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Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the makes-good-sense dept.

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."

3 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. Dispute with Microsoft by Overcoat · · Score: 5, Informative

    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?

  2. Re:The problem.. by ObviousGuy · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.)

    --
    I have been pwned because my /. password was too easy to guess.
  3. Taiwan not ready for that yet by randy_ch · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.