in the ways you wish to deal with them, or you ignor them and go on your way.
That is the essence of Anarchy!
Communist, Socialist, Democrat, Republican, all depend on FORCE to achieve their ends. Each and ever one of them differs only in the ways they rationalize the use of force to achieve the ends which the people in power want. They are mearly different ends which all use the same means.
To those who equate "Anarchy" and "Chaos", I would suggest a few of the articles and texts on the Ludwig von Mises institute web site until you can understand how they're fundimentally different. Human Action may be a little difficult, but do give it a try.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
While the Chinese government could readily be labeled authoritarian, it hardly qualifies as totalitarian.
To begin with, like the United States, the Chinese government is a constitutional government -- something which is antithetical to a truly totalitarian regime. Like its American counterpart, the Chinese constitution proscribes and limits the powers and reach of the government. Conversely, a totalitarian government has no limits (hence the name 'totalitarian'). Americans may take issue with some of the particulars of socialist rule in China, but in fact the Chinese system has more in common with American- (or British-) style government than it does with truly totalitarian regimes, from a parliamentarian law-making body, to an independent justice system, to democratic elections (yes, the Chinese DO freely elect their local officials).
The Chinese enjoy nearly every individual right the American does: freedom of speech, of worship, of belief, of assembly, to own property, privacy, to engage in business. Yes, China limits most of these rights, but neither are they unlimited in Western countries (as every American knows, for example, freedom of speech does not include the right to cry 'Fire!' in a crowded movie house, nor does freedom of the press include the right to slander). The difference is not that Americans possess individual rights and the Chinese don't, but merely that Americans object to some of the ways in which China limits and circumscribes those rights. (The converse is also true. For example, most of the world objects to the fact that America still puts people to death, something considered outside of America to be a violation of the most basic human liberty, the right to life.)
Neither does the Chinese government seek to control all ideology, or every aspect of its citizens' lives, as a truly totalitarian state is wont to do. It is only those who make themselves an enemy of the state (admittedly, as measured by the state itself) who are the subject of "oppressive" measures. In fact, the vast majority of China's 1.3 billion people are left in peace to lead lives which are, on balance, quite free of government control or meddling. I have freely discussed democracy over tea in the tea houses of Shandong Province. I can attend church regularly. My in-laws have a thriving franchise business in Jiangsu Province which is, on the whole, subject to less governmental interference than it would be in, say, San Francisco. To list but three examples.
I am not a Chinese citizen. As a resident of Taiwan I have no love for Beijing, nor any desire to live under the Chinese government's rule. But given the choice between living in China and, say, Iraq, a Talibanesque state, or even fascist Italy, I'd choose China in a heartbeat.
Now, to keep this post on-topic, many people in this forum are confused about Red Flag Linux. Red Flag is NOT the Chinese government. The company which produces Red Flag Linux is a private entity, neither owned nor controlled by the government. The only associations Red Flag Linux has with the government in China is that A) it is partially funded by a venture capital firm which itself is partially funded by the government, and B) has been selected as the "official" operating system of the government -- a rather hollow honour at best, considering that the vast majority of the government still conducts its business on Windows-based machines.
netcraft shows that the site redflag-linux.com is running Black Cat Linux, which was a Russian distro based on Red Hat but now joined ASP Linux. Hell the redflag site even runs something called "rus/PL29.4" which I assume is Russian module for Apache.
The American justice system is itself broken. The number of innocent people being *executed* - when capital cases have the most oversight - is disturbing enough. Just think how many innocent people are being imprisoned, particularly if they can't muster funds for a defense.
I think that the Chinese behaviour in Tibet was unconscionable and the occupation of Tibet should end, that Tienamen was barbaric, and that they are being repressive towards the Falun Gong. The American "Tibet," of course, occurred in the 19th century, in the settlement of the west, the war against Mexico, and the doctrine of "Manifest Destiny," so we feel that the US today isn't as culpable. But I daresay that a case could be made that, in day to day terms, their system of justice, as a rule, is fairer than the US system, that fewer true innocents suffer.
The article to which I am responding is written by a pro-China Chinese
1. Read my post before replying to it. If you had, you'd have noticed that I specifically denied both your assertions: that I am pro-China, and that I am Chinese. I am, in fact, neither.
2. Don't post AC. Do you have the courage to stick by your opinions when your name's attached to them?
3. I especially invite you to spend a year with the Taiwanese.
* The Chinese from "poor, little, scared" Taiwan have invested more than $50 billion into more than 50,000 businesses in mainland China.
You might want to take a closer look at home before pointing fingers. China is one of America's largest trading partners, and the fastest growing American export market. 60% of all American shoe imports, for example, come from China. Kodak owns more than half the film market in China. The largest soft drink company in China is Coca-Cola (15 times larger than its nearest competitor). KFC and McDonald's dominate the Chinese fast food industry. The US Department of Commerce estimated that in 1999 U.S. corporate assets in China and Hong Kong were worth $81 billion (compared to $30 billion for all of Eastern Europe), with sales of $66 billion and profits of $3 billion. Of the 500 largest American corporations, more than half have investments in China.
Taiwan ... investments continue to grow at double-digit rates.
As do American. Through the 1990s, US-to-China exports increased by over 16% on average annually. The first five months of 2001 alone were up 20.9% over the year previous.
According to Amnesty International, China is a society that does not honor human rights.
And have you taken a look at what AI says about America? Didn't think so. You could start with its website at www.amnesty.org.
As I have already stated, I'm am neither Chinese, nor a supporter of the Chinese government. I am, however, an opponent of bigotry where I see it, including anonymous Slashdot posts.
Most Chinese in Taiwan support mainland China.
Your knowledge of the Taiwanese is almost laughably ignorant. It was, I suppose, all these "pro-China" Chinese in Taiwan who voted out the pro-reunification Kuomingdong merely on suspicion of its having ties with Beijing. It was these "pro-China" Taiwanese who in the last three Taiwanese elections elected the most independence-minded candidates (just ask Beijing what it thinks of Chen Shui-bian, or the DPP, or Annette Wu). The reason Beijing refuses to negotiate with Taipei is precisely because Taipei refuses to accept "one China" as a precondition for talks.
I'll give you credit for an active imagination, if little else.
No, I haven't read Marx. Actually, I haven't read Marx for a very explicit reason: I'd like to be able to say to people, "I haven't read Marx." This is primarily a political maneuver. There is a fear of anyone who has read Marx in certain circles, and I'd like to be able to talk with those people.
Given that, I have a friend who's a died in the wool Russian communist, and we argue very frequently, and with much shouting and rivalry. I have asked him to explain Marx's ideas to me, at least as best he understands it, and I have asked others the same.
Here is basically what I have learned (that is relevant to this conversation): There are three stages. The first is capitalism, and people eventually feel oppressed. Then there is a revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat rises to power. This middle stage is called "Socialism". Then finally the dictatorship dissolves itself, and you end up in a Communism.
I asked my friend what the Communism stage is like, and after he described it to me, I said, "Well, that's an Anarchy!" Regional democratic control of things, stuff like that. So, I understand that, and I agree with that point.
The trick is that middle stage, and that's where Anarchists and Communists disagree. The Communists insist on a dictatorship in the middle. I've read some pretty scarry Maoist stuff in that respect. In fact, after the revelution in Russia, there were several communities that just skipped the middle stage. They went straight into Anarchism. But I have read that the "All power to the Soviets (Communities)" was betrayed, and they were taken, by force, into the State Communism. Because apparently the theory demanded it. They couldn't just go right into an Anarchy, they had to belong to the State first.
Anyways: This is how Marx has been described to me, and this is what I read, and how I interpret it.
As far as I can tell, power is never given up readily. It doesn't matter who's taking it, or receiving it, or whatever; It's just like the One Ring from Mordor. It's addictive, and terribly dangerous.
No "Revolution of the Proletariat" for me.
I don't know; Maybe I'm wrong about Marx. Maybe he didn't actually say that there should be those three stages. I haven't read him; This is just hearsay. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
I should note- My Communist friend, who I spoke about earlier- he believes that the third stage, the Anarchy, what he called "Communism"- he thinks it's a mistake. He thinks that a government of the proletariat should rule. He thinks that it should never disband it's power. He is, basically, a Facist. He believes that a strong and powerful government should rule everything, and just "be nice".
Well, I don't know; There are a handful of Fascist systems that have worked. For example, Thailand is a Monarchy (not exactly facist, but it's close), and they have a great thing going- for the time being, with the current Emporer. No sarcasm- the people there really Love him, and with good cause; He's been, from what I understand, a fair and good guy. Everyone hates the congress, but they take their Emperor very seriously.
So I suppose if you get the good king out of a million, you're all right. But the vast majority are bad, and state communism, state capitalism, state whatever- I don't trust.
I've rambled too much.
Brand new Linux distribution, and this has devolved into some kind of China bashing political rampage.
What happened to the software?
I heard it installs slow. Well, OK for a first release. China is signing about a million people a month on to the net, and this is a *big* win for Linux in my view.
Why don't you guys see it that way?
Who cares about the Chinese government anyway? I care about all the millions of Chinese who can now access Linux a little easier than before, now that they have a distribution targetted in their own language.
This is great!
requires copyright notice. Matt Michie needs a clue on licenses.
not all packages in a linus distro are based on GPL and XFree is one of this packages. It's based on XFree's own license, but in the arcticle Matt says about Red Flag's XFreee copyright notice: "it had an interesting copyright message, "(C) 2000 Red Flag Software and others." Certainly the GPL doesn't require an advertising clause".
a litle research before writing such an arcticle would've been a Good Thing(tm).
What ? Me, worry ?
I updated it myself. Matt Michie did a great job (better than I could have done) on that review and deserves all credit for it.
- Robin
. . . the phrase "hacked by Chinese" a whole new meaning!
I'd be a Libertarian, if they weren't all a bunch of tax-dodging professional whiners. - Berke Breathed
Because, Uh, I'm really interested in embedded stuff, yea, that's it, embedded stuff...
BTW--I wish I could set up a filter to block all slashdot political ranting. You guys make me sick. Before posting more blather, think about which government is killing and torturing more innocent people, yours or China's. Hint: if you're US-American, the correct answer won't stoke your patriotism.
I know another meaning for the word mat, isnt it the four letter word that begins with F?
You're thinking you "Yob tvoyu mat'." It means "F*** your mother."
Its difficult for most North Americans (unfortunately I include my Canadian Countrymen) to see through simple Jingoist myopia and McCarthyism when talking about Socialism and Communism (and any Socialist/Communist States).
Most dont see any difference between Fascism (Totalitarianism) and Socialism. McCarthyism did a fine job in making the two synonymous -- when in fact Communism (Socialism) is more compatible with a Democratic (and rep.democratic (like Canada)) state, and Capitalism is more in line with Totalitarianism.
For everyone that cannot compile the concept of personal/individual Liberty and Freedom in a Socialist or Communist State please see Political Compass.org which illustrates the concept, they are in fact totally and completely separate.
Capitalism leads to Plutocracy...dont agree? Plutocracy is the Totalitarian rule by the Moneyed Class. Have you heard about the concentration of wealth in America? How about Enron literally choosing the heads of Federal Commissions.
Hmm. Need coffee, now. That clearly should have been "You're thinking of," not "you're thinking you."
The "Preview" button does no good whatsoever. There should be three buttons: Submit, Preview, and Think.
has anyone look at the source to see what back doors may have been included?
Seeing its install is being reported as slow, is it trying to contact some agency in China?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You will be hard pressed to find a Taiwanese citizen anywhere who claims to be Chinese. Not a few, in fact, will take great umbrage to being called Chinese. If you don't believe me, find a Taiwanese sometime and ask him whether he's Chinese. It's not an issue of heritage or ancestry, but of political and national identity. The Taiwanese neither deny nor are they ashamed of their Chinese ancestry; but they in no way consider themselves to be citizens of the PRC.
China isn't going to sit down a negotiate with Taipei if they insist on claiming independence.
Taipei has never claimed independence from China. Quite the opposite: up until ten or fifteen years ago, Taipei continued to claim to be the rightful government of China.
Conversely, for Taiwan to accept a priori any "one China" policy would be to concede the game before the opening buzzer.
But if I were to start a cult in Waco Texas and keep to my own private property I should obviously expect the government to storm in guns a blazing...
If you were in violation of Lord knows how many firearms ordinances and if you had taken shots at federal law enforcement officers, you bet. The sad thing about Waco is that it took the law as long as it did to end that "siege"; they should have gone in right away. The innocents who died at Waco would be alive today if Koresh and his cult had followed the law instead of provoking an armed conflict with the government.
Do you blame the United States for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who have died as a result of the sanctions on that country, or do you blame Saddam Hussein, who could end the sanctions at any time (but is unwilling to?) If you blame Hussein for those deaths, it is extremely hypocritical to place the blame for Waco on anybody but Mr. Koresh.
We're going down, in a spiral to the ground
No? I was raised in the west (Wisconsin, USA to be precise; educated at UW-Madison, to be even more precise), which means that, unlike you, I have personal experience living under both systems.
if you think the way the Chinese gov't limits freedom ... in a manner resembling the way western gov'ts limit them
I did not say East and West limit freedoms in the same manner. I simply said both East and West limits freedoms. It is not the limiting of freedoms which is at issue here, it is merely the particulars relating to the nature and methods of the limitations which are at odds.
(Falun Gong), if I were to join my cult in a peaceful demonstration ... the authorities would let me do this without sending in the army.
You're conflating Falung Gong with Tiananmen Square. The PRC has never used the army to deal with the Falung Gong.
But if you're looking for examples of governments using military might to crush dissident religious movements, you need look no further than Waco, Texas. Before you go decrying genocide in Bosnia or Uganda, you should reflect for a moment on the blatant genocidal policies perpetrated by the American government on Native Americans in the last century. Before you parade human rights abuses in Chinese prisons as examples of the barbarism of "communist" China, you would do well to examine your own prisons to make sure you're not just a pot calling the kettle black.
The difference between America and the PRC is not that America has never been repressive; the difference is Americans seem incapable of recognizing their own fallibility. Their all too willing to excuse in themselves the kinds of behavior they seem so eager to chastise in others.
As a case in point, though you may be too young to remember it, there was the Korean Airlines incident twenty-odd years ago, in which a Korean airliner was shot down by the Soviet military over the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Siberia. The Soviet regime claimed the airliner had invaded military airspace, was flying over top secret military installations, and refused to respond to repeated attempted radio contact.
America predictably went apoplectic, claiming that this was exactly the sort of behavior one ought to expect from the "evil empire", as Reagan had recently styled the Soviet Union. Six months later, it was America's turn, as the American military shot down a civilian Iranian jet flying over the gulf of Iraq. The strident American press went suddenly silent, and the American excuses sounded strangely reminiscent of the Soviet pleas six months earlier. Quoth the American captain of the naval vessel that fired the fatal shot: "They were flying in a threatening manner."
Now the Soviets had at least this much in their favor: the KAL flight was off course, flying outside of commercial airspace. Not so the fated Iranian airliner, which had been flying a normal route in heavily trafficked commercial airlines when it was blown out of the sky by an American missile. I recall a poll taken shortly after the Iranian airliner incident in which Americans by large margins dismissed the Soviet excuses as "communist propaganda", but were all too willing to accept the eerily similar American excuses at face value.
Now, my point to all this is not that America is as evil as the Soviets, but simply that Americans are all too often unwilling to extend the same benefit of the doubt to others that they pamper themselves with. Americans simply need to learn a little humility and acknowledge that we are all flawed human beings journeying together, rather than pontificating at the rest of the world about how superior Americanism is.
Depends whether you intend "Chinese" in a political or an ethnic sense. Americans make similar distinctions. When Americans refer to themselves as "American", they mean it in the sense of national or political identity. Ask an American what his ethnic background is, however, and he'll generally give you a run-down of the countries his ancestors came from. That is, a US citizen may take great pride in his German heritage, but he would never identify himself as a German. Conversely, I've never met a US citizen who identifies himself as ethnically American.
Tux Marching into Tomorrow with the Great Flag of the People is just too cute to pass up. Make it a slashdot topic!
sulli
RTFJ.
Sure, Canadians and Americans and Europeans are also more concerned about their government and their day to day lives than their operating system.
And yes, only a small percentage of the Chinese population has a computer at home. And only a small percentage of those sign on to the net. And only a small percentage of those will care about Linux.
Nevertheless, we're talking about 20% of the worlds population, and the small percentage thats interested in the net adds about a million users a month to the internet--just a drop in China's huge bucket, but even 1% of those would be 10000 new Linux users a month.
China is just huge. Add up any group of people in China and you come up with a big number.
Obviously, you don't really have an idea about what "freedom" means in the west.
;-).
... genocide
No? I was raised in the west (Wisconsin, USA to be precise; educated at UW-Madison, to be even more precise), which means that, unlike you, I have personal experience living under both systems.
My bad, sorry for assuming. Though I did live more than half of my life in a collectivist, less than free asian society (Indonesia), so maybe you shouldn't be assuming things either
I did not say East and West limit freedoms in the same manner. I simply said both East and West limits freedoms. It is not the limiting of freedoms which is at issue here, it is merely the particulars relating to the nature and methods of the limitations which are at odds.
And I still say that if you're equating Chinese 'if you disagree with the government and say so, you'll end up in a labor camp' with western 'you can say what you want about the government, but if we don't like it, we'll ignore you', you've got a serious problem with putting things in perspective. Sophistry, I think, is the term for what you're doing here.
Waco, Texas
WTF?? Waco Texas was *an incident* were the US government dealt rather clumsily, with *very unfortunate consequences*, with a group of people who were *actively* opposing the government and public safety in general. It's not US government policy to perpetrate murder of ethnic/religous groups (that's what genocide is). Once again, you're comparing apples and oranges.
airliners bit
Once again, those were incidents, not standard policy.
You really don't have a clue, do you? Just because western governments aren't perfect, not by a long shot, and just because western history is as soaked in blood as the rest of the world's history does not mean you can equate the practices of an actively repressing regime such as the PRC with the fuck ups of western government, which, under most circumstances anyway, and for their own citizens, upholds the basic tenets of freedom and human rights in general. I happen to think this is good, as I value the freedoms and rights of the individual above those of the collective. You may disagree. Fine. Just don't go attempting to prove the PRC isn't significantly more repressive than western governments, because it is.
News and bla for computer musicians: http://lomechanik.net/
hey.
for those of you looking for the iso this should be a fairly fast mirror. i will have no way of verifying it till sunday. so if someone can veryify it for me that would be nice. i'll put that in a readme in the same directory along with the md5sum.
currently it's at 87 percent. it should be done in a couple hours. the final size is around 440 megs. look for the readme to know when it's done.
mirror
-- john
Without meaning to open a whole theological can of worms, the issue of state- rather than Rome-appointed priests raises fundamental questions regarding apostolic succession, which calls into question the validity of the consecration of the Eucharist in the state-run churches.
China learned about state-run Churches from the
West. From the time of Constantine up to the Reformation, local monarchs would generally name
the key bishops in their territories who were
generally rubber-stamped by Rome. Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and architect of the Reformation in England was appointed by
Henry VIII and that appointment was approved by
the Pope. The Pope has never had a role in the
appointment of Eastern Orthodox bishops while
monarchs often did.
If you call into question the Apostolic
Succession of state-appointed bishops, you call
into question the Apostolic Succession in the
West.
I have discovered a truly marvelous sig, unfortunately the sig limit is too small to contain i
Iraq is not a talibanistic state, it actually has a secular government, well, a lot china during the Mao days, pretty evil, but not based on religion. Sadam isn't a fundamentalist Muslim.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm glad to see someone with a rational, level head posting on this site. Dosn't happen as much as it should :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well, in america, we use the term "Chinese" for two diffrent things. "Zhongguoren" a person from china, and "Hanren" a ethnic Han (Han was the second dynasty after the waring states era)
Kaiwen may be a Han, ethnicly, but not a Zhongguren, politicaly. I think that's what he means
To negotiate with someone means you have to recognize and acknowledge that person. Or course China isn't going to sit down a negotiate with Taipei if they insist on claiming independence. That would be admitting defeat.
Erm, which is his point. That taiwan does not consider itself part of china, and defies the mainland.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I've never met a US citizen who identifies himself as ethnically American
:)
Well, here you go
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
http://www.redflag-linux.com/english/1
The contents of the file is:
lkdjf
WTF???
Any l337 h4x0r$ know anything about this?
Is it a virus?
--- Jump!! Fire!! Bullet time!! - Lego version of the Matrix
Exactly my point. That Americans are more than willing to extend this sort of benefit of the doubt to their own government, yet assuming that any foreign government behaving in the same way is doing it out of habit?
with a group of people who were *actively* opposing the government and public safety in general.
Sounds a lot like the goings-on in Tiananment Square. The press rarely reported the other side of the story on the true nature of the "pro-democracy" demonstrators, but I assure you it wasn't a pretty picture. They were petty, they were ugly, there was constant infighting amongst the various factions there, and -- per the government -- they were a danger to public safety. Most of the demonstrators were not their for ideological reasons, they were there for the power trip.
This is in no way meant as a defense of the actions of Beijing in supressing the demonstrations. I fully agree it was a rephrensible act. But most of the demonstrators there were not the angelic martyrs the American press made them out to be.
Once again, those were incidents, not standard policy.
But with Beijing it's a matter of policy? Why do you make that assumption? Were the genocidal actions of the American government in the 19th century toward native americans also an "incident", or were they matters of policy?
There is one inaccuracy in your statement, though. There is no secret MiniTrue backdoor in Red Flag, it's wide open to the whole world.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.