Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software

Andy Tai writes: "Taiwan will start a national plan to jump-start the development and use of Free (libre) Software, according to this report by the Central News Agency, the government news agency of Taiwan, Rep. of China. Due to high Microsoft license fees and also to improve the levels of software technology in Taiwan, this plan includes the creation of a totally Chinese free software environment for Taiwan users, free software application development, and training of 120,000 people for free software skills, as well as efforts at schools to provide diverse information technology environments to ensure the freedom of information. The original article is in Chinese; an English summary appears in this Kuro5hin article."

Comments

about time

[SquireCD]

I wonder if MS will listen up... I really is comforting to hear that an entire country will push this thing that most of us do...

This is Asia we're talking about

[ObviousGuy]

Free software has a completely different meaning than what the zealots here like to believe.

Oh, they'll be using free software alright. It'll just be Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office.

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[foniksonik]

ObviousGuy once again lives up to his handle...

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[ObviousGuy]

I was slipping there for a bit... But I'm back on track and ready to point out the Obvious!

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[foniksonik]

"and also to improve the levels of software technology" except for this part I'd say you're right... Microsoft has yet to improve software technology unless you consider marketing the hell out of it an improvement.

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[ObviousGuy]

You'd be surprised. :-(

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[ScottKin]

And Linux has improved "software technology"?

Please enlighten me as to what technological leaps have been provided by Linux? Sharing code is *not* a technological advance. OSS is *not* a new technology.

Oh, you mean "free software" is now a technology?

All of our current computing technology is based on the 1 and the 0 - how can you improve on the good-old 1/0, yes/no, on/off functionality of binary gates?

There are some people doing hard research on computational models beyond binary digital computing, but I can tell you that it's not Microsoft or Linux.

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[caca_phony]

Oh, you mean "free software" is now a technology?

Technicly, if you want to get anal about it, yes, the free software development model is a technology. Methods are technologies. The person you are responding to is probably either lauding the advances Linux has made in kernel technology though (if there are any - I am no kernel expert) or admiring the GNU/Linux system's design, borrowed 100% from the original Unix inventors at Bell Labs.

Re:This is Asia we're talking about

[haizi_23]

yeah right. this is asia we're talking about, and in case you haven't noticed a LARGE proportion of computer science students are asian. as anecdotal evidence: in my grad school classes, i'd say at least 50% of the students are east-asian (most of them mandarin-speaking). now, sure some of those people will choose to work abroad in the u.s. or europe, but many of them out of pride-of-place will repatriate and work at home. so, i wouldn't underestimate their ability to produce software. whether they feel bound by our notion of free software ethics or not (since even the GNU license's strength is based on copyright law) is another question.

best part of the article

[Kargan]

//Also, the national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to the freedom of information.//

Now *that* is what I like to see! Get the next generation started off right.

Re:best part of the article

[gylle]

More importantly, I see great dangers in today's practice of using only Microsoft software in IT education. Our children will grow up to only know how to use this software. This is dangerous in the same way as having an entire wheat field being the exact same cloned genotype. A disease can wipe out the whole crop.

Re:best part of the article

[ObviousGuy]

Or the purity can make them the most damage resistant group on the planet.

Re:best part of the article

[Hadlock]

can you explain your homework bear sig? seems like it's making reference to somthing i should know about

Re:best part of the article

[Edgy Loner]

If I'm not mistaken, it's from a fake Japanese TV show advertised on Saturday Night Live called "The Nude House of Wacky People" It was kind of a weird sitcom. Like what an Americans vision of how the Japanese might make an American sitcom. A recurring feature of the show was a bear outside the front door, and the father would force people outside to fight the bear.
Like I said it was weird.

They will be using this to watch free Episode II.

[thedanceman]

They can't wait to watch Spiderman and Episode II for free with the free copy of Windows XP.

A new definition of "free"

[cascino]

Yes, that's free as in Û"Äèܽ.

Re:A new definition of "free"

[Anonymous Coward]

that's australian for beer?

Re:A new definition of "free"

[Anonymous Coward]

no, it's chinese for "pahsley gahnish" which is australian for "salad"

Re:A new definition of "free"

[mentin]

No, you did not read the post: "use of Free (libre) Software ... Due to high Microsoft license fees"

So they always start with liberty, but end with license fees :)

Which Taiwan?

[scrote-ma-hote]

Now I don't have a TV so can't keep up with the news, (+ too much study), so can I just ask something. Doesn't Taiwan dispute it's association with China? If so, who actually is doing it? The PRC pretending to be Taiwan or the "Taiwanese" government?

Re:Which Taiwan?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is Taiwan, not the PRC, doing it.

Re:Which Taiwan?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the PRC has already been engaged in Free Software initiatives through the creation of a chinese language Linux etc.
The issue for countries in S/E Asia seems to be that Microsoft bullies them as if they were representing the U.S. of A...

Re:Which Taiwan?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, I think Taiwan stopped claiming itself as the "true" China.

It was the old KMT party led by Chiang made the claim. However, Chiang is dead, and Taiwan is no longer ruled by bunch of Mainlanders. Its power is back to the original Taiwanese.

Heh...

[ObviousGuy]

Nary a mention of the GPL in the entire article text.

Re:Heh...

[sffubs]

Except that it is implied by

"Also included are international cooperation on free application software development, with the results freely shared internationally"

which suggests Taiwan is going to continue in the spirit of which 'free software' was intended.

-s

Re:Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

BSD Free, perhaps?

Re:Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not?

I mean, that way M$ can integrate the changes into their O/S and do what the Taiwan government obviously wants: Make a Taiwanese O/S that people have to pay for that isn't free.

Re:Heh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Nor did they mention the LGPL, the MIT license, the BSD license, or any of a dozen other licenses.

Open Source != GPL for all {Open Source}

I think the focus is a good one. Even if they end up using MIT or BSD. Most likely they will allow some freedom in the licenses used.

Re:Heh...

[kz45]

which suggests Taiwan is going to continue in the spirit of which 'free software' was intended

giving away software for free, yes. Following the GNU license, no. If piracy of commercialized applications is rampant in taiwan,what makes you think they are going to follow the GNU license?

All they want is free as in no price software, which is not a good thing for the free software movement.

Re:Heh...

[jbn-o]

Nary a mention of the GPL in the entire article text.

There doesn't need to be. The GNU GPL is not the only Free Software license available.

Since I don't read Chinese I'm hesitant to attempt to interpret the stated intention of the news report. Is there an official English translation anywhere?

The Chinese translation of "Free Software" listed by the GNU project does not appear to be marked up correctly so user agents will render it with the correct font (I see it as "zi4you2 ruan3jian4" in the markup with no suggestion to use an a different language from that of the rest of the document).

Re:Heh...

[pyeh]

Copyright law is a serious matter in Taiwan now (US pushed it hard).

In Chinese language, the "free" in "free software" (Tsi4 Yu2) simply means freedom, no "free of charge" (Mian3 Fay4) can be implied since they are totally different word. So nobody is saying it is free of charge.

But indeed people in Taiwan have the conception that it is much cheaper, which may not be a good thing.

Wrong way to have independence

[phunhippy]

What they should really do to win independence is the following:

Eliminate all free software, Give every citizen pirated copies of Microsoft Windows XP and Office XP plus a plethora of other programs as well.

MS & other big companies freak out over the rampant copyright violations and potential lost revenue and calculate that Taiwan owes them 500 billion dollars or so in license fees!

In light of this CHINA decides it doesn't want that headache of a bill when they re-unify and drops demands for unification of the two countrys(province & country what ever) and now taiwan is free to be their own country(and in trouble with all those licenses they now own)..

Of Course if they proceed to support open source software, china will notice how many good programs and programmers they are turning out and will want to re-unify faster and take the island by force..

See how this can work out only for the worst?

:)

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Mandelbrute]

In light of this CHINA decides it doesn't want that headache of a bill when they re-unify and drops demands for unification of the two countrys(province & country what ever) and now taiwan is free to be their own country(and in trouble with all those licenses they now own)..

Do you realise that China is a lot bigger (and nastier) than microsoft? Forget the conspiracy theories, the agenda is clear - they want something that can easily be modified to fit local conditions, so it's better to be able to modify the source code than wait six months for a service pack (or never) - and have the support for old data vanish every three years or so.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

you are forgetting that taiwan in your example is a country in and unto itself. how can they be in trouble with microsoft, they arent under US law or any other law, if it is the government doing it, then they are under the laws that THEY make, so they cannot be forced to pay any thing. Unless of course microsoft sets up their own independant country or army to invade them....i sure wouldnt put it past them

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it is not a good way. The better way is
to develop a absolutely free good multilingual operating system that everyone cannot live without it (even the PRC). Even the CD is free
and no charge for delivery. Only one catch. In
each bootup, you must answer one question,'
Is Taiwan an independent country?' The answer
must be yes, and the system will boot. For a few
year, people in the world will recognize Taiwan.
Can it work? Look at M$. Some people still
think M$ is the only window system.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

I was told by my professor in Chinese studies that the Chinese believe that plagiarism is actually an honor to one's work. She doesn't understand the guff that American's have about copywright issues. Is this the consensus of Asian culture?

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

"... and have the support for old data vanish every three years or so."

not entirely accurate. In MS world, the support for old data remains, but the old software's ability to read new data gets crippled.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

...they arent under US law or any other law

UMM... International copyright law?

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

That circumstance requires heavy explanation: A) Who is this professor you speak of? B) Weren't there any Chinese in your classroom to deny that claim?

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to "steal" ideas from many is research."

~Anonymous

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Anonymous Coward]

>UMM... International copyright law?

Taiwan has signed to the Berne Convention finally, then?

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[mqduck]

I hope I'm not too off-topic by posting this here...

Behind U.S. support for Tibetan feudalists
by Deirdre Griswold

Very few people who seek an audience with the president of the United States get one. Even heads of state have to line up to see George W. Bush, who boasts of his short work day.

Nevertheless, Bush found time May 23 for a meeting and photo opportunity with the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

The Dalai Lama hasn't been in Tibet for over four decades. He left for India in 1959 to become head of a "government in exile" that represented the former Tibetan feudal ruling class.

The White House dismissed the date of the meeting with Bush--May 23, which was being celebrated in China as the 50th anniversary of the day in 1951 when Tibet was declared peacefully liberated from feudalism and imperialist influence--as a mere "coincidence."

Bush's sit-down with the Dalai Lama came just two days after Taiwan's president, Chen Shui-bian, had an unprecedented dinner meeting with about 20 members of the U.S. Congress.

To the Chinese people, these two political acts embracing secessionist elements are further proof that the Bush administration has embarked on a dangerous anti-China strategy with serious military implications.

Covert U.S. strategy vs. official stance

Tibet has been under Chinese jurisdiction since the 13th century. Today it is an autonomous republic within the People's Republic of China.

The U.S. government's official stance, even after the Chinese Communists swept to power in 1949, has always been to recognize both Taiwan and Tibet as part of China.

When Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek was overthrown by the Chinese people and fled the mainland to set up a U.S.-backed dictatorship on the island of Taiwan, Washington continued to recognize his regime as the government of all China, including Tibet. So how could it argue later that Taiwan and Tibet weren't part of China?

Unofficially and secretly, however, Washington has fomented the secession of both Taiwan and Tibet ever since it became obvious that the revolutionary regime in Beijing was here to stay. As long ago as the 1950s, the Central Intelligence Agency began training Tibetan mercenaries at Camp Hale in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado (see Chicago Tribune of Jan. 25, 1997, and Newsweek of Aug. 16, 1999).

According to the famous "Pentagon Papers," the CIA made 700 flights over Tibet in the 1950s. Dropping mercenaries into the frozen vastness of Tibet didn't work, however. So in recent years the anti-China forces here have focused on a "Free Tibet" campaign that has made inroads in the United States with its well-financed and synchronized promotion of the Dalai Lama as a deeply spiritual mystic fighting a soulless bureaucracy that oppresses his people.

This view takes advantage of the fact that most people in this country know nothing about Tibet except that it has pretty mountains. They are easy prey for a slick campaign romanticizing the "spirituality" of feudal times.

The Chinese people, however, have a much more recent memory of what it was like when all-powerful landlords ruled the countryside.

Life for the serfs

Nine out of 10 Tibetans were serfs at the time of the Chinese Revolution. They owned no land and had no personal freedom. Another 5 percent were hereditary household slaves.

Their toil was backbreaking. Education for the common people was unheard of.

Conditions were so backward that the wheel had no function except for saying prayers. Roads didn't exist.

Back in the 1930s the British, who had been trying for years to add Tibet to their empire in India and had actually staged several armed incursions, made a present of an automobile to the Dalai Lama. Since Tibet had no paved roads, the auto had to be dismantled and carried to Lhasa on draft animals.

The nobles, upper-ranking lamas in monasteries and administrative officials, together made up less than 5 percent of the population. Yet they owned all of Tibet's farmland, pastures, forests, mountains and rivers as well as most livestock.

The current Dalai Lama became part of this owning class when at the age of 2 he was taken from his family by the monks to be groomed as a demigod. Before that he was just a toddler named Lhamo Toinzhub.

Serfs were really slaves belonging to landowners. According to a white paper prepared in 1992 by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China (available online at chineseculture.about.com): "Sometimes they were traded as payment for debts. According to historical records, in 1943 the aristocrat Chengmoim Norbu Wanggyai sold 100 serfs to a monk official at Garzhol Kamsa, in Zhigoin area, at the cost of 60 liang of Tibetan silver (about four silver dollars) per serf. He also sent 400 serfs to the Gundelin Monastery as mortgage for a debt of 3,000 pin Tibetan silver (about 10,000 silver dollars).

"Serf owners had a firm grip on the birth, death and marriage of serfs. Male and female serfs not belonging to the same owner had to pay 'redemption fees' before they could marry. In some cases, an exchange was made with a man swapped for man and a woman for woman. In other cases, after a couple wedded, the ownership of both husband and wife remained unchanged, but their sons would belong to the husband's owner and their daughters to the wife's owner. Children of serfs were registered the moment they were born, setting their life-long fate as serfs."

Serfdom, whether in Europe during the most backward feudal period or in China more recently, was a ruthless system of exploitation through usury and corvee--unpaid labor that the landlords assessed on the serfs, like taxes.

The Chinese white paper continues: "Incomplete statistics indicate the existence of more than 200 categories of corvee taxes levied by the Gaxag (Tibetan local government). The corvee assigned by Gaxag and manorial lords accounted for over 50 percent of the labor of serf households, and could go as high as 70-80 percent.

"According to a survey conducted before the Democratic Reform, the Darongqang Manor owned by Regent Dagzhag of the 14th Dalai Lama had a total of 1,445 ke [a ke is about one sixth of an acre] of land, and 81 able-bodied and semi-able-bodied serfs. They were assigned a total of 21,260 corvee days for the whole year, the equivalent of an entire year's labor by 67.3 people. In effect, 83 percent of the serfs had to do corvee for one full year.

"The serfs engaged in hard labor year in and year out and yet had no guaranteed food or clothing. Often they had to rely on money borrowed at usury to keep body and soul together."

Class law

Tibetan law divided people into three classes and nine ranks. Inequality was stipulated in the law. The codes said:

"It is forbidden to quarrel with a worthy, sage, noble and descendant of the ruler."

"Persons of the lower rank who attack those of the upper rank, and a junior official who quarrels with a senior official commit a serious crime and so should be detained."

"Anyone who resists a master's control should be arrested."

"A commoner who offends an official should be arrested."

"Anyone who voices grievances at the palace, behaving disgracefully, should be arrested and whipped."

Any socially conscious person in the United States knows that while everyone is supposedly subject to the same law, it is applied differently to rich and poor. But in Tibet the law itself demanded different punishment for the same crime depending on class and rank.

The law concerning the penalty for murder said, "As people are divided into different classes and ranks, the value of a life correspondingly differs." The lives of people of the highest rank of the upper class, such as a prince or leading Living Buddha, were calculated in gold equal to the weight of the dead body. The lives of people of the lowest rank of the lower class, such as women, butchers, hunters and craftsmen, were worth "a straw rope."

Servants who injured their masters would have their hands or feet chopped off; a master who injured a servant was responsible only for the medical treatment of the wound, with no other compensation required.

A saying among serfs was, "All a serf can carry away is his own shadow, and all he can leave behind is his footprints."

The Chinese Revolution eventually ended serfdom in Tibet. Those among the former rulers who resisted democratic change were then embraced by the CIA--which according to the Chicago Tribune article gave a special retainer to the Dalai Lama of $180,000 a year during the 1960s to keep a government in exile in Nepal.

Today's budget for this high-powered anti-China campaign has not yet been revealed.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[saforrest]

I don't think you're offtopic, but I do think you should have revealed your source. It wasn't until I got to the bit about serfs that I realized I was reading a communist tract. I appreciate the need to explode propangandist myths about Tibet and the Dalai Lama, and I think the description of pre-Communist serfdom is believable and probably not far off the mark. But I think the one-sided presentation of China as egalitarian liberator is almost or equally false. It's forgivable in propaganda that identifies itself as such, though, and that's why I think you should have identified your source.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Kaiwen]

Taiwan has signed to the Berne Convention finally, then?

Not sure on this. However, as a member of the World Trade Organization, Taiwan is subject to international IP agreements. In addition, Taiwan has been trying to clear itself from the US '301' list -- which carries the threat of trade sanctions -- by cracking down on rampant piracy.

Re:Wrong way to have independence

[Kaiwen]

She doesn't understand the guff that American's have about copywright issues. Is this the consensus of Asian culture?

Not sure precisely what your professor meant. However, there is quite a large gap between their respective citizenries' conceptions of intellectual property rights and, say, Microsoft's. Basically, the reasoning goes, having shelled out the bucks for the CD, it's mine to do with as I choose: buy once, run everywhere. The whole notion of 'licensing' software just seems to slide right off the public conciousness.

One must also not underestimate the influence of MS pricing policies. When I went hunting for a new PC recently, every package included the full suite of MS software -- always pirated. There wasn't a store to be found that included legitimate software; with razor-thin profit margins, the price gouge would put them out of business. In short, Taiwan cannot afford Microsoft.

Dispute with Microsoft

[Overcoat]

Taiwan has been recently involved in some legal hassles with Microsoft over licensing fees and excessive price increases. I wonder if this plan is a genuine effort to use free software just a bluff to put a scare into Microsoft?

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ObviousGuy]

It's rich how a country that is on the list of top offenders of IP piracy is claiming damages from Microsoft.

It may just be a theory, but XP's copy protection scheme may be the thing that's pissing them off the most.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[Qrlx]

Maybe MS has pushed too far. Better to have a few people actually pay for the SW and pirate it than the Govt. realize that they can't afford it, will get caught pirating, and thus are forced to look to alternatives.

(I remember my old man, back in the Glory Days of the Reagan Era, telling me how much pirated software was in use at the US Copyright office.)

Or maybe this sort of thing is just what MS wants. Bill Gates, in conjunction with the Bush Administration, will Release Microsoft Windows, Patriot Edition. Only Americans will be allowed to use it, and instead of phoning home to Microsoft, it will make your modem dial 1-800-ASHCROFT every night at 10PM.

Taiwan and that senator from Peru will be labeled "open source terrorists." RMS will be hung from his toenails atop the Space Needle, which is probably not such a bad thing after all. All Apache servers will be added to the target lists of Apache helicopters, as thousands of Dying FreeBSD admins learn another meaning of the term "firewall."

I don't know what to make of Microsoft's attempts to cash in on the mythical BSA "money lost due to pirates" revenue stream. Many dot-coms operated at a loss trying to establish market share, but MS already has that. Will their efforts to get everyone to pay up pay off?

Is Taiwan guilty of being an IP offender? Or are they simply willing to cop to the fact that most people can't quite see what's wrong with "borrowing" their friend's CD and installing like crazy.

Imagine how different the world would be today if Gutenberg and Martin Luther had "respected" The Church's IP claims to printing and literacy?

I believe we are living in a dark age, and that the IP revolution may bring us a new Renaissance.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ObviousGuy]

Is Taiwan guilty of being an IP offender? Or are they simply willing to cop to the fact that most people can't quite see what's wrong with "borrowing" their friend's CD and installing like crazy.

According to the article:

Taiwan is racing against time to wipeout copyright piracy as it seeks to be expunged from Washington's "Special 301 Priority Watchlist" of intellectual property offenders.

So they obviously know that what is going on is WRONG and are working hard to get rid of the "sharing" cancer.

Of course, they realize that this is probably easier to do by "sharing" software that was meant to be shared instead of software that was meant to be used productively.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

The reason was that they pirated the software, not that their license-fees was very high.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ScottKin]

Whoa, Nellie!!

...mythical BSA "money lost due to pirates" revenue stream.

Mythical?

You buy a copy of Microsoft XP. You burn 20 copies and give one to everyone in your company (let' say, for the point of conversation that the number we're talking about is 20)

XP costs around US$89.00

$89.00 X 20 = $1,780.00

$1,780.00 - $89.00 = $1,691.00

You just stole $1,691.00 from Microsoft.

WHY people just can't grasp those facts is beyond me - I think it's some kind of mental deficiency that says that it's not ok to steal a Snickers bar from the corner store, but it's perfectly ok to steal software by copying it.

Oh, and trying to use the "photocopying a book" example is a bunch of bovine fertilizer, because all you are doing is making an inferior copy of the contents of the book and not a nearly-exact duplicate of the book (paper, binding, cover, etc).

I'm proud to be a regular contributor to the PIRACY@MICROSOFT.COM email address, and in the past have reported more than 30 warez sites and have seen those sites taken down for software piracy.

Enjoy the Ride!

ScottKin

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[T-Ranger]

There is a reason why there is a distinction beteween "theft" and "theft of service". Because there is a distinction.

In your example, this person did not steal $1,691.00 from microsoft. It is the theft of a potential sale. Not everyone who runs pirated software would purchase it if they could not get it otherwise.

Clearly since these 20 people are using pirated software they are unwilling to spend the money on XP. Why do you think that everyone that uses software is willing to spend money on it?

Stealing a snickers bar is infinitly different. Effen had to purchase supplies to make the bar, and then distribute it. There is a very large incremental cost in producing a tangable item such as a choclate bar. In your example, someone is buring 20 copies of XP. There was zero incremental cost to Microsoft in that operation.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[BinxBolling]

You just stole $1,691.00 from Microsoft.

The basic problem with this sort of math is that it assumes that every pirated copy counts as a lost sale. That simply isn't the case -- in many cases, the pirate is taking something that he wouldn't have paid for, anyways. A college student on a limited budget who installs an illegal copy of XP probably would have just done without had that pirated copy not been available.

Further, in some cases, piracy may actually contribute to sales, over the long term. A student who pirates software may get in the habit of using that software, and after leaving school, start paying for it -- without piracy, he might not have developed that habit. And there's the "try-before-you-buy" piracy that can help sales, too: many are loath to pay a large amount of money for a piece of software when they don't know whether or not it will do the required job.

WHY people just can't grasp those facts is beyond me - I think it's some kind of mental deficiency that says that it's not ok to steal a Snickers bar from the corner store, but it's perfectly ok to steal software by copying it.

Nonsense. When you steal a Snickers bar from the store, there is one less Snickers bar at the store. When you 'steal' a copy of XP by downloading it from a warez site, MS still has the same number of copies.

Now my point here isn't that piracy is okay. My point is simply that there is a logical difference between stealing physical goods and 'stealing' IP. Conflating the two is an attempt to get an emotional response.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[AxelBoldt]

You just stole $1,691.00 from Microsoft.

No you didn't, because had you stolen $1,691.00 from MS, you would be prosecuted for theft.

Had you been a bit more careful, your actions wouldn't even have been a crime: stay below $1000 and copying without profit motive is no crime, just a civil offense. Should MS sue, just declare bankruptcy and they are left with the legal costs on top of the $1,691.

Enjoy the ride!

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[Jesus IS the Devil]

Excuse me? The last time I checked a whole lot of English-speaking Americans were for Napster and piracy. Heck that whole concept was created in the Good Ol' US of A!

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ralphbecket]

This is specious.

Let me draw an analogy. Say I spend a significant amount of time and money doing some research and I am awarded a patent for the results. (For the sake of argument, let us assume that the research was non-trivial and the patent is justified.) I plan to recoup the cost of the research by licensing the rights to my patented technology. Now you come along, reasoning thus: "I could really benefit from using Ralph's patented technology, but I am unwilling to pay for it. Therefore I am justified in using Ralph's technology and not paying for the right to do so, since I will not be stealing material good from Ralph." Have I lost out? Certainly. You are expecting to make a profit at my expense, yet I am not reimbursed for my effort and investment. The only reason I carried out the research in the first place was to make a living. Note that it is up to me to decide the licensing fee - if I set it too high, law abiding/socially responsible people will look for alternatives and I will lose out. If I set it too low with respect to the number of customers, I also lose out. You may disagree with my decision on the fee, but I am the one taking the risk.

The same argument also works for software (and music and so forth...)

So, going back to your original post, you seem to be advocating that "theft [of material goods]" is bad, but "theft of service [or freely reproducible goods]" carries no guilt.

I take it that you are not considering a career where revenue is generated from IP?

- Ralph

p.s. Given the excitable nature of this forum, I feel bound to point out that while I feel that current IP legislation is up the creek, I also believe that making a living from IP is perfectly reasonable.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[T-Ranger]

I never said theft of a service was acceptable. My point is that (for this example) Microsoft diddnt loose 20x(cover price). Does Microsoft loose money to pirates? Sure. Do they loose pirated_copies*list_price? No. Not everyone who uses pirated software would have purchased it.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ralphbecket]

I would argue that MS has lost pirated_copies * list_price.

It works like this:

• if everyone (n) pays list price (p) for what they use, then MS grosses n * p;
  
• however, if some number of criminals (c) do not pay for what they use, then MS only grosses (n - c) * p.
  

Net result: MS is out of pocket by c * p.

Put another way, pirating from MS effectively reduces the list price - the honest types end up subsidising the criminals (one might assume that MS has taken expected piracy into account when deciding on the list price.)

Under this line of reasoning, the fact that some users of the pirated software would never have paid even if they were willing and able to is neither here nor there: the fact is that either MS gets shafted if they assume 100% honesty when setting prices or the honest consumers get shafted because MS doesn't assume 100% honesty and consequently hikes up the price.

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazing... I'm browsing at +2 and I see multiple trolls modded up from the same guy.

He practically has troll branded on his forehead (ObviousGuy makes it sound like he intends to be this way, so I don't feel I'm being insulting), but the moderators... what? can't SPOT an obvious troll? Geeze.

"Of course, they realize that this is probably easier to do by "sharing" software that was meant to be shared instead of software that was meant to be used productively."

Open source - software for sharing
closed source - software for productivity
Mmm.
Other things the guy says are just as obvious, and he's still getting rated up.

Did someone promote the other trolls to moderators?

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Did someone promote the other trolls to moderators?

There is this theory that moderators all smoke crack. But like evolution, it's just a theory.

;-)

OG

Re:Dispute with Microsoft

[ScottKin]

No you didn't, because had you stolen $1,691.00 from MS, you would be prosecuted for theft...

...which is exactly what I assisted Microsoft in doing when I reported 7 Warez sites who were "distributing" Windows 95 and valid Windows 95 CD Keys and KeyGens, subsequently bringing those sites down permamently and having Microsoft prosecute the site owners.

'nuff said!

ScottKin

Another Article ( in English )

[wenzi]

This one is a little confusing at the start. But what can you expect, the rest of their reporters are a Computex.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/news/2002/06/04/story/0 000138868

www.artsiv.net

The problem..

[neksys]

The problem is that Taiwan is a relatively poor country in comparison to the Western powers. A large-scale shift to open-source, free software will do little in terms of affecting Microsoft's sales. What I'd like to see is a country like Canada take a real stand, and make an effort to use open source software in schools and such. I can guarantee that Microsoft has a significant enough investment in it's northern neighbor that such an act would certainly cause it to at least take a closer look at its business practices.

Re:The problem..

[ObviousGuy]

Taiwan's economy is half the size of Canada's. It is by no means small.

Canada
GDP: purchasing power parity - $774.7 billion (2000 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 4.3% (2000 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $24,800 (2000 est.)

Taiwan
GDP: purchasing power parity - $386 billion (2000 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 6.3% (2000 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $17,400 (2000 est.)

Re:The problem..

[bruthasj]

Hmm. That's ignorant. Taiwan is far from a poor country. Just a hint, go here: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ tw.html

And look at the percentage of people below the poverty line. Ok?

I live in Taiwan and there is more BMW's / Mercedes driving around than I have ever seen. (Never been to Germany ... ) Of course, the CIA world factbook actually has better measures of "wealth" than what I have stated.

Re:The problem..

[neksys]

My apologies, I didn't state that very well. The point I was trying to make is that the total amount of money ending up in Microsoft's hands from Taiwan is certainly less than my example, Canada. And geographically speaking, Canada would make a greater impact.

For the record, however, the poverty line is generally a poor indicator of the wealth of a country, as it is a relative measure. The poverty line is the bare minimum income needed to adequately feed and house a single person. In Taiwan's case, staples such as rice would be next to nothing in terms of cost, which may skew the poverty line indication (not that that's the case, as I've never been to Taiwan, just commenting)

Re:The problem..

[jeorgen]

The problem is that Taiwan is a relatively poor country in comparison to the Western powers.

Taiwan is not particularly poor it. According to the CIA fact book it had a GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity of $17,400 (2000 est.).

This is more or less on par with EU countries, although admittedly a little poorer than the US.

/jeorgen

Re:The problem..

[martyn s]

I think it's really amazing that only 1% of people there are below the poverty line, and 12.7% of people here are below the poverty line.

I'm in no way doubting that there are way too many people in the US that are below the poverty line, but how accurate is that data about taiwan? 1%. I wish people would stop embracing cutthroat capitalism here. I doesn't always work, and it isn't always efficient.

Re:The problem..

[IkeTo]

Absolute crap. When the software of the whole world is dominated by MS products (at least, many categories of software), and when Taiwan is a major computer equipment user (and also producer), will you remotely think that it has been using only minor $$s in pleasing MS?

And... the "switch" only make sense if you have to pay a lot of money to MS.

Re:The problem..

[zoccav]

A large-scale shift to open-source, free software will do little in terms of affecting Microsoft's sales.
In Free Software terms, the user base is a more significant factor than economic size. If a country like Taiwan can do this other countries will follow certainly.

Re:The problem..

[elgaard]

Why should we care about Microsoft sales?
I care about Open Source momentum.
Besides this could mean even better support for hardware. Soon all those Taiwanese engeeners will
see their kids running Linux on the hardware they
design.

Re:The problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

Taiwan is capitalist. Your point is?... Cutthroat capitalism always works in its pure form. America is a hybrid capitalist/socialist.

Re:The problem..

[hexxx]

According to CIA factbook for example: Taiwan: Population below poverty line: 1% (1999 est.) US: Population below poverty line: 12.7% (1999 est.)

Re:The problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sairasta se :-)

Re:The problem..

[Tackhead]

> I'm in no way doubting that there are way too many people in the US that are below the poverty line, but how accurate is that data about taiwan? 1%. I wish people would stop embracing cutthroat capitalism here. I doesn't always work, and it isn't always efficient.

Funny, I wish people would start embracing cutthroat capitalism here :)

Hong Kong and Taiwan didn't build their economies up from nothing via redistributionism.

Re:The problem..

[Galvatron]

Purchasing power parity is an inappropriate measure of wealth in this case. What Microsoft cares about is the size of the market in US dollars. PPP may be more fair in determining standard of living, but not the size of the software market.

That being said, yes, Taiwan is a wealthy nation.

Re:The problem..

[martyn s]

Ok this reply is for the other reply too.

I think my original post was just misdirected frustration.

Please excuse the post, I wrote it really late at night, and the night before I only got two hours of sleep. It was pretty off-topic, and the post wasn't developed, and it didn't bother to explain anything, so that's what this post is for.

The fact is, I also would like pure capitalism, but what passes for capitalism these days just isn't. Monopolies do not represent capitalism. Extremely powerful IP priveleges do not reflect capitalism. I think we just need to put things in perspective.

I've always been a strong market defender, but that side of me has withered in response to the extreme and irrational views some people have, totally beyond what I used to defend.

People seem to mix up the side effects of capitalism, and the benefits of capitalism, and after a while their point of view is so warped, that when they see only the side effects, they still believe that means capitalism is working.

There are certain things that are paid for by the public, and are available free of charge. Like roads. This isn't socialism, it's based purely on market principles. The market principles are those that say it is inefficient to charge for something with no scarcity, no matter how high the fixed cost (initial investment) is. If you charge for something that has no scarcity, you are limiting how many people can use it, and are therefore raising the cost/usage ratio.

So I just think we, as a country, need to embrace the idea of having more things be publicly funded, like art and science. I don't think we should get rid of IP priveleges, because I don't want public funding and the organizations that allocate that money to have the final word on art and science, but I do think we'd all benefit from more publicly funded projects which generate "intellectual property" except if it were publicly funded, no one could own it exclusively.

As I said in an earlier post, check my history, it's been shown that scientific research is always more effective when it's publicly funded AND open to the public. Scientists who work at corporations get a set salary, just like they'd get a set salary under a public project. So clearly IP priveleges aren't incentive to innovate, but incentive to sponsor. And we don't need corporate sponsorship when they end up charging us ten times what it would cost to develop what they've developed with public dollars. And yes, it has been show, pretty much irrefutably, that this is the case. Check out Steal this idea, Michael Perelman (link to everyones favorite patent abuser!) to learn more.

And not only do they charge us ten times what it would cost if it were discovered through public research, they also keep their science secret, cutting it's utility by literally ten fold.

So, capitalism is great, and I was pretty much drunk on sleep deprivation when I wrote otherwise. But what we have here isn't capitalism. And having the public put money towards science and art doesn't make our economy any less capitalist, except in the sense that there will be less maldistribution of wealth. And no, I don't advocate redistribution of wealth. But I don't think we should faciliate the process of putting most of the money in the hands of the few.

Is it a coincidence that the jobs that some people complain make too much money are the ones that are very strongly protected by IP laws? I used to defend athletes and actors for making what they make, since "they bring in their employers that much money, so that's what their worth". And that's true, so I don't blame athletes and actors. I do however blame the laws that make the problem worse.

The ironic thing is, movie studios and sports franchises would probably not make any less money if there were less IP priveleges. Since having good and famous athletes and actors are so critical to making money in these industries, they manage to suck out all the extra profit from them, leaving them exactly where they would've been without IP priveleges.

I was watching 60 minutes on sunday, and during the andy rooney segment he was just discussing some of the random letters he's received. One of them said that he was quoted in some book that the NFL is putting out, and so they sent him a check for 300$. He said "that's it, 300$? but how come every time our news network wants to show an NFL clip, we have to pay 4500$?"

I think I made my point pretty clear. Reply if you want me to explain anything. I know that there are certain points that might seem flawed, but I'm not about to write a book on the subject, and you are not about to read one, so I can't cover every angle. I assure you I'm not shortsighted in this matter. So if you do have an objection, just reply and I'll try to explain my position.

Sorry for the idiotic post. Like I said I was tired, and I was feeling particularly frustrated. Well, at least it motivated me to write this here, now.

Re:The problem..

[kz45]

According to CIA factbook for example: Taiwan: Population below poverty line: 1% (1999 est.) US: Population below poverty line: 12.7% (1999 est.)

If you also look, they have almost no social programs. Which explains a lot.

Re:The problem..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it is. Please read up on the so-called "land-reform" of 1953-1956. Basically because the Chinese KMT regime has no legitmancy amount Taiwanese, they resorted to divide-and-conquor class warfare. Taiwanese gentry was stripped of their lands which later redistributed to their sharecroppers.

The divide-and-conquor worked. And martial law was in place til 1987-88. The sharecropper families realized that a government that can give them land can also take it away. And the gentry was gravely weaken to resist. It's know as the era of white terror.

The redistribution has two effects, an inefficient farming system that create surplus labor for industrialization, and a displaced leadership class to lead the charge. During the martial law era, Taiwanese natives were discriminated against at the "power sector", government, military, academia, etc. So like Jews who faced similiar discrimation, the best and brightest member of Taiwanese gentry become businessmen and industrialists when they otherwise would become government Mandarins, educators, or other careers for gentleman under East Asian tradition.

After WWII, Philipine was better of then Taiwan, but their land gentry continued their old ways, and now they fall behind. So the "land-reform" has its benefit. Not that I don't miss my share, which after subdivision with extended family, will be smaller than my kitchen. After all, it's in the family since 1661, when they fought against Dutch East Indie Company in the first war against Globalization.

GPL and the future

[Anonymous Coward]

Say what you will about Stallman, but I get the feeling GPL code of today will outlive all of us. No other license allows code to survive like the GPL.

Re:GPL and the future

[Derleth]

Say what you will about Stallman, but I get the feeling GPL code of today will outlive all of us. No other license allows code to survive like the GPL.

If Stallman had anything to shout about
Free software will outlive us all without any doubt!

(To the tune of 'I Like Chinese', which RMS certainly would at this point.)

Humor (?) aside, it is great that liberated software is becoming so popular these days around the world. Europe, Asia, and South America are all falling to GNU/Linux (Never underestimate the power of the Free Side.), and it seems that the US is the only nation of any importance to the computer field that isn't going GNU/Linux. Redmond is too powerful here, I suppose, and GNU/Linux will be the third horse in a two-horse race in the US for the forseeable future. (BeOS being the llama, and the Amiga being the emu.)

Re:GPL and the future

[Anonymous Coward]

The Amiga will never die! Fool!

Erm, right. Anyway, I'm betting MS will start getting less and less popular as time goes on, and as Free software is distributed and used more and more around the globe.

Some might say it's like metric/imperial - "Oh, everyone will just know to convert." Back when that was a factor, the world depended on us more than we on them. Nowadays, it's a global economy, baby, our motherboards are made in .. Taiwan. Our cars come mostly from Japan and Germany. Et cetera, et cetera. Not to mention the profits that are reaped by our own companies selling overseas.

If Linux takes the rest of the world, Microsoft will either become compatable, or die. (And if Linux *does* take the rest of the world, by that time, Open Office should be looking damned sweet. :))

Re:GPL and the future

[Derleth]

If Linux takes the rest of the world, Microsoft will either become compatable, or die.

Or use Senator Hollings to pass anti-Open Source laws that effectively make GNU software in general 'terrorist tools'. Never underestimate the sheer will of that bastard corporation to hang on, through good or ill, no matter who it pisses off.

Free software -- they already have it

[Anonymous Coward]

With all the piracy going on, pretty much all software in Taiwan is "free" :)

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[martyn s]

Well libre, while more precise than "free," doesn't have the same implications that "free" has. Like "free"dom of speech. Or "hey, this is a free country". And the fact that most "libre" software is also "free" (gratis) doesn't hurt.

And not only that, libre is awkward to look at, and to pronounce, at least to pronounce following conventional american english pronunciations. It wouldn't have to follow convention if it were a common word, but it's not, so you lose, on all counts.

Taiwan switching to English?

[codeButcher]

"... this plan includes the creation of a totally Chinese free software environment for Taiwan users..."

????????

Re:Taiwan switching to English?

[Anonymous Coward]

No they're making sure those TurboLinux bastards in Mainland China have no say in the matter. Hence Chinese free. It will be a Taiwanese system.

Re:Taiwan switching to English?

[Derleth]

It means 'a free software environment completely in the Chinese language'.

Which is what a Taiwanese user would want, one might suppose.

Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious ... the lack of mention of Linux (perhaps I skimmed too quickly) brought something to my attention ...

Why do you think that (it seems) Linux is chosen more often than the other free operating systems? For example, the Germany/IBM/Linux deal, the elementary schools in the Pacific Northwest, etc etc.

Granted, I run *bsd exclusively these days (read: not flamebait/troll/a zealot ... I'm just used to the 'bsd way'), so I am a little curious why Linux gets chosen over them. To me, it seems that a lot of these 'deals' are riding the coattails of the Linux 'fad' that has been going on for a few years.

I'm the first to admit ... *bsd is behind Linux in support for new hardware, a lot of commercial and/or pre-compiled software, but, these can't be the only factors. Is it the licensing?

--m

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Free Dump of Bullshit [sic]. Need I say more.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

to clarify ... i think is a totally cool idea, especially getting the youth into alternative operating systems.

... my mom is a principle of a small (~120) elementary parochial school, so their budget for computing is very small. all of their systems get donated and are a number of years behind (486s, original pentiums, etc).

to help cut down on costs, i am converting their computer lab from w9x to a free unix.

is there any reason i should pick linux instead of another free operating system? web, email, word processing, imaging, spreadsheets, etc, are available on pretty much everything. what makes one better than the other?

--m

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Kids in an elementary school will most ilkely see Windows as an outdated system by the time they finish high school. Besides, once they learn Linux, they will have learned enought that Windows will just be a subset of their knowledge.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is a human nature to want to go with a winner. Among free operating systems, Linux is the clear cut winner. It isn't even close. And having lived in Taiwan, it is fair to say that the Taiwanese are a practical people. When you start with Linux as a free operating system, you are automatically stacking the cards in your favor. Now too with Red Flag Linux becoming the official operating system for mainland China and its 1000 million people, the trend in Asia is plainly evident.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

i'm not disputing that linux is the undisputed winner ... but what has made it the undisputed winner?

i forgot the economics term, but, all things being equal, what makes linux the better choice?

thanks

--m

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Granted, I run *bsd exclusively these days (read: not flamebait/troll/a zealot ... I'm just used to the 'bsd way'), so I am a little curious why Linux gets chosen over them. To me, it seems that a lot of these 'deals' are riding the coattails of the Linux 'fad' that has been going on for a few years.

Calling Linux a fad on /.? You got balls. Regardless, you must understand that Linux became a buzzword because it really does work. It's a very low-cost server solution for small to mid range companies. In the right environment it can scale to "enterprise" levels as well. I'd also venture to say that it's not Linux itself that is the "fad" but rather open source in general. Linux is often regarded as the flagship of the OSS movement.

I'm the first to admit ... *bsd is behind Linux in support for new hardware, a lot of commercial and/or pre-compiled software, but, these can't be the only factors. Is it the licensing?

I think you just hit the nail on the head really. Hardware support is paramount these days with an open source OS. Of course, the folks who control BSD have only themselves to blame. Their strict control over what gets it an what does not is somewhat intimidating. Ironically, this is what I like the most about BSD. They have high standards for everything which makes for a stable platform. But when that platform only recently started taking SMP seriously, doesn't support some feature of XYZ raid card to get the most out of my hardware my choice becomes clear.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux has a popular story attached. People like the penguin. It's really as simple as that. I like OpenBSD myself. But any *bsd has far superior man pages, at least.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

many cautions to elementary schools switching to linux.. Your students will grow up to be UNIX hackers. Not that's it's a bad thing, personally I'd rather see less though. Less competition for me. =) *grin*

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

I totally disagree....
It's true that Linux is popular.
Yes.
But OpenBSD is the only free OS that is designed from the start with SECURITY in mind and not just as whta current Linux provide. There are arguments around the webs that Open Source software is far superior than closed ones. However remember that SECURITY SHOULD BE DESIGNED.....and that's when OpenBSD come into play.....just read the book "Building Firewall with Linux / OpenBSD" and you will agree.

THIS IS DANGEROUS INFLECTION point for all of us in oopen source community, because sometime ago I read in internet that M$ is planning to build its next OS baseed on Open BSD....

I have read that there is SELinux and other "security enhanced" Linux distribution. But...it is still piecemeal and reactive solution compare to Open BSD....WAKE UP Linux people.....!!!!

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

i dont know if linux is so much a "fad" as an awareness. A fad is a "passing arbitrary like or dislike." In terms of seeking an emancipatory break from corporate dominance, i dont think people are making an arbitrary choice in seeking linux solutions. rather, i think that a critical mass of people are becoming aware of the potential of (free, public domain) linux solutions to replace corporate products. i dont see this sentiment nor the collective consciousness going anywhere soon.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[Anonymous Coward]

For me personally it is not primarily the licensing, although the GPL is brilliant. Before dumping Microsoft Windows/DOS I looked at other OS's. The popularity of Linux was a big reason why I picked it over BSD. I figured it would have more apps and make progress faster than BSD. Also, I like the penguin better than the devil. Finally, BSD seems less respectful of users. That's a gross generalization and admittedly ignorant (not flamebait, please). Linux makes a good first impression, and for normal users that does indeed matter.

When it comes to government contracts, I think the same dynamics are in play. Linux looks friendlier. Using software with a "safe" public image eliminates one more headache for officials whose job security depends on not irritating the public. That's probably also why companies like IBM and HPQ are comfortable promoting Linux. They don't have to explain "free" or "open," which are ideological and could embroil them in controversy. They just deliver free and open and put a cute little penguin on it. Ka-ching.

Re:Linux, FreeBSD, Others?

[williewang]

It's just exposure, as you suggest. The lawsuit hell that the BSD flavors went through really hurt them--particularly when it coincided with Linux's rise in popularity.

Personally, I think the FreeBSD license makes more sense than the GPL--certainly for commercial markets--and will become more and more the OS of choice for those areas that can benefit from an Open Source OS.

But, in an extremely general sense, *BSD is to Linux as Linux is to M$. People in management (read: buzz word literate only) are starting to feel comfortable saying "perhaps Linux could be used here." For FreeBSD, the response is commonly, "what's that?"

As people become more familiar with both Linux and *BSD, people will be able to weigh the pros and cons of using either. OpenBSD here, Linux there, FreeBSD over there, which is the ultimate goal, right? Choice! Hallelujah!

Look at what Taiwan produces

[Anonymous Coward]

I have never heard of any large software companies from Taiwan, but I have heard a lot about factories making computer chips. There are no or little loss to Taiwan when it comes to making software free. Doing the same thing in the states will make 100,000s of people have no job, no income. There are no money in free software (what redhat makes is peanuts after all) after all.

The reason I don't use much commercial software is because I'm cheap, nothing else. I belive that is the same reason why people steal movies, music, software, etc. You want it all, but you don't want to pay, yet you want someone to pay you.

Re:Look at what Taiwan produces

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you for your accurate portrayal of utter cluelessness .

Re:Look at what Taiwan produces

[danro]

. You want it all, but you don't want to pay, yet you want someone to pay you.

Wouldn't that be an accurate description of the way to success in a capitalist society?
Just look at Bill Gates or Jack Valenti...

Re:Look at what Taiwan produces

[Anonymous Coward]

"You want it all, but you don't want to pay, yet you want someone to pay you."

That's a very un-flattering description of the philosophy of socialism. Basically the belief that society owes you a living, whether or not you can/will work to earn it. It is society's duty to care for all of its members.

Capitalism is all about the prize going to the person who can best satisfy a given demand. Most people, however, either lack the time or are unable to make an educated decision when it comes to software. The secret behind M$ \/\/1n|)0W5 is that M$ is good at convincing people that their needs have been satisfied. The vast majority of consumers do not actually demand reliable and robust software that's worth what they paid. They demand software that they think is reliable and robust and worth what they paid.

Re:Look at what Taiwan produces

[tjwei]

Trend anti-virus software Pccline and Powerdvd Powervcr are from Taiwan.

Interesting Point...

[BlackGriffen]

Should people start lobbying the states/federal government to impose another penalty on M$: a boycott of Microsoft products? All the government agencies are big customers, after all, and hold enormous influence over the purchasing decisions of many other clients. Even if the states fail to get stiffer penalties, they could still hit Microsoft where it counts: right in the pocket book.

Does anyone else think we should start lobbying for this?

BlackGriffen

Re:Interesting Point...

[s390]

Should people start lobbying the states/federal government to impose another penalty on M$: a boycott of Microsoft products?

Well, one wouldn't use the term "boycott" as it's rather loaded with left-wing connotations. But some professional IT managers in government agencies at all levels (Federal, State, and Local) are way ahead of you. Many of them are ticked-off at Microsoft's heavy-handed "marketing tactics" (i.e., character assassination and thinly veiled extortion) and the high costs of Microsoft's new annual software rental licensing and forced upgrades, and they are looking at alternatives, including especially Open Source.

Government MIS managers are a fairly buttoned-down bunch (they're civil service staff, after all), but if you listen to a convention of them talking about the escalating hassles and expenses of Microsoft software, you'll hear four common complaints: (1) security and stability problems, missing/late/buggy patches, and high maintenance labor costs, (2) arrogant sales reps going "over their heads" and denigrating their management judgement to their bosses at the first sign of hesitation about signing up for annual software rental licenses, (3) threats to force costly and disruptive software license audits if they don't toe the line, and (4) the high costs of Microsoft software licensing and support expenses. Many IT managers in government either can't afford to pay for annual software "upgrades" they don't really need or resent Microsoft's strong-arm approach, or both, and are looking for ways to reduce or even totally eliminate their dependance on Microsoft software. Lots of them are looking at Open Source for a way out.

So yes, lobbying government politicians to open up software procurement to competition, use public taxpayers' money to acquire Open Source software that is freely available and open for inspection, eliminate the software monoculture that enables security vulnerabilities and pandemic infections, discourage sole-source and no-bid software contracts, and reduce public software costs... might be very helpful to public IT management. Polite letters to legislators, board members, and the heads of agencies can help.

The Key is Drivers!

[monopole]

As we all know, many of the critical components for computers are produced in Taiwan. If the nation itself shifts toward free software, Taiwanese computer producers will have a considerable interest in producing drivers for free OSes. In paticular, laptops might suddenly become more Linux compliant.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Arandir]

There are 23 definitions of "free" in my English dictionary. Only two of them relate to monetary cost. Therefore, without even knowing French, I surmise that "libre" has 21 meanings.

The term "libre software" is loaded with political ideology while being only trivially clarified. In short, it's a completely useless term unless you want to identify yourself as a GNU zealot.

A far more accurate term, with only minimal political baggage, is "Open Source".

Not quite

[ObviousGuy]

It's an oxymoron.

Re:Not quite

[lala]

Who are you calling a moron ;-)

the problem with "open source"

[danny]

The problem with "open source" is that "open" in that sense only resonates with people who understand e.g. "open protocol" and "open standard", while "source" is only really meaningful to those with some programming experience.

So I'll stick with "free software" - yes, that involves explaining "free", but that's an important word, well worth educating people about.

Danny.

Re:the problem with "open source"

[Elbereth]

Let me guess... 'free' is such an important word because of the freedom that's connotated. Well, in that case, why not call it 'freedom source' or 'freedom software' or 'freedomsoft'. Hell, "freedom" probably resonates a lot more with today's nationalistic populations than "free".

Re:the problem with "open source"

[LeBleu]

How about freedomware? It goes along with the long tradition of terms such as shareware, freeware, etc. It contains the word freedom right in it, so it doesn't have the gratis connotation of free software. It is a little easier to say than either of the phrases mentioned.

According to the USPTO Trademark Electronic Search System, Toshiba once tried to trademark it for a global services network, but as of August 29, 2001 the trademark is abandoned. Maybe we should see if we can get the FSF or the OSI to snap up this trademark?

Re:the problem with "open source"

[Arandir]

The trouble with "freedomware" is that it implies that it gives the user freedom. To the GNU zealot, this is of course what it's about. But try to the average user on the street that they are really slaves of proprietary software, and they'll look for the nut tree you fell off of.

The real problem with "libreware", "freedomware", etc., is that those terms are ideologically loaded. That may not bother you much, but most people out there will have a different ideology. Not everyone who believes in democracy is a Democrat, and not everyone who believes that software should be unrestricted follows the GNU party line.

You misread

[Anonymous Coward]

totally
Chinese
free software

...not 'chinese free' ...

this is slashcrap...remember, the writing skill level here is sandbox certified at best. Pretend you're reading scrawl on the restroom door and you'll be ok.

Must not sleep...clowns will eat me!

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[bigsteve@dstc]

A far more accurate term, with only minimal political baggage, is "Open Source"

While the term "Open Source" is precise, it has no meaning to the average (i.e. non-IT) person. On the other hand, "libre" conveys the intended sense of the word "free" to the larger subset of native English speakers who learnt a bit of French at high school.

Effects on the economy

[el_flynn]

There was an interesting post on Kuro5hin that mentioned something about GDP and stuff. The article also mentioned something about huge sums of monies that the Taiwanese will save when leaving out proprietary software from their plans.

I'm interested to see what some of you economists out there have to say about this, regarding what sort of an economic impact it will have on Taiwan, as well as China as a whole.

Re:Effects on the economy

[Anonymous Coward]

It will reduce America's GDP very slightly, as they loose the licensing fees from Windows. But as most copies are pirated anyway, it won't make that much difference.

It will increase Taiwan's GDP as the money which used to be spent on the MS tax is now being spent on Taiwaneese programmers. It will also improve their balance of payments.

Re:Effects on the economy

[Anonymous Coward]

The Taiwan and Chinese economies are seperate. What Taiwan does in regards to Open/Free software will have no impact on China's economy. Taiwan is -NOT- China nor is it the property of China and the CCP in spite of what the communits rants are.

Taiwan, opensource, and intellectual property

[poopie]

I believe this is a good thing and will have positive impact for all of Asia.

Taiwan has a lot of computer-savvy people, and one of the things that is holding back opensource and linux in Asia are the less-than seamless integration of CJK/Unicode character display, input methods, and font rendering for Unix/Linux when compared with Windows.

I know all about the efforts underway to systematically resolve those issues (and wish them well), but you still need to be a UNIX guru and in some cases a programmer, if you want to get a Linux system set up that can support all of the popular asian language input methods and have them be consistent across all apps in all environments.

One thing micros~1 has done exceptionally well is operating system internationalization and providing a common consistent method for display, and changing of IMEs.

If Taiwan can contribute efforts to making linux more multibyte-friendly, it makes linux more accessible and practical to the fastest growing segment of computer users in the world -- who likely can run any software they want for only the cost of a CD from the local software street vendor.

When people who can pirate all the software they want actually *CHOOSE* to run linux, that will be a major turning point for opensource.

I remember the old joke: "you can only sell one copy of any software in Asia" - Imagine if the creative talents of all those crackers/hackers/pirates were focused on creating free software...

Re:Taiwan, opensource, and intellectual property

[io333]

I can imagine lots of new linux variant viruses when the above mentioned are focused on linux.

it's a joke son, one of those things you laugh at

[Anonymous Coward]

text

Taiwan and free software.;

[Sarin]

Isn't that a country where you can buy most new software packages in stores for about $1?

Re:Taiwan and free software.;

[Anonymous Coward]

So if you really encourage Free Software, you shoud go to Taiwan and buy them. But I dont know whether your local custom officer will like it.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Derleth]

Taiwan is as much a country as Kuwait is (Remember when Iraq called Kuwait the 17th Province? Same deal.). China simply refuses to acknowledge it, and is threatening to conquer the independent nation of Taiwan by force. Hmmm... if they really owned Taiwan, why would they have to invade it just to assert authority over it?

Taiwan has its own government, military, and seperate ties to the US (seperate from China, that is). In fact, the US has pledged to defend Taiwan if the gangsters of Beijing ever stage an invasion. So Taiwan is recognized by the USA and most of the rest of the civilized world.

What the CIA says about Taiwan. - We recognize Taiwan. Taiwan recognizes us.

BBC Article of interest - We sell weapons to Taiwan, much to China's consternation. Beijing does not dictate Taiwan's foreign policy any more than the UK dictates America's foreign policy.

In short, you are full of shit. So is Beijing, for that matter. Taiwan is, and of rights ought to be, a free and independent nation.

Gates should be pissing himself

[mildness]

This signals the cusp of MS's reversal of fortunes. Due solely to it's deviant nature Microsoft is losing mindshare globally.

It is profound to see individuals at the grass roots (GNU, OpenOffice, Linux, Mozilla etc.) doing what the Justice Department seemingly cannot, bring this monster to heel.

Beal

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[chathamhouse]

Why, because Beijing is upset that it still hasn't been able to stamp out all of the post-1949 resistance to its style of governance?

Let's take a look at this "non-country", it has:
- a democratically elected government, that does not answer to Beijing. (Although this isn't said too loudly or too often, as it tends to provoke "Military Exercises" involving very obvious missiles and whatnot off the coast of Taiwan, courtesy of Beijing. Fear will make Taiwain's populace willingly fall under the mainland's rule... that's worked many a time in history. )
- its own army, one that does not play nice with Beijing's
- its own multilateral and bilateral accords with other nations, where possible. Often they are not invited to multinational talks because of other countries desire not to upset Beijing with yet another reminder that this "province" is not even remotely under its control
- a press that is permitted to publish an opinion piece that is not aligned with the ruling party's line. Something that does not occur a bit further north of the "province".

The attempt to exert an iron grip, and to endlessly repeat to your populace that a country is a provice does not make it so. Similarly, the endless repetition that a province is a country also does not make it so. People decide, either with their voices or their (dis)obedience.

Now that Capitalists are permitted to join China's Communist party (I know, those two are supposed to be diametrically opposed), the party should have begun to place itself on a 20-to-100 year plan to fully democratize its governance (do it too fast, and you get Russia - criminal elements always adapt the fastest) once it re-acquired Hong Kong. Looks like the old boys never change their ways, regardless of where they're in power...

that's fine, but have some perspective

[Anonymous Coward]

open source productivity, from their perspective, are the equiv to happy sweat shop workers. don't get all giddy thinking that are 'embracing the principles of open source' they are doing their best to spend the least money possible.

The Great Digital Divide?

[quaxzarron]

This Me-too-for-open-source seems to be the latest fad amongst all the developing countries. Checking the posts in the article almost makes this sound like a US (read advanced countries) Vs the rest of the world (read not so advanced) phenomenon. Are we looking at the beginning of the Great Divide - in the electronic age? Open source with third world countries - the panacea for all evils?

Re:The Great Digital Divide?

[rseuhs]

Actually, the opposite is true:

Where labour is cheap and education is bad (for example China, Lebanon, most of 3rd world, US-military), Microsoft is king.

Where labour is expensive and education is good (for example Japan, Germany) Open-source will be used.

It's not the licensing costs that make Windows so expensive, it's the work that is needed to constantly babysit and patch it.

If you don't believe me, check out for yourself:

http://www.securityspace.com/s_survey/data/200205/ index.html

not a bad idea, but

[danny]

While "freedom software" and "software freedom" are both acceptable noun phrases (head noun + modifying noun), the former in particular seems awkward. I think we (English speakers) have a choice between "free software" and "open source" - I don't think there's room to create a third phrase.

Danny.

Taiwan not ready for that yet

[randy_ch]

I am a college student in Taiwan, and what I can only say is people in Taiwan are not ready for the adoption of free software. It still has a long way to go.

For example, most of my classmates have no ideas of what free software is, even my major is computer science. That is because we have been used to the software from Microsoft for a very long time, and the teaching of using those software is part of our eduction. I am sure that most people can not succeed in the process of transferring from Microsoft to free software. It still needs a lot of effects before we can finally achieve it.

However, I am still glad to see the government has such a farsighted plan that not only will save much money for our people, but also can bring about the rising of the develope of software industry. Although it will not come true in the near furture, I appreciate how perspective our government becomes! In fact, I am surprised. I think it is a blessing for we people in Taiwan. Thank god we are going toward the right direction.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[ObviousGuy]

Sounds like your university is par with a typical American community college. Taiwan's relative insignificance will not be affected in any way by the adoption of an insignificant operating system nor an insignificant political ideology.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[ObviousGuy]

I should probably qualify my "community college" comment so that it doesn't appear to be the angry attack that it is.

The problem that exists at your school is precisely that they are teaching you how to use the software tools. There is a lot to know about the tools, of course, but to be taught such a trivial thing as creating projects and compiling code in an editor seems like such a waste of time. Exactly the kind of thing that community colleges teach as their bread and butter.

In other contexts this would start a flamewar, but a University level Computer Science curriculum should concentrate on theory much more than on programming technique and tool usage.

If the curriculum you describe is representative of the average university in Taiwan, then Taiwan's computer industry will certainly suffer.

The adoption of Open Software means nothing. It has no relevance to anything with regards to bringing up the level of Taiwan's computer industry. Indeed, neither does Microsoft software. Rather, it is the ability of highly skilled programmers and far-sighted corporate officers making great strides into the vast software market that will make all the difference. If anything, this step into Open Source Software will set Taiwan back.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[Anonymous Coward]

Come on. Look at your own history. Taiwan (Formosa) was a country entirely dependent on agriculture. Then the government decided to push it's citizens towards an "electronic" future by ensuring that enough students become engineers. Now look at Taiwan. A world leader in computer electronics. Motherboards, Chipsets, Peripherals, Notebooks etc, etc.

Sure looks to me, that at least in the past, your contry had the foresight to envision something better for it's citizens. And let's face it, free (libre), GNU, Linux is like a train. Slow to start but pretty much unstoppable. Bill Gates has to shake in his little billionair boots.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[primus_sucks]

So what would be so difficult about converting to Linux? In my experience KDE is just as easy to use as windows and OpenOffice is just as easy to use as MS Office. Not to mention avoiding liscensing fees and security hazards.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[Greyfox]

That's pretty much any college anywhere. My experience is that 90-95% of CS majors are only getting into the industry for the money. Most of them don't really care about or have any particular aptitude for computers in general or programming in particular.

It takes less programmers than you think to make for growth in the free software community. Here in America I still usually get blank looks when I mention Linux or the GPL. Or data structures for that matter. You'd be surprised at how many "professional" programmers out there wouldn't be able to code a hash table or a linked list.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[haizi_23]

i think you are misunderstanding him. i don't believe he's saying that computer science courses are simply courses about microsoft software, but that microsoft software is what they USE in teaching their courses and in doing their coursework. though i can't imagine wanting to do that in the context of hands-on programming assignments (that's like throwing away half your toolset -- no od? no grep? no shell?), when it comes to theory courses, it makes little difference. i.e., if you take an algorithms course, you don't even need a computer, since it's all mathematical proofs. most of us here as we learn about operating systems, learn UNIX (because it's well-studied, source code is available for many variations, etc). but surely microsoft's crippled operating systems can likewise be used to demonstrate general principles.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[Jason Earl]

The adoption of Open Software means nothing. It has no relevance to anything with regards to bringing up the level of Taiwan's computer industry. Indeed, neither does Microsoft software. Rather, it is the ability of highly skilled programmers and far-sighted corporate officers making great strides into the vast software market that will make all the difference. If anything, this step into Open Source Software will set Taiwan back.

That isn't true at all. As long as the Taiwanese (and the Peruvians, the Germans, etc.) base their work on software that is controlled by United States interests then they will continue to be subservient to the U.S. software houses. Free Software does two things for the foreign software industries. It gives them the opportunity to study the actual source code for working applications, many of which are extremely well done, and it gives them the opportunity to base their own work (that they can then get paid for) on software that is available royalty free.

Taiwan is a perfect example of how this works. The Taiwanese government is under pressure to stamp out software piracy in their government, and they can do this in one of two ways. They could send a big fat check to Microsoft on an annual basis. This money would then leave their country and make the U.S. software industry richer. Or they could pay local programmers to build on a foundation of Free Software so that it will fit their needs. Much of this software could even be commercial software that they could sell to other countries.

This works especially well for governments like Taiwan because they get to make the rules. They can set the standard on how communication is done with the government, and hundreds of thousands of Taiwanese businesses will have no choice but to comply. If the Taiwanese government said that the official document standard was StarOffice, for example, and that documents would not be accepted in any other format, then StarOffice would get a big boost in that country.

In other words, the software that becomes the base of the economy (and education), is important. Besides, programming is becoming more high level all of the time. Who worries about coding a linked list when nearly every language you might want to use has plenty of complex data structures ready to use? I personally am grateful for my education, but I don't delude myself into thinking that there is anything magical about it.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[TheAwfulTruth]

Course then with the STL why the hell would you? Hash tables and linked lists are wheels that have been invented so many times by so many people, there's no reason to ever write them again. Now of course every programmer should know HOW and WHEN to USE them, but that's another topic...

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[sheldon]

Perhaps that's because most "professional" programmers have moved away from solving the problem of hash tables or linked lists.

These types of data structures are available in any number of libraries for most modern languages.

BTW, I know a lot of people who are in CS because of natural aptitude... that is it was an easy degree to get, and the jobs are pretty easy to keep. But that doesn't mean it is their lifelong goal. I would rather be a race car driver, but I don't have the ambitition to pursue that career. Others I know would rather own a hunting lodge, but there is no money in that venture.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[aafiske]

I don't disagree with your assessment, but I do take issue at the implication that a decent education implies some familiarity/affinity with Linux or the GPL. I know plenty of people who can write hashtables and linked lists and don't particularly care about Linux or the GPL. Free software is a philosophy, not a standard of education.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[Greyfox]

If you don't know how they're implemented, you're far less likely to know when they're apropriate. Not to mention that if you ever end up working on some primative programming language like C, Assembler or, God Help You, Fortran, you'll be at a serious disadvantage if you don't know how to implement your structures.

Of course, my education was old school and before all this free-love-hippy-new-age crap they started introducing shortly after I finished up. I'm not a huge fan of rote learning, mind you, but you do need some basic skills before you can effectively apply analytical problem solving.

Re:Taiwan not ready for that yet

[Greyfox]

You are correct, of course. You can be a great programmer and not know a thing about Linux, UNIX or anything outside the Windows world. But if you're the kind of person who does it for fun, I think you're much more likely to be into that sort of thing, or at least know about it. Good programmers tend to stay on top of industry trends. Right up until they get married, have kids, buy minivans and go into managment. It's pretty much over at that point...

So if you want to remain an effecive programmer, the number one thing you can do is lock yourself in your cave with your computer and a mini-fridge full of beer and never wash. If a woman talks to you for some reason, snarl at her in a troll-like fashion (Kind of like this post now that I think about it) and make sure she gets a good whiff of that generous BO. Do this and I guarantee you you'll be a great programmer until the day you die!

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[thelexx]

Right, just like Tibet eh? I spit on the idea, and so do most, if not all, of the people in both places. Feh.

LEXX

purchasing power parity

[danny]

Those figures, however, are in terms of "purchasing power parity" - ie, adjusted to take into account lower costs of living in Taiwan. I doubt software costs are included in PPP calculations and I suspect Microsoft's pricing doesn't (fully) take into account relative wealth.

But the latter should be easy to find out. How much does Windows/Office/etc. retail for in Taiwan, and how does that compare with their prices in Canada?

Danny.

Re:purchasing power parity

[JordanH]

Even taking this into account, the figures do tend to tell against the claim that Taiwan is a "relatively poor country" and that this will have little affect.

This could have a tremendous positive affect on Linux and OSS for Chinese speaking/writing people. You know, like 20% of the world's population?

Along with the German initiative announced here recently, it appears that many big, new opportunities for Linux continue to arise.

Re:purchasing power parity

[Anonymous Coward]

The last figures I saw for TAiwan's per capita GDP are now more than 10 years old. Back then, GDP was nearly $15,000 US dollars per capita, slightly more than some of our southern states. These were not adjusted for PPP, but were translated using the then-current exchange rate. The in-laws seem to think that things haven't gone downhill since then.

Taiwan doesn't have lower costs of living. If you live in Taipei or Gaoshung, you're paying New York/San Francisco style costs.

I don't know what software costs there, or what it costs here, for that matter, but I shopped for laptops there, and found that they cost more there than here.

Of course, you do get great chinese food cheaply on the street corners. A good breakfast for two cost a few hundred $NT (probably about $US6 or so) in Taipei on the street five years ago. That's fried bread and soy milk, better than it sounds.

Re:purchasing power parity

[Kaiwen]

How much does Windows/Office/etc. retail for in Taiwan

A quick search turns up Office XP prices running in the $NT18,000 - $19,000 range for a new user. With current exchange rates hovering around NT$35 to US$1, that makes Office XP more expensive in Taiwan than MS's own MSRP of US$479. Prices in the PRC are in the same ballpark -- which translates there to roughly two months' laborer's wages. And MS wonders why piracy rates are so high.

Re:purchasing power parity

[kz45]

A quick search turns up Office XP prices running in the $NT18,000 - $19,000 range for a new user. With current exchange rates hovering around NT$35 to US$1, that makes Office XP more expensive in Taiwan than MS's own MSRP of US$479. Prices in the PRC are in the same ballpark -- which translates there to roughly two months' laborer's wages. And MS wonders why piracy rates are so high

Piracy is extending the high prices of all these companies. Think about it: if people didn't use (or pirate) software that was at such high a price, the companies would have to lower their prices (or go out of business).

Instead, people pirate software and make it a standard, allowing companies like microsoft or adobe to charge upwards of $300 for their products.

Re:purchasing power parity

[BigBir3d]

Piracy did not make it standard. The standard caused the piracy.

That, and doing business with the US (MS centric).

Re:purchasing power parity

[kz45]

Piracy did not make it standard. The standard caused the piracy.

That, and doing business with the US (MS centric).

if that were true, then the prices that adobe or microsoft have set are good (people must be buying it at $200 or more), and there is no legitimate reason to pirate besides greed and selfishness.

Re:purchasing power parity

[BigBir3d]

Do you know what foreigners (specifically chinese and taiwanese) think of Americans? They have no interest in giving us money. And you forget, if you are the standard, such as Microsoft is, you can charge whatever you want, and the people have to pay, otherwise they can't use your product. This is true for an OS, as well as proprietary file formats, such .doc or .xls or whatever else. Own the file format, and usually the customer has to own the program to use the format. No different than a car or anything else. Toyota owns the car, if you buy it (rent, lease or buy), then you can use it.

Welcome to capitalism.

Re:purchasing power parity

[danny]

No argument about it being a big thing!

I was just interested in how much variation in Microsoft software prices there was between Taiwan and Canada - if there's none, then obviously software costs were going to be hurting Taiwan relatively more than the PPP figures suggest, which may be part of the reason for the move.

I don't know enough (anything, eactually) about Taiwanese politics to know what the politics of this would be.

Danny.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with open source is that it has a very precise meaning - that you can read the source code.

You can read the source code for Windows CE, but it certainly isn't free software.

so how should I read this?

[psoriac]

totally chinese free software environment
-or-
totally chinese free software environment
?

(don't flame me, I'm chinese :)

Re:so how should I read this?

[Anonymous Coward]

Today is a great day for Chinese people of all races.

FreeBSD

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick! Someone tell them about FreeBSD before they start reinventing the wheel and reinventing
it as a square.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't it?
I see the same implications "free" has...
In fact, I'm a spanish spoken and we have the same common phrases you're using, with "libre" radix.
LIBERtad de expresión.
Hey, este es un pais LIBRE!!
But, well, in most south america "libre" (free speak) are becoming equal to "gratis" (free beer) because of American-English influence, so i suspect that the difference will only be viewed by Spanish-European people.

Re: Unicode

[szap]

Even before we handle the CJK/Unicode human interface and application integration problems, Linux (don't know about the rest) should have proper support for Unicode in the kernel, especially the filesystem's filenames. What's the point of writing a Chinese document when you can only save it as 'abcde.doc'?

Granted, you could just mount /home as a UTF8 friendly VFAT/umsdos (see here for details, grep for "Unicode"), but that's a huge kludge.

And after that, we have a whole load of typical unix software AND file formats that handles files suchs as tar to fix to make them Unicode/UTF8 friendly while making sure that they are backwards-compatible.

One minor thing software developers (that's YOU) can do is to make sure that all your new software you create is UTF8 friendly. That way you'd save yourself lots of redesign problems later. It used to be 640Kbytes, then Y2K. It's Unicode now.

Back on topic, don't underestimate the influence of .tw. They've manage to dominate the popular desktop motherboards and misc. electronics market. Given the right conditions and some time, they can hugely influence the software market as well. This is the best chance for the world to break free of a certain US company's monopoly on software. After all, would you ten years ago believe that most desktop motherboards today are made in Taiwan?

Changing the world

[enigma48]

Originally I was going to comment on how different the priorities are between the western (US/Can) and eastern (China/Taiwan) worlds are. Assuming the translator did their job correctly and introduced a minimum of bias, a few phrases caught my eye: "benefits the government NT$ 2 billion and the society NT$10 billion", the statement about international cooperation on free application software development and coordination of training centres, "...and ensure the people's rights to...".

From a Canadian standpoint, it sounded like people being put first. WAY first. Not about dropping Microsoft - just the fact that people tend to be put that far first.

Sitting back a second, I remembered the just-passed anniversary of Tiananmen square. So much for the "ideal" ways of the east.

But it got me thinking. Imagining what would happen if other governments adopted this plan of using and developing free software to meet the needs of the government. While the private sector has little incentive to release any work they did while paying for the employee to do it, the public sector has almost no incentive NOT to.

Imagining a little further, a few other governments pick up the idea - at least small groups anyway - because the work of Taiwan (and maybe Germany) provided a very necessary tool that was only available via closed-source software. Simplifying and standardizing international charsets alone would be a godsend.

Now, other countries make the switch to a partially open system and add their piece of the pie.

Suddenly, governments everywhere are noticing the next-to-nil cost of switching some or all of their systems to an open-source based solution. Training was needed anyway and other governments won't mind giving some limited support for the first bit. Service companies step in later for more robust support seeing some money in the picture.

I like the idea of open-source. I don't preach the benefits of open source nearly as much as I preach the benefits of solution X over solution Y where *applicable* (eg: Linux over Windows, Apache over IIS).

I like the idea of governments co-operating, improving the picture for everyone. Even if it saved them nothing over the current system.

I like the way the world looks for my future children right now.

Jeff

Re:Changing the world

[llin]

Sitting back a second, I remembered the just-passed anniversary of Tiananmen square. So much for the "ideal" ways of the east.

Uh, news flash, Tianamen Square happened in Beijing. That's the PRC, not Taiwan (ROC). Of course, for someone who equates the western world as the US and Canada, maybe the fact that they are completely different goverments (and political systems! Communist state vs Multiparty Democracy) is comparatively trivial.

As to the rest of your post... While I will agree that it's a positive thing, for some reason I don't think that OSS will 'save the world'. And while it doesn't look like the end of the world yet, between the stuff going on in geo-politics and in terms of environmental trends, I'm not betting on a bright and rosy future.

Re:Changing the world

[enigma48]

Sorry if I mislead anyone, I guess I didn't speak clearly enough. Tainanmen Square is something none of us should forget.

I was speaking about the government not in structure but in "tone" - from what little I've read, Eastern cultures tend to be more people-oriented than western ones. Governments reflect at least a part of regional cultures and both China and Taiwan share quite a bit. China's state media (The People's Daily?) and Taiwan's press release both have a focus on "the people" that seems a little more authentic than the western-style news I'm used to reading. (US and Canada only)

I'm not looking for OSS to save the world - I'm just focusing on the idea that governments co-operating around the world is a *fantastic* picture to me. It brings us one step closer to blurring/erasing these pitiful borders we have. I'm in no rush to install a "One World" government, but the closer we get, the closer we are to an end to disputed borders, more cooperation in general, etc.

And who knows - maybe people (including me) might stop trying to pick others apart and make helpful corrections instead ;). But I might be hoping for too much.

So much for the idea that China...

[Alex Belits]

...is going to attack them -- they even have similar attitude toward Microsoft. So maybe THIS is whom American milirary is trying to protect by swarming around Taiwan ;-P

Yes, it's a joke, but sometime political assholes that are ready to trade people's lives for large companies' profits really worry me.

A bunch of MS bashers

[Anonymous Coward]

It's always amazing to see how people here flock together like sheep whenever there's a story that undermines MS. I don't like throwing money at Bill Gates nether, but Open Source is not necessarily the holy savior. First, Open Source does not carter well to the general public who are computer illiterate. It does not take the time to hand hold you every step of the way. OS also lacks many of the eye candy features of commercial software such as Windows. More importantly though, Open Source is like unregulated genetic engineering. No one is held responsible for any critical problems, and if things blow up, there is no one held accountable. Every one just goes "Ops, so we screwed up. It's free, so go screw yourself."

MS is evil, but it has its place in the world. You computer nerds and geeks need to step outside your little world, and put yourself in that teenage girl who has absolutely no interest in fondling a computer other than to type up a report and chat with her friends on ICQ.

Mr Chan.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Anonymous Coward]

What an abomination.
Far better, "libres articles mous"?

Re: Unicode

[Karkya]

Most UNIX filesystems, including ext2fs, are in fact 8-bit clean; but the shells and file utils like ls are often not, at least not in their default setup.

For zsh, setopt printeightbit will do the trick.
For Linux fileutils, apply the following patch:

diff -ru fileutils-4.0i.orig/src/ls.c fileutils-4.0i/src/ls.c
--- fileutils-4.0i.orig/src/ls.c Wed May 5 21:13:49 1999
+++ fileutils-4.0i/src/ls.c Thu Sep 16 11:10:10 1999
@@ -883,7 +883,9 @@
{
format = many_per_line;
/* See description of qmark_funny_chars, above. */
+#ifdef NO_FORCE_8BIT
qmark_funny_chars = 1;
+#endif
}
else
{

I have lots of stuff with Big-5 filenames on my ext2fs. Even wu-ftpd and apache work fine on them.

Unicode is only useful when you want to use more than one languages at the same time. Even the Taiwan/Hongkong version of Windows does user-I/O in Big-5, it's only when it's saved on VFAT that it transparently converts the encoding.

In other words, Unicode support is a filesytem concern, application programmers simply need to make sure their apps are 8-bit clean.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[taiwanjohn]

"If we really owned everything south of Maryland, why did we have to invade it?"

Um... because they (the South) were threatening to SECEDE and form a new (hostile) country right nextdoor.

The case in Taiwan is completely different. The "new" country already exists, and has for 50 years. It's no longer a matter of secession, just nomenclature.

China has been getting along fine without Taiwan since 1895. Why not leave well enough alone?

--jrd

KEWL!!!

[OklaKid]

i like seeing this happen anywhere, and i want to see this happen in schools in the USA too, i don't want our children to be ignorent Windoze point & click kind of people, i want our children to confidently install a OSS Linux and be capable or doing anything either from the commandline or with a GUI frontend...

the GUI is nice but it can not allways be depended on for everything, ever try to compile something big while a bloated Window manager is up & running (KDE)? try it from runlevel 3 it sure does a better job, quicker too...

Re:KEWL!!!

[formulax]

Well I don't think so. Not everybody need to know everything about computers. Why shall a doctor bother about how to install Linux? That is nothing to do with his work! The point is to make free software as easy to use as possible in the future. People then will switch to free software.

Re:KEWL!!!

[OklaKid]

but Linux is not any more difficult than Windoze, only different, once anyone becomes familier with Linux then it becomes just as easy, and with most modern Linux distros it is a no brainer to get installed & running, as a matter of fact i have Redhat7.3 and it installed faster & easyer than Windoze, it took 15 minutes to install from booting from the CDrom to the one reboot at the end of the install, and ALL my hardware was automatically configured via Redhat's Anaconda, and for any hardware changes that occur after the install there is Kudzu to pick that up and make it easy to configure...

Re:KEWL!!!

[An Onerous Coward]

I'll agree that free software, like most software I've seen, needs some help with user-friendliness. But why is there so much focus on making the install process painless? The vast majority of computer users never install their own operating systems. OEMs don't even install operating systems. All the big system manufacturers have the process completely automated. In a business environment, the only things installed by end users are illegal games and humorous screen savers.

I think that the free software movement would be better served by focusing on ease of use, with some emphasis on making it easy to install/uninstall software.

Re:KEWL!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually WinXP Pro (Full) is $120 and WinXP home (Full) is $80. So besides being wrong, I'll point out that that is the lamest turn of a much more accurate tag line that I've ever seen. WinXP will save the average person dozens and in some cases hundreds of hours of pain and torture that Linux dishes up every day, thus if your time is worth anything. WinXP will save you hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars in the long run.

Maybe when you grow up and can think for yourself, get some life experience, use various OSes as tools rather than as gospel. You'll be able to conduct yourself in an adult manner and maybe even enjoy life a little!

Re:KEWL!!!

[formulax]

I don't think that WinXP Pro(Full) is only $120. In China, it is sold at RMB2400, which is approximately US$300, and dear Mr. Bill Gates claimed that it is the cheapest price in the world. I have used Windows for 5 years, I thought that Win is the best OS in the world. But when I discovered Linux, I immediately realised that Windows is just some kind of toy. And they are very stupid toys indeed. Sometimes they can just stop running even before I hadn't start to do anything. But it will never happen in Linux.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[taiwanjohn]

"Each country believes that Taiwan and China are parts of the same country."

Actually, it's more correct to say that "One China" is the official government policy of both countries. In fact, most people on this island consider themselves to be "Taiwanese" nowadays. The only reason Taiwan's policy hasn't changed is because the PRC has said REPEATEDLY that it will attack immediately if Taiwan declares independence.

What a friendly, affectionate sentiment from our "tong-bao" brothers on the mainland... :-/

Sorta like the "affection" shown by a psychopathic stalker-type... I love you, and if you don't love me back, I'll KILL YOU!

--jrd

Doesn't answer the central question

[00_NOP]

Will they call it Linux or GNU/Linux?

Re:Doesn't answer the central question

[Anonymous Coward]

It won't matter. RMS will push for the country to be renamed GNU/Taiwan.

Anonymous Kev
Proudly posting as AC since 1997

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[formulax]

Well, you seem don't understand a very simple international rules of defining a country. Besides all those you have mentioned, there is one most important one: That the country is recgnoised by most of other countries in the world. But unfortunetly, Taiwan is only recognised as a coutry by 28 governments in this whole world! And Taiwan is not a member of the United Nations! And you don't know about the history of China at all. So go home and study more before talking shit here please. Even Taiwanese themselves admit that there is only one China in the world.(Whatever China it is, People's Republic of China or Republic of China, that can be discussed). 1.3 billion people who is living in the mainland, 23 million people living in Taiwan and other 50 million Chinese who is living oversea all believe in this. So you better shut up if you do not want to be an enemy of the world's most populous race. Just for your information, perhaps you just need to visit mainland China some time, so that you will discover that communism in China now is totally different from Russia or China in the past. And 20 years later, China will become one of the most powerful country in the world. So be careful at your words.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[formulax]

That's right. Just for information for those who insist that Taiwan is an independent country, that even the constitution of Taiwan claims that there is only ONE China in this world, and Taiwan is just a province of it.(That is what has been written in the constitution, so you fools, go home and study it, stop talking bullshits here please) The most interesting part that the constitution of Taiwan even said that the Republic of Mongolia is part of it. Even the constitution of PRC did not mention that:-)

At last ...

[dazdaz]

Cool, about time who which companies will lead this push from the Government?

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[chathamhouse]

Threats are as convincing as blatant lies.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Derleth]

That is what has been written in the constitution, so you fools, go home and study it, stop talking bullshits here please

But we're discussing realpolitik, or how things are in the real world, not in some political dreamland or in rhetoric designed to stave off invasion. In the real world, Taiwan is a free nation. In the real world, China is just blowing smoke until it actually makes Taiwan 'just a province' through force of arms. And we call that invasion.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Derleth]

If we really owned everything south of Maryland, why did we have to invade it?

I knew this was going to come up, and it is an argument easily exploded. China has not laid credible claim to Taiwan since 1947. Instead, it has wrung its hands and threatened massive violence while Taiwan has been an indepenedent nation for fifty-five years. On the other hand, the USA immediately acted against the CSA in 1861, and the CSA lasted all of four years. So I think Chaing Kai-Sheck's nation is a bit more credible than Jefferson Davis' joke.

Yes We Must All Trust The Government

[Anonymous Coward]

for our own freedom?!

Please......give me a break!

Unicode - a killer app for OSS?

[00_NOP]

Unicode is only useful when you want to use more than one languages at the same time.

But if we are talking about giving OSS a competitive advantage, having that degaree of interoperability built in seems like a good idea to me.

Official site?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there a site which collects success stories like this, IBM/Germany, Peru, and others?

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[formulax]

Then US has threatened many times that they will fight against PRC once we try to unify our country! One simple US' policy to China: keep the country seperate, so that it will not be strong enough to be a threat to US.

One small flaw

[DrXym]

Every MS Office / XP licence saved is more for weapons and ammunition! Taiwan can distribute an automatic rifle, 3 grenades and a 1000 rounds of ammunition with every copy of OpenOffice and Linux.

afterall it's not free...

[sensui]

in US, you don't see government pushing for free softwares. but we see a lot of this kind of government initiated free software campaigns in Asian countries, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong. so what's the deal? are we sacrificing economic freedom for software freedom?

Re:afterall it's not free...

[An Onerous Coward]

It's not just an Asian phenomenon, or a developing countries phenomenon. Countries like Germany and Venezuela are also jumping on the bandwagon. Countries are stepping back and looking at the exorbitant licensing fees for (primarily Microsoft) products, the forced upgrade paths, the proprietary file formats, and deciding that the lack of freedom and control just isn't worth paying hundreds of millions to some American corporation.

Enter Linux. It's good software and getting better quickly. It gives a knowledgable person complete control over his system. It generally treats common standards with respect, rather than using them as a crowbar for breaking competitor's applications. And since the source is available to everybody, any company can provide full tech support for it; millions will be saved due to competition in the tech support field alone.

There may also be some anti-American sentiment behind the recent moves. Microsoft isn't just an American corporation, it's a stereotypically American corporation: highly competitive, willing to play dirty, and happy to screw the customers for a few extra bucks. But even if there's no groundswell of resentment against Microsoft or America, it just makes economic sense for any country (especially poorer countries) to buy local rather than pumping resources towards Redmond. Under Linux, that's possible; under Microsoft, it isn't.

Let's Drink to Side Effects

[4of12]

As a staunch proponent of free software and public, open standards, I am as heartened to see this development, just as I was glad to see the recent story of the German government deploying Linux on a larger scale through IBM and SuSE.

In this development, however, I see an additional possibility. Despite all their differences, the pursuit of a software strategy independent of large U.S. corporations is something shared between Taiwan and the PRC.

I think it would be an excellent testimony to the free software development model if Chinese language software is jointly developed both in *.cn and in *.tw and widely used on both sides of the strait of Taiwan as well.

Here's to a hope: maybe that level of cooperation in a common pursuit could set a positive and conciliatory example for citizens and politicians that don't know much about software and, in the past, have shown they know too little about sharing, cooperation and accomodation.

Re:Let's Drink to Side Effects

[mgs1000]

One think to remember the written Chinese in Taiwan(Traditional) is not the same as it in China(Simplified).

You also base your argumement on the misconception introduced by the former KMT dictatorship in Taiwan and embraced by the PRC that the the Taiwanese and the Chinese are the same people. (Note: Manadrin was not the language of Taiwan until the KMT "colonial" government seized control in the 1940s)

Most Taiwanese citizens have no interest in "cooperating" with Chinese. The people of Taiwan just want to be left alone and be allowed to live their own lives without Chinese intervention.

Re:Let's Drink to Side Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

One think to remember the written Chinese in Taiwan(Traditional) is not the same as it in China(Simplified).

The character looks different. Surprisingly enough, this isn't a problem. It's simply a matter of a different font. The MAinland font has fewer strokes (usually, not always!), and that's why it's called simplified. The meaning behind the characters is the same. There is a one-to-one correspondence between simplified and traditional characters, I believe. We can use the same codes and different fonts on the two sides of the Straights.

You also base your argumement on the misconception introduced by the former KMT dictatorship in Taiwan and embraced by the PRC that the the Taiwanese and the Chinese are the same people. (Note: Manadrin was not the language of Taiwan until the KMT "colonial" government seized control in the 1940s)

This is true. It's also true that MAndarin was not the language of most of the mainland until about the same time. A far better argument is that Taiwan was occupied, first by the Portugese, then by the Dutch, then by ?, then by the Japanese for about 50 years, up through the end of WWII, then most recently by the KMT. They have about as much reason to call themselves Japanese as do the people of Guam. They do consider themselves Chinese, including the people in the independence movement (which was illegal until recently; may still be...).

Most Taiwanese citizens have no interest in "cooperating" with Chinese. The people of Taiwan just want to be left alone and be allowed to live their own lives without Chinese intervention.

There are a lot of folks who came over in the late 40's who have relatives on the mainland. They would really like to see conditions improve on the mainland. The biggest problem is the relative sizes of the two countries. Even if the mainland surrendered unconditionally tomorrow, Taiwan just couldn't help them. The mainland is too big, and has too many problems, and Taiwan is too small, and no where near rich enough to do anything.

Taiwan is a threat to China in the same way that West Berlin was a threat to the whole of Eastern Germany: it is an example of (relative) freedom. The Communist authorities cannot allow freedom on their outskirts; it will cause unrest in their interior. Taiwan is a threat to China's system of government, not because it may attack, but because it exists, and is less evil. The one-china bit is partly smokescreen: the mainland will have to vilify and threaten the surrounding countries until either totalitarianism ends on the mainland, or until totalitarianism spreads around the world.

Re:Let's Drink to Side Effects

[Karkya]

The character looks different. Surprisingly enough, this isn't a problem. It's simply a matter of a different font. The MAinland font has fewer strokes (usually, not always!), and that's why it's called simplified. The meaning behind the characters is the same. There is a one-to-one correspondence between simplified and traditional characters, I believe. We can use the same codes and different fonts on the two sides of the Straights.

That's not true, traditional Chinese and the simplified one have a many-to-one mapping. Not only do the Big-5 (traditional) character set and the GB families (simplied) have completely different coding map, the traditional and simplified version of the same character also have different code points in Unicode (they call it z-variants) and sometimes even calligraphical variants inherited from the preexisting Japanese fonts are retained. Check out U+8AAA, U+8AAC and U+8BFA, they're the same character meaning "say".

Unicode sucks.

Re:Let's Drink to Side Effects

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I didn't say they DID use the same coding, I said that they could. I stand by the one-to-one idea. The simplified character set is only about 60 years old, and the Taiwanese have no difficulty reading it. The mainlanders, on the other hand, must really struggle to read the traditional characters. For any simplified character, you can point to a traditional character from which it was simplified. If we coded them the same, we could display a message in either font without changing its denotation. As you point out, that's not being done, but it doesn't follow that it couldn't.

I've had similar discussions with Chinese friends, and come to the conclusion that most chinese haven't had much exposure to the ideas of linguistics. In particular, they've misinformed me that pinyin and bo-po-mo-fo aren't phonetic alphabets. What they really mean is that they aren't respectable ways to encode adult literature.

From the movie Patton

[f00zbll]

"All glory is fleeting"

Nothing lasts forever. Whether this is really the beginning of the end of the old Microsoft is still unknown, but the computer world is changing. It's beyond the control of anyone company at this point. The most a company fights this gradual evolution the faster they will die.

Democrafiy j0 country then

[Anonymous Coward]

And dont make it a corprate "democracy" that we have here in the ole USdeA, then u cna take tiwan

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Anonymous Coward]

that post did not deserve "flamebait" status because it is historically accurate and had a smiley. perhaps it was "troll food", but the poster was make a joke that the few educated people on slashdot would appreciate.

when the communists ran the nationalists off the mainland, the chinese mainland nationalists retreated to the province of taiwan and declared that they were the one true chinese government ruling over the rowdy breakaway mainland. that was and is a complicated geopolitical situation, made further complicated by the fact that the indigenous people of taiwan are not ethnically the same as the mainland chinese.

it was a funny joke.

PenPoint? open up its source please!

[WillAdams]

Does no one else remember the Ministry of Information and Technology of Taiwan (name is approximate) purchasing the intellectual property of Go Corporation back when MS had finally succeeded in driving Go Corp. out of business? (For those who don't remember this, go read Jerry Kaplan's _StartUp_ which should be available from your local library).

Go was a pen computing pioneer and PenPoint was their operating system / interface---way cool cutting edge stuff which in a lot of ways hasn't been caught up to yet by anyone (resolution independent UI, etc.)

I've always assumed that they used it as a club to keep Microsoft's licensing down, but have never seen any further indication of it :(

I'd dearly love to see it come back---using Pen Services for Windows just doesn't compare.

William

Re:Sounds good...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey chicken little!!! Thats a nice FUD four to you.
--it is original though I will give you that.
buying microsoft products protects american programmers
jobs. hey tuvok, time for a logic overhaul.
--

No

[FooBarWidget]

Sorry, but we Chinese would rather resolve things peacefully.

No, I don't care wether you believe it or not.

License fees?

[--daz--]

Taiwan is upset over MS licensing fees? That's laughable. Piracy is rampant in Taiwan. They hardly pay for any of their software, so again, I ask what licensing fees?

Re:License fees?

[Anonymous Coward]

They're upset over the fact MS is using politicial powers in washionton DC to force Taiwan to pass laws so "users" of "free" MS software get put in jail

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[An Onerous Coward]

You forgot to mention: because too many people will assume that it's software for casting horoscopes. They'll be half way through the distro install before they realize, "Hey, why hasn't it asked me for my birthdate yet?" By then, their computers are completely hosed.

Astrology types are too easy to confuse as it is. No need to make life harder for them.

Free Software

[mobydobius]

Hmmm. I am skeptical of this decision to support free software. With all of the software piracy in Taiwan, I would think everyone there just assumes Microsoft products are free software.

Re:PenPoint? interesting

[OklaKid]

never heard of it, where are some screenshots??? will it run on a x86 ATX mainboards with intel or athlon CPU

Re: Unicode

[BinxBolling]

What's the point of writing a Chinese document when you can only save it as 'abcde.doc'?

To communicate with someone who reads Chinese? A system in which you can compose documents in Chinese but have to name the files using the latin alphabet is far more useful to most Chinese speakers than one in which they can't compose documents in Chinese, but can name files using it.

Your comment reflects a tendency that's common among geeks: We prioritize the operating system over the applications. But for most people, the real value of their computer is provided by the applications, and the operating system is only important insofar as it supports the applications they care about.

There is plenty of room

[FreeUser]

While "freedom software" and "software freedom" are both acceptable noun phrases (head noun + modifying noun), the former in particular seems awkward. I think we (English speakers) have a choice between "free software" and "open source" - I don't think there's room to create a third phrase.

I disagree. While "open source" as a catchphrase played an important role in bringing software freedom to corporations and companies (such as mine), it is important to keep in mind that "open source" is merely a stepping stone across which, ideally at least, a cynical suit steps in his or her walk to freedom.

That sounds pretty idealistic and far fetched, doesn't it. The interesting thing, though, is how true it has been, at least in my experience.

There was a time when Free Software was banned from where I worked, not because of the freedom it represented, or because of Richard Stallman's long hair, long beard, or feiery rhetoric, but because people mistook the word "free" to mean gratis, and then equated it with buggy and virus-ridden shareware commonly distributed on a virus and worm-prone operating system from our favorite folks in the Redmond Barrens[1].

Open source played an important role in getting the otherise close minded suits to see the technical benefits of open and free collaboration, and to get past the mistaken assumption that free software meant shoddy quality (the 'you get what you pay for' fallacy) or vulnerability to security flaws/viruses (the 'security through obscurity' fallacy).

The mistake people who advocate 'open source' make is that this is not an ends in itself, but merely a means to an ends ... bringing otherwise close minded and cynical people over to where they can experience the benefits of free software first hand.

We initially started using free software because of its unarguable technical superiority over proprietary products from Micrsoft, Sun, and others. But what has, over the years, proven to be of far greater value to my employer has been the software freedom that using free software has brought us. Not just the four freedoms the Free Software Foundation expounds upon, but the freedom from vendors dictating software upgrades at great expense in time and money to ourselves, the freedom from orphaning of critical libraries or applications that used to leave us scrambling for alternatives, and the freedom from license audits that cost so much time and money, etc., etc., etc.

Freedom is what is ultimately important to a business, and the technical merits (while certainly laudable) have become a distant second to the security, protection, and power those freedoms bring to our ability to conduct our business and earn money without living in fear of our vendors, their BSA goons, or their incompetence. For a pittance (relative to profits) we can hire someone to maintain a free software package if it is abandoned and we need it ... before we were up the proverbial creek without a paddle, and projects would be set well behind schedule as alternatives were looked for. And don't even get me started on the ever-moving target that was, and remains, the Microsoft development environment ... that nonsense costs even more man hours just to track from quarter to quarter. Now we upgrade when and how we choose, with the luxury of freezing whatever targets we need to, for as long as we wish, and that alone saves us millions.

It is interesting that companies and governments in the rest of the world seem to be learning the bottom-line value software freedom brings to business faster and with less difficulty than corporations in the so-called "land of the free" are capable of. An irony historians may be scratching their heads over in years to come, perhaps.

Back to my original point: there is room for a third term, "software freedom", as my use of it above illustrates. Open Source deemphesized freedom and emphesizes the technical merits of peer review and free collaboration, while free software emphesizes software freedom. Both are important, but while open source is a means, freedom is the end to which all of these philosophies are ultimately striving.

[1]Gratuitious RPG reference

Re:There is plenty of room

[danny]

I have no argument with any of that, but it seems to me that you are using "software freedom" in a different sense, not as a noun describing a category of software - none of your uses are really capitalisable, to look at it another way.

So "software freedom" is certainly a useful term, but it's not really an alternative to "Free Software" or "Open Source" - I'd classify it as a grammatical variant on "Free Software", myself.

Danny.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[Derleth]

Then US has threatened many times that they will fight against PRC once we try to unify our country! One simple US' policy to China: keep the country seperate, so that it will not be strong enough to be a threat to US.

Dear sweet reason, if that isn't paranoid babbling. The US has pledged its help to a Democracy that is in danger of being overrun by a Totalitarian state many times its size. Really that simple. If you think China has a 'right' to extend its iron fist to the only bastion of free ethnically Chinese people, you have much to learn about real human rights. Start with Locke and Thomas Jefferson and see if you can still support the monsters in Beijing.

Taiwan poor ?

[hi3cmz]

We are sure about that in IT field Tw has more influences than a lot of other western countries, just see your mainbaord chipsets, and after all, this wasn't the point of this article.

Free Software and Chinese Mentality explained

[DigitalHammer]

The push for free software in Taiwan, which plans to develop it, and China, which plans to use RedFlagLinuix on gov't systems, is nothing new. As I had stated in an earlier post, the Chinese will always go for the lowest possible price for something they want, if not free. However, when a product they want is beyond their budget, they'll try to get a "pirated" or "knockoff" version of it, because it usually costs less. As in the case of properietary software, they would rather get a pirated copy of Microsoft Office or WindowsXP than pay stratospheric licensing fees. Also, as "western" fashions are popular in Hong Kong, a lot of people their are on a budget. Instead of forking over 200 US dollars worth of HK currency for say, a genuine Louie Vallerie handbag, most citizens would prefer the "knockoffs" sold in flea markets, because trendy items to the Chinese are about appearances, not the quality of the material. From my experiences in these flea markets, I can tell one that while these "counterfeit handbags" are made of plastic rather than leather, it looks identical to the real thing.

However, times are changing for China. As this country tries its hardest to enter the WTO, the Chinese government has been cracking down on piracy in government-owned computers and in markets all over the country. (As stated in a CNET article, an anti-piracy official in China was quoted as saying "We arrest the persons involved (in piracy rings) and turn to execute them). Yet the Chinese government, which had been running pirated versions of its software for years until recently, knows they they cannot afford licsensing fees from coporate juggernauts such as Microsoft. Therefore, they pushed for the use of RedFlagLinuix. This situation also applies to the free software movement in Taiwan, which has its roots in centuries old Chinese mentality: give me what I want for the lowest price.

One last note...the Chinese have also considered sofware as an essential component for learining about technology. They do not feel it is a crime to "copy" software such as Windows XP, which is required to run Microsoft Word, a word processing program theyre most familiar with, which is used to type up various documents, especially for education. As one Chinese famous scohlar once said "Stealing a book is elegance".

Chinese free software

[Hawat]

An infelicitous phrase. Not quite what is meant I think.

If we'd had a Chinese free nuclear development program, for example, Wen Ho Lee would never have been charged with espionage.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Anonymous Coward]

As my wife and her cousins patiently and carefully explained it to me, both the People's Reblic of China and the Chinese Republic of Taiwan are CHINESE, therefore they are one nation. Most of those Chinese living in the PRC want unification. A great many in Tainwan want unification. The only problem is HOW to re-unify the nation of China. It's the USA, as usual by confusing the issues with their idea of a manifest destiny of independence (but dominated as part of the American hegemony), who has it wrong.

Mass media and the future of M$

[Anonymous Coward]

There are more than a few countries switching deparments over to open source, but there are almost no stories in the mass media about it. It would seem the lost revenue this represents would be significant, but nobody's watching or cares. Does the mass media have it head in the sand (or elsewhere)? I personally think M$, inspite of its size and influence is well past its curve and headed downhill. Not that they would become irrelevant, but not the mover and shaker that they have been in the past.

It's not what it appears.

[hnchou]

I wish it's not, but I think this is just another typical reaction to a latest hot topic, and it's will eventually be forgotten.

Legislators in Taiwan can call nearly any meeting they want, but I have never heard of such meeting until last night. To make sure the legislator hear what they want, the attending officials have to have some plans, and here is the plan.

Having plans is always good beginning, but I don't think the plan has clear purpose, and nor does the planers know what they are dealing with.

"...the goal is to establish Taiwan's basic software development infrastructure...will train 120,000 users the basic skills of free software environments."

This description is exactly what it sounds like in Mandarin: no content at all.

I am glad to see the awareness of alternative in Taiwan, but according to my knowledge about the government, I would rather do it by myself.

A great idea

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe we haven't thought of this before. I think we can extend the idea to farming and manufacturing as well. Think of it! Free food! Free cars! Free computers! Free medicine! None of us will have to pay for anything. In fact, we can structure it so that each person contributes according to his or her abilities and consumes based on his or her needs!

Re:LINSUX

[Anonymous Coward]

I beg to differ. What else but religion would have me holding snakes and speaking in tongues?

which may be misleading

[Anonymous Coward]

Read Stastistics Canada's op-ed on why they do not keep track of "poverty" and why the concept of a "poverty line" is flawed (at an international level at least). You'll note that the CIA factbook has Canada's "population below poverty line" listed as "NA%", and for good reason.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Anonymous Coward]

The term "libre software" is loaded with political ideology while being only trivially clarified. In short, it's a completely useless term unless you want to identify yourself as a GNU zealot.

A far more accurate term, with only minimal political baggage, is "Open Source".

Accurate? I don't think so. Open Source means that source code is visible, in some sense. That has nothing to do with free, in any of the senses of that word. Open source does NOT express any of the important points of Libre software, and it often isn't free (that's why Open source isn't called free). Open source is a useful term, don't destroy it by tring to muddy its meaning.

Libre software is another useful term: it means software you are at liberty to use, change, distribute, et cetera. It means software that you may do anything with except have a monopoly upon. I don't think that you have to be a GNU zealot to appreciate that there is a difference between open source and libre software.

Since you raise the point of political baggage:
You don't have to be a communist to call communism by its name, nor a democrat to call democracy by its name, so why would you have to be a GNU zealot to call libre software by a descriptive name?

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Anonymous Coward]

if it were a common word, but it's not

I use it. If you use it too, it will be common.

Internationalization

[Srin Tuar]

the BSD's have a long way to go for internationalization. This is why they are less popular overseas.

output/layout support, encoding support, localizations, locales, input methods support, etc, are areas where linux still needs alot of work,
but its passable with many apps/configurations, especially just recently.

Re:They will be using this to watch free Episode I

[tjwei]

I don't think you are better than them. No, you can't buy an illegal copy of Windows XP from stroe in Taiwan. Maybe ten years ago you could, or maybe you still can in some country else, but not in Taiwan not now. Western countrys are no better than Taiwan, try to use edonkey and you will see many if not most movies are from europe.

English already has words as precise as libre

[GodWasAnAlien]

Restraint/Restriction freedom ( libre ) - unrestricted, unrestrained

Cost freedom ( gratis ) - costless

Of course the GPL license does specify many restrictions, so it is obviously not completly free.

GNU software is not Unrestricted Software.
The word "Free" is used because of its vague and political meaning.

"Open" is vague also, but often is used to imply public availability.

Think "open house" vs "free house"
Think "open door policy" vs "free door policy"

The "free as in speech" slogan is political and not accurate.
If someone uses "free speech" to publish/present controversial matter, the general public has no automatic right to re-publish the work. So if code was free as in speech, I would assume that they were free to write and publish such things as crypto without threat of punishment from the government. I would not assume that others could automattically copy and re-publish the work.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[Anonymous Coward]

Er..sorry, but your wife and her cousins have it wrong.

Chinese are people from China. People from Taiwan are Taiwanese.
Taiwan was never really part of China.
Taiwan's former ruling party KMT was not a Taiwan party either, it only became a Taiwan party after Mao defeated Chiang in China, and KMT retreated to Taiwan.
And, as a fact, KMT ruled Taiwan with an iron fist until the past 10~20 years, after Chiang hands the government to his son.
The people in Taiwan who wanted to unify with China are mostly mainlanders who retreated with Chiang many many years ago. They DO NOT represent the original Taiwanese.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[tjwei]

If they are already one nation, what do you mean by "re-unify"? Try to imagine Microsoft claim Linux is part of Windows, because they are both OS.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Taiwanese recognizes there is only one China in this world, and that's Mainland China. Taiwan is Taiwan, China is China, got it?

Seems to me that you don't know China/Taiwan's history that well either heh.

Not quite Taiwan = Taiwan

[chipotle_pickle]

Taiwan and the PRC agree that there is one China and that it includes Taiwan. (They largely also agree that it includes Tibet, of all things.) But they are temporarily divided and will eventually merge. Of course, the PRC sometimes seem to think it can merge with Taiwan in the same way as Tibet or Hing Kong, and this is not going to happen as Taiwan has a formidable defense (even without the US).

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[Arandir]

A term that has no meaning to the average person is better than a term that implies the wrong meaning to the average person.

"This is free software"
"Oh, like Internet Explorer"

or

"This is Open Source Software"
"What's that?"
"Let me explain..."

Red Flag Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this have anything to do with Red FLag Linux (http://www.redflag-linux.com), the Linux distro officially endorsed by the mainland Chinese government?

Chinese free?

[bluegreenone]

this plan includes the creation of a totally Chinese free software environment for Taiwan users

A Chinese free software environment? How will anyone over there be able to understand the prompts?

money

[Anonymous Coward]

How is anyone supposed to make any money if all their software is free??? eh communists???

In other words...

[7-Vodka]

Willingness to pay is defined as:

..How much one is willing and able to pay for the good or services.

examples:

1. I am a copyright infringer. I am wealthy. I copy a version of a $2,000.00 CAD software just to try it out. I end up thinking it's ok but definately not worth $2,000.00, I _continue_ to use it though.
   Has the company lost revenue on me?
   Answer: NO. I was able to pay, but not willing.
2. I am a copyright infringer. I am a poor student/foreigner (how common is this among those who ignore copyright?). I copy a version of a $100 popular OS. I know I need it very much and would pay ANYTHING to get it for without it I would drop out of school or whatever.
   Has the company lost revenue on me?
   Answer: NO. I was willing to pay, but not able.
3. I am a copyright infringer. I am a free-software advocate. I use a small program to tell the vmware trial it hasn't expired. I use vmware to run a copy of windows XP with MS office so that I can more easily send things to my professors. I didn't purchase them. I have $200.00 in my bank account.
   Has any company lost money on me?
   Answer: no. Because I am not willing to pay their prices AND because I am not able to pay their prices.

Re:In other words...

[kz45]

examples:
I am a copyright infringer. I am wealthy. I copy a version of a $2,000.00 CAD software just to try it out. I end up thinking it's ok but definately not worth $2,000.00, I _continue_ to use it though.
Has the company lost revenue on me?
Answer: NO. I was able to pay, but not willing.
I am a copyright infringer. I am a poor student/foreigner (how common is this among those who ignore copyright?). I copy a version of a $100 popular OS. I know I need it very much and would pay ANYTHING to get it for without it I would drop out of school or whatever.
Has the company lost revenue on me?
Answer: NO. I was willing to pay, but not able.
I am a copyright infringer. I am a free-software advocate. I use a small program to tell the vmware trial it hasn't expired. I use vmware to run a copy of windows XP with MS office so that I can more easily send things to my professors. I didn't purchase them. I have $200.00 in my bank account.
Has any company lost money on me?
Answer: no. Because I am not willing to pay their prices AND because I am not able to pay their prices.

example:

I get gas for my car at a gas station. The price per gallon is too much for me. I drive off, and never pay. Does the company lose money?

Under your argument, it would be no, because I was never willing to pay for it in the first place.

If you are not willing to pay for software, you should not be willing to use it either.

Just like if I own a business, and I want to use GNU licensed code. If I was never going to abide by the license anyway, does it mean I can sell it without re-releasing the source?

Re:In other words...

[7-Vodka]

what are you fucking dumb? I'm sorry but that really had to be said.

When you copy software you don't diminish a supply. When you take gas, you diminish the supply of the vendor thus producing the damage. YOU, sir are a moron AND a troll.

I was talking about willingness to pay because a sale can only happen if WTP is greater than the price. Also make sure to take the preceeding paragraph of this post into account.

Re:In other words...

[kz45]

When you copy software you don't diminish a supply. When you take gas, you diminish the supply of the vendor thus producing the damage. YOU, sir are a moron AND a troll

no, but from the looks of your post, it seems you are, though.

I guess you agree with my final point, then.

Re:In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

And the lying cretin strikes again! You can't refute what he actually said, so you just pull that third-grade "I know you are but what am I," stick your fingers in your ears, and hum real loud. My god, you're a fucking imbecile. Please, for the sake of future generations, slit your wrists today. You really don't deserve to live.

Re:In other words...

[ScottKin]

Talking about calling the kettle "Black"...

Here's a better example: I manage a large apartment complex, and rewire the entire complex and convert & modify all of the *DIGITAL* cable boxen to let all of my tennants to get every movie channel for free.

Is it "theft of bits"? NO, because I wasn't willing to pay for it. I myself am not paying for the additional channels my tennants use. There is no "supply" of bits. I am not willing to pay for the service.

Your "Willingness to Pay .vs greater than price" is pure and utter BOVINE FERTILIZER and bleeds of what is really wrong in the world today: CORRUPT MORALS!

FSCK yourself! (Yes, FSCK - File System ChecK...if you thought it meant something else, then pour some Drain-o in your ear to CLEAN-UP YOUR MIND!)

ScottKin

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[martyn s]

But my real question is, why not call it "free," I don't see what we gain by calling it "libre". By doing that we are usually ignoring the fact that the software is "gratis" as well as "libre". My question is, why not combine the two, and call it "free"?

M@cr&s*ft champions open source again

[anonymous_wombat]

Is there any doubt that M@cr&s*ft is the greatest proponent of open source software out there? Through their incredible licensing and marketing policies, they have greatly spread the use of open source throughout the world. I think that they should get a Turing award.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[slashhot]

The US has pledged its help to a Democracy that is in danger (...)

Like the democracy in the USA, where the candidate with less votes is elected president? Right!

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country

[slovin8]

The analogy to Kuwait is false though. Iraq claimed Kuwait not because it is its 17th province but due to economical reasons. The 17th province thing was just a cover-up. Iraq now fully recognizes Kuwait.. but nearby hostile countries .. i.e. Iraq and Iran will always be a threat.

christ man.

[7-Vodka]

I'll explain it to you really simply. For the benefit of anyone else reading the thread.

1. A sale only occurs when willingness to pay > price.
2. Software, unlike material goods costs nothing to reproduce, especially if someone else reproduces it.
3. There is no direct damage caused by it's reproduction since nothing is diminished during the process.
4. Proprietary software companies always claim every copy reproduced illegally looses them the full value of one copy of their software.

Therefore what proprietary software companies claim is false (point 4). They do not suffer damages from a diminishable resource (they agree with this, points 2 and 3). Furthermore they do not loose a potential customer with every sale because many copyright infringers do not meet the requirements to buy their software (point 1).

Admit it, their figures are bogus.

As far as your last example of company violting the GPL:
Yes, if anyone claims the same as the proprietary companies, point 4, then they too are full of shit.

Last post.

Re:christ man.

[kz45]

Admit it, their figures are bogus.

let's say, for instance, that I have a large programming company. I pay 10 programmers around $100,000 a year. They work on a project for 2 years. For research and development, I haven now paid 2,000,000.

Im selling my product for $49.99. If someone decides to make illegal copies, I am out $49.99 (what you would normally be forced to pay). When you buy software, you are also paying for R & D.

I'll explain it to you really simply. For the benefit of anyone else reading the thread

let me explain something to you: Unlike free software, proprietary companies have to pay programmers.

'nuff said

Re:christ man.

[blazer1024]

Yes, but expenses are really irrelevant to this issue. If you are simply not going to pay for a peice of software you use, it makes no difference if you use it or not. Either way, the software company will not get their $49.99 from you.

Re:christ man.

[ScottKin]

Oh, boy - this is going to be FUN!!!

1. A sale only occurs when willingness to pay is greater than price.

WRONG. A sale occurs when you pay for goods or services. This "Willingness to pay" angle is utterly stupid. I want Gas in my car, but I'm not willing to pay for it, so getting the product without paying for it is THEFT.

2. Software, unlike material goods costs nothing to reproduce, especially if someone else reproduces it.

WRONG. You pay programmers to write software that's good enough to sell (unlike open-source crap that you can't even get people to BUY), along with advertizing, purchasing raw materials like CDs. In order to recoup your costs, you SELL it. Reproducing Commerical works is THEFT.

3. There is no direct damage caused by it's reproduction since nothing is diminished during the process.

Based on faulty assumptions #1 and #2, so this is also WRONG. QED.

4. Proprietary software companies always claim every copy reproduced illegally looses them the full value of one copy of their software.

WRONG. Illegally reproduced or distributed software detracts from the sales of said software, just like "shrinkage" (i.e. shoplifting) reduces sales of product for stores.

Therefore what proprietary software companies claim is false (point 4). They do not suffer damages from a diminishable resource (they agree with this, points 2 and 3). Furthermore they do not loose a potential customer with every sale because many copyright infringers do not meet the requirements to buy their software (point 1)

It appears that 7-Vodka learned economics from the back of a Cheerio's box. Go back and get at least some book-learnin' on economics, you dolt!

ScottKin

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[formulax]

Oh come on. All most every young man in China knows Locke and Thomas Jefferson. And we also know about Martin Luther King, who was fighting for human rights and civil rights of the blacks in 1960s. And if I am not mistaken, you Americans had already started shouting about freedom and human rights. Linus Torvalds said in his autobiography that the reason he dislikes Richard Stallman is because he tried to force everybody to believe in his belif. And that is the reason why Chinese dislike Americans. We have different values, we understand human rights in a different way. And Americans tried to force us to believe so called human rights. We admire Thomas Jefferson, just like Linus admires Richard Stallman. But at the same time we also support Communist Party, because it is them who let us "stand up". Without them, we will not achieve 8% growth in economic development every year. Political reform shall only take place after the economical reform is finished. Abraham Lincoln said that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Therefore, Communist Party shall not perish from China.

Re:Why not call it "libre software"?

[bigsteve@dstc]

A term that has no meaning to the average person is better than a term that implies the wrong meaning to the average person.

And a term that has roughly the right meaning (like "libre") is better than either.

I rest my case. (My arm hurts :-)

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[Derleth]

Oh come on. All most every young man in China knows Locke and Thomas Jefferson.

So they haven't been censored by the government? Amazing.

And we also know about Martin Luther King, who was fighting for human rights and civil rights of the blacks in 1960s. And if I am not mistaken, you Americans had already started shouting about freedom and human rights.

Uh, yeah. Americans have believed in human rights for a long time.

We have different values, we understand human rights in a different way.

Like Hitler understanded racial equality in a different way?

But at the same time we also support Communist Party, because it is them who let us "stand up". Without them, we will not achieve 8% growth in economic development every year.

Eight percent? Hardly anything to shout about. And in the USA, anyone can own a company, not just the Party favorties. And anyone can hold any opinion without being sent to a shithole prison. China lets you 'stand up' the same way heroin makes you a genius.

Political reform shall only take place after the economical reform is finished.

And will pigs have to fly first?

Abraham Lincoln said that the government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth. Therefore, Communist Party shall not perish from China.

No, that is the reason the Chinese government will perish. As long as the Chinese people believe in human rights, the Chinese government is in grave, grave danger.

About your comparison with Linus and RMS: We care about the Chinese people, and the government they are laboring under, because we think human rights are a good thing and don't like seeing fellow humans die for holding opinions. We think we should help the Chinese government fall because we think slavery is wrong. That is why.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[Derleth]

Like the democracy in the USA, where the candidate with less votes is elected president? Right!

I agree, but in the US, we can have a discussion like this without fearing the secret police.

Re:Taiwan is NOT a country (Sure, then Quebec is.)

[formulax]

Uh, yeah. Americans have believed in human rights for a long time.

How interesting. If you've been believing in human rights for a long time, did Martin Luther King to fight for it? If something is already there, why somebody has to fight for it?

Like Hitler understanded racial equality in a different way? Initially you are attacking the Communist, and now you are attacking the whole race of Chinese. Perhaps you agree with Hitler's value of raical equality. Chinese are bad races and they do not understand human rights, right?

Eight percent? Hardly anything to shout about. And in the USA, anyone can own a company, not just the Party favorties. And anyone can hold any opinion without being sent to a shithole prison. China lets you 'stand up' the same way heroin makes you a genius.

Come to China, boy. Just come and look around, you will change your opinion.

And will pigs have to fly first? That is the main difference. We want money first, democracy next. So leran some Chinese values first before talking all these nonsense. Read more about China. Confucius(Kongzi), Laozi, Mozi...Read the history of China, especailly the history of Ching. How you Americans and British invade us. You will understand why Chinese eagerly want to be strong.

about your comparison with Linus and RMS: We care about the Chinese people, and the government they are laboring under, because we think human rights are a good thing and don't like seeing fellow humans die for holding opinions. We think we should help the Chinese government fall because we think slavery is wrong. That is why.

Then Thank you. We do not need you and your values. We have ours, we have the values than has been passed on for five thousand years. Don't think that you are the world police. You are not, everybody can take good care of themselves. China can take care of itself. Chinese can take care of themselves. Sell your values to other places. They are not welcomed in China.

Re:PenPoint? interesting

[WillAdams]

OklaKid said and asked:
>never heard of it, where are some screenshots???

How's your Russian? This was Google's sixth hit for ``Go PenPoint''

http://history.handy.ru/museum/eo.html

> will it run on a x86 ATX mainboards with
> intel or athlon CPU

http://www.globalmonitor.com/730Tos.html

Lots of links and information at the latter site.

William