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Chinese Government to Use Only Local Software
owlmon writes "CNET Asia is reporting that China has outlawed foreign software in government applications. I expect that software buyers outside of the government will have to follow this lead. It's the same "network effect" that has powered Microsoft's growth for years. When the entire Chinese government is using WPS Office, anyone doing business with the government will feel mighty encouraged to follow suit. Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?"
Don't automatically assume that Chinese gov't will follow the open standards ideology.
Yes, but how will they exchange documents with the rest of the world that's using the de facto standard, MS Office?
Sounds like a pretty stupid plan to me:
1) Homegrown software
2) Force it on everybody
3) ???
4) Profit!
Most of my school, and offices, and home users in general use MS Word. Just because thats the mainstream, I don't have to run MS word or even windows to work with them. I use the linux alternatives like OpenOffice, Koffice etc. which converts MS word documents just fine. You don't always have to conform to be compatbile
...but they'll pirate our music, our movies, and forget about the whole human rights thing. Maybe we should send the British navy back in to convince them to start buying our goods again.
All the IT jobs are moving to Asia anyway. Who needs retail software jobs? Not me!
Would you like some fries with that?
It would be great to see usa work the same way and supporting their own OS makers. Instead of supporting them, usa sues them and tries to split em up...
Logic: No.
NumB http://www.engvig.net
Awww, too bad Microsoft won't see any profits from the 80% reduction in software piracy.
To know that you know what you know, and that you do not know what you do not know, that is true wisdom. --Scooby Doo
Do the folks making WPS Office make available the data needed to make other office suites, like OpenOffice.org and ABIWord, able to read and write in WPS Office's format? Or does WPS use some format already recognized by an alternative office package?
Despite millions of years of evolution, human beings, taken as a group, are still stupid, panicky animals.
What if they decide to ignore the GPL and start stealing code without offering sources?
Would Linux and other open source be considered "local" if there are Chineese contributors?
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
It could be interesting to know if OpenOffice.org is planning to support the WPS file formats, thus being 'the one office-suite' (and in the darkness bind them :-)
Incompetence Floats
The article only briefly mentions it, but the Chinese government is still fully behind Red Flag Linux. It's safe to say that their entire IT infrastructure will soon be based on Free Software. Unfortunately, the article doesn't delve too deeply into the causes, merits, and implications of this decision.
> Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?
Anyone remember paper?
And thus singnals, the end of the American empire.
Why don't they bundle a web browser with WPS Office and tell Microsoft that its "critical" to the system.
Now get all the state-owned OEMs to bundle WPS and charge $199 for it even if it needs removed, because hey, you could be stealing it by putting it RIGHT BACK ON!
BTW: If you missed SCO's phone number, it is 800-726-8649. Press '5' to speak to a representative.
SCO: 800-726-8649
Verisign: 800-361-8319, 888-642-9675
Diebold: 800-433-VOTE (8683)
The Chinese government has consistently promoted its local software based on Linux, both for cost reasons, and reportedly for 'security' concerns as well.
The source code for proprietory software is not revealed, and this, it is believed, has not found favour with the Chinese, especially in defence and
security related applications.
A few ex-Enron accountants will take care of that.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
It would be interesting to see an OS/software written from the ground up in a completely different language, esp. one that used pictograms.
But as it is, it's all going to be based on software written in English-ish programming languages, isn't that right?
So, I can understand the urge to go local, but I don't think they're going far enough. Imagine the impediment we would face if we had to learn how to write software for an OS that was based on, say, Mandarin. How many of us would really have ended up taking to computers?
So doesn't that apply in reverse?
And to make matters worse, they say English is the hardest second language to learn. And most of the advanced texts in CS are in English. The HOWTO's are all in English (yeah I know there are foreign language versions but let's be real, it isn't as complete or as up-to-date as the ones in English.)
Is this truly the only Earth I can live on?
How pay you bill? Free Software Fundation or Microsoft?
I have nothing against free software, it is good for compition, but do not diss Microsoft or any other software company because it make money. I think Windows is a excelent peace of software and so is the Office.
BTW, I do use Linux and "GNUed" software, but I do like MS product as well. English is a hard language.
This is local software for local people, there is nothing for you here.
.. is all very good, but China isn't isolated enough to not do business with the outside world. There's always the odd document - usually ones written with the most up to date version of MS Office that won't read properly. So if you're in an office, you find someone with MS Office and get them to convert it for you. But if you're not allowed Office at all, you're pretty much up the creek.
Do you know what this means for the open source movement? Better yet do you know what this means for the global economy? This changes the whole dynamics of the game.
Now China will have two options, develop an alternative to Microsoft Windows using open source, or develop an alternative to microsoft windows which is closed source.
Either way, we will get better software through competition, this is good for capitalism, good for the user, good for the software industry, and I cant see anything bad coming from this. I hope they take Redhat Linux and make it standard in China.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Do the people making WPS Office make the data needed to make other office suites available, like OpenOffice, to be able to read and write in WPS Office's format? Or does WPS use a format recognized by alternative office packages?
Even if they dont, we will still get better software. Windows will have competition, Microsoft Word, and all the American software companies will now have competitors in China, this is great.
Sure not all the companies will be open source, but even if they are closed source you'll still be able to buy or download Chinese software which may be x100 better than the American software we have currently.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Slashdot users world wide now conflicted. Film at 11.
Guess what, We cant afford our software, you go buy photoshop, I'll use Gimp.
Do you think I care if they dont buy our intellectual property when I dont own any of it and dont profit from any of its sales? Do you think I care if they pirate music when artists dont even own the copyrights on the music?
Its not a matter of them buying our goods, if their goods are better and cheaper why not buy theirs? Sure I prefer to buy goods made in the USA to support the US economy, but I'm not rich, so a choice must be made, if our products are equally as good and the same price I'll always buy ours, but if their products are better and cost less I'll be forced to buy theirs.
Either way their cheaper products will force the price of our products down, this will help the economy.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
It is interesting to see an oppressive government fighting for its freedom from an oppressive corporation.
It looks like both sides are getting a taste of their own medicine.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
China's determination to support Chinese software vendors will likely boost the domestic software markets. However, the full adoption and implementation of this policy around the country will take time due to China's vast territory and highly decentralized government.
Simple, we pirate their software and then offer it up for download all over the internet to the Chinese.
What are they going to do? Sue you? LMAO
If they dont follow our rules why should we follow theirs? If they try to sell open source software, we buy it, crack it and give it away. Problem solved.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Who cares if they get RedHat Linux- They can use it and then close the software if they like.
Sue them for a copyright infringement? Hah!
BOO! TERRO
The data format is owned by Microsoft, it is underspecified and is apt to random changes from version to version.
While it is possible to write converters supporting to some degree some versions of Word format, they tend to work only for simple documents. If unsure, try importing a Word document with non-trivial markup or mathematical formulas into office suite of your choice. Or even try importing such a document from MS Word 97 to MS Word 2000...
Lisp is the Tengwar of programming languages.
WPS Office is, unless something has changed, as proprietary as is Microsoft Office.
And AVS for audio/video is patent/royalty encumbered.
How is it in the interests of the people in any nation, that daily government operations and communication be dependent upon a private corporation?
When will we see a government -- a people -- that will stand up to large corporate interests and fund the development and deployment of an open source office suite and groupware servers and clients, of similar or higher quality than existing proprietary solutions, so that the daily operation of our government will not be dependent upon the business strategies of private corporations.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
There's lots of commercial OSS software the Chinese government is still intending to use.
By using the theory laid out in the famous chewbacca defense and applying it to other areas of academic study is a brilliant strategy!
The Chewbaccian Dialectic is a powerful theoretical approach and when applied to literary critique it really shines!
Well done sir!
Does it remove all that stuff that "fast save" tacks onto the end of the document (that reveals that you typed "I hate my boss" and then deleted it) and the document history and who created it and when etc.
That would be a handy filter.
Look at the propoganda wording being used!
Chinese government "outlaws" foreign software! Oh those evil bastards!
But when the USA government mandates MS it's not "outlawing foreign software" it's just "helping the economy by buying domestically".
What a crock...
The move is not to stop sale of non-chinese software but to force software MNCs to invest in China and start their development facilities in China.
This is nothing new. In the middle-east most countries require foreign companies to partner with a local company that holds the controlling stake. So for example, IBM operates as GBM (Gulf Business Machines) in the middle-east.
So, the Chinese government won't buy software from M$(US) but from M$(China) after M$ sets up a development facility in China. This will also force MNCs to divert investments from other competing economies like India, Indonesia, Philipines etc.
On the other hand, desktops and servers could run Linux and other open source software customised for Chinese, networking equipment would be sourced from Hua-Wei, chips are already manufactured in China. What else's remaining??
From BBC News -- "Your Microsoft Word document can give readers more information about you than you might think. Even Alastair Campbell has fallen foul of the snippets of invisible data few of us realise our documents contain."
If you use Microsoft Word in a business environment -- or for anything where your information is valuable -- it is recommended that you look into what hidden files may be hiding in your Word documents.
It is becoming more clear that all of Windows and every Microsoft application is likely to be similar to Microsoft Word -- filled with hidden information and hidden functionality that has never been disclosed by Microsoft.
An aphorism of gambling says, "Only make a bet when you can afford to lose". In China's case, your entire nation's strength and health is at risk when they are using Microsoft software, so it simple to see that it is a bet that cannot be made.
Sun Tzu wrote "All war is deception." The big deception is Microsoft's "Source Code for Governments". What does that matter when you download binary "security" patches, "updates", "new drivers", "service packs", etc? What does that matter when you don't get to see the Microsoft Office source code? Microsoft's "Emperor's New Source Code" program is nothing but smoke and mirrors, deception at its finest. It looks like the Chinese have wised up to Microsoft's deception and given Microsoft the boot.
What will it take for the rest of the world to wake up and realize that the only software you can trust is open source?
When the Fearless Leader of 20% of the world's population says "Shit" they squat in unison and ask, "What color". As it is, nearly every computer component comes from China now except hard drives. At least I can still get quality mobo from Taiwan. The low cost ones from China suck like a leaky pump at a sewage lift station. BTW, Linux already had Chinese language support using CLE extensions. AFAIK, Red Flag just makes the whole bundle Chinese language aware from the git-go. I used Mandrake because at one time it had Chinese language support right out of the box. And for those who don't know, Chinese is the written language that is nearly the same across all the spoken dialects. You don't write Mandarin (Contonese, Fuchinwah, etc for hundreds of dialects), you speak it and write using Chinese.
Too lazy to create a sig...
Why do you think that your american model of what is IP is correct, when the rest the world is worng? Just b/c you have more power? Not any more.
First, You don't talk about Afganistan, you talk about a country that has a nuclear weapon. China has enough nuclear weapons to make any your military attack obsolete. You may destroy more their cities and kill more their children. But after the nuclear winter will begin, the US goverment will have more serious issues to solve rather than "IP infriging" in China. If there will be any US goverment after that :)
Second, last time I've chekced in Walmart and other US supermarkets: almost everything was made in China. Burn Chinese economy down and start to think where you will buy next time all your clothes, electronics and everything else. The trueth is that US consumer becomes a slave of the China economy. If China goverment will stop all export to US that will crash US economy better than all previous dot-bombs, enrons, 9/11 and 8/14 altogether.
No, think again and come back here to fix your wrong comment.
Less is more !
Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?
Text files? Other non-proprietary standard formats?
With the US government's current foreign policy, it's no wonder other countries are skeptical of software from companies such as Microsoft that are 'in bed' with them ( see Microsoft anti-trust trial for evidence of relationship between Microsoft and government ).
If Microsoft wants to stay on top, they will have to distance themselves from the US government, or they will simply not be trusted.
Or perhaps it's too late...
Now, this is not the same kind of commodity (obviously) but it's the same kind of attitude. I wonder what's the next step for them. Maybe forbidding people from certain countries to come to mainland China ? It might be for the best of their country, but they certainly do not know how to impose such rules with diplomacy... my 2 cents worth...
Music is the language of the heart, the sound of the soul. -Joe Satriani
Does anyone know anything about China's record with regards to free software? I think most people here have read about Red Flag Linux (kinda funny that an OS that prides itself on its openness, internationality, and general disdain for borders would be branded in such a nationalistic way, imho :P) but do we know anything about what China has returned to the community? ie, are they committed to the GPL?
Those who think this is a wonderful example of a move away from Microsoft towards alternatives and/or open source are being staggeringly naive.
m l?tid=153) it looks to me like they're trying to restrict and control at the client end. Think Palladium driven by politics rather than economics.
This is all about the ageing despots who run China trying to keep political and economic control over technological changes. Instead of restricting access to dangerous material at the server/network end (http://yro.slashdot.org/yro/02/09/02/0246224.sht
Half of the shit that passes as American goods is made in Indonesia and China anyhow.
Grab a Microsoft Xbox DVD remote, for example. It's not made in USA.
Who is Judy Branch anyway! I'm sick of seeing her face everywhere.
for openly violating the GPL and removing
copyright notices. Still, they look
a lot better than SCO who started extorting
the Linux community through which they were making
millions and millions per year from other peoples
effort.
A lot more filth was required to outo the
Chinese, was eventually eventually discoverd not
in another country, but from some Americans in Idaho.
Having just read through a particularly lugubrious academic article entitled "One person, one computer: The social construction of the personal computer", I would have to agree.
Anyone care to fathom how many more hackable machines will be available in China after this changeover?
Their official IT people won't even fix the thousands of hijacked proxies that are already compromised.
!@#$% whole-grain cereal. When I want fiber, I eat some wicker furniture. - G. Carlin
This is good for China and great for open-source.
China gains in the short term by throwing off the handcuffs offered by BG. and Co.
Open-source gains down the road when China starts giving back. This may take a few years, but once open source gets a foothold in China it will be massively adopted (We are seeing this right now) but more importantly, we might be seeing the start of a common language for China.
What we get back from the Chinese via the GPL may be more than we bargained for.
And I am hoping uniting China under a Free software initiative will perhaps take on a life of its own.
"Chinese Government to Use Only Local Software"
"China is placing official support behind the Red Flag Linux operating system"
Linux is local software coded by the Chinese?
I have several friends who write math textbooks. They use equation editor and have to use Word. Sure, OpenOffice might be good enough for you to occasionally read a simple document made with Word when you don't have to be 100% compliant with the formatting a publisher is expecting of you, but find me one of the alternatives that you mention that perfectly matches complex formatting used in textbooks and can import and export Word compatable equation editor documents, and I'll get my friends to convert in a heartbeat. But the truth is Microsoft has locked in all but the most simplistic of Word users, and anyone who has to do business with them.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
The most naive question ever. TXT? RTF? DOC(!)?
Ya that government didn't do anything but take literacy from 20% to 80%, advance women from housewifes to all levels of professional life and give peasants their own land.
I mean china was SOOOO much better before communism right?
I hate tards that think everyone communist country was like fucking Florida before the evil commies came and ruined it!
The REASON those countries went communist in the first place was because it was EVEN WORSE BEFORE the revolutions man!
You can't go from totally backwards despotic agrarian culture dominated by imperialism and then turn into western europe in 30 years!
If you look at where china is headding right now it's going for world power status fast and it's definatly scaring western governments. Just wait until it is fully industrialized and has full IT infrastructure. Watch out now. You can expect heavy anti-china propoganda spewing out of every western media outlet in the coming years. Oh well to bad...Time for the white people civilization to go the same place islams great civilization went...
in 4 languages. English was the easiest language
to learn. I should be mightly hard to find
languages that are easier than English.
English a like learning Basic; French is
like learning C; and Gernam is like learning C++
plus Python. I am sure, Chinese is like learning
10 computer languages at once.
Note: it is
lot more difficult learning a human language than
a computer language, so the examples are relative.
You should not despise that easily, just come by and visit and you will see what this so called "comunists" are doing. Just as a token of reference, I've been 2 weeks here (beijing china) and seen lots (I mean lots!) of Mc Donald's, KFC, TJI Fridays etc etc.. They are everywhere! Coffee at any of the local Starbucks is about 23 Yuen (US $3.00) and the places are packed! (of local chinese kids ) I've never seen a more capitalistic place than this! (and believe me I'vee been all over the world) Considering than 10 years ago people where marching against tanks, the current government has done an incredible job of transformation with a minimum of pain (Just look at the USSR) Granted, there are still a lot of human right pending issues, but it is pretty hipocritical to complain about it while very similar behaviour is going on in the US (read guantanamo, etc etc.) Those who fail to study their history, are doom to repeat it. alx.
then we should force M$ into Canada now!
Instead of building on and benefiting from {k|open|gnome}office we already have, the Chinese Government decides to support a globally meaningless and proprietary local product. Bad news for all opensource solutions = good news for Microsoft.
The chinese government does not care much about the human rights thing. Do you think that they will respect the GPL ? Now I would like to see Stallman and the FSF taking the chinese government to court ...
The US, Europe, and Australia can stay ahead by inventing and mastering new industries. This is the "knowledge gap" that we have had up to now in the sciences and technology. But things are changing. The Asian nations have shown their skill in imitation, and are now plowing ahead in the biotech field. The West must keep open, and keep plowing forward.
As to the Chinese government only using local software - surely sovereign nations have the right to determine internal bureaucratic standards? There's no right or wrong here, and the WTO should stay out of any protectionist argument that arises.
What is bad about regulating their own markets? Doesn't a government even have the obligation to protect their countries economy? Why should they lose control over their markets when "free" (=unregulated) trading puts them at a disadvantage?
China is a huge market and controling entry to that market gives them leverage. So they use that leverage to their advantage. Why not? I think that's better than the american way: "export" (via WTO etc.) their laws (especially IP-laws) to other countries to make them play by a set of rules that puts them at a disadvantage.
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
I tried skimming all these responses, but I didn't see anyone else mention it. China, by banning a foreign software product, is raising a barrier to trade. At the same time, China wants to join the World Trade Organization (they didn't get accepted yet right?). So in the end, this law sounds like something the WTO is going to demand China repeal if they want to join.
Oh, Edmund, can it be true? that I hold here, in my mortal hand, a nugget of purest green?
According to the , software industry loses billions because of the piracy. This move will decrease piracy and thus recudes losses!
The WPS Office Suite is produced by "Golden Mountain Software Company" (it's a direct translation from the Chinese characters) and the web site is located at http://www.wps.com.cn/
According to press release at http://www.wps.com.cn/newsview.php?id=174 The WPS 2003 Office Suite will be on sale starting August 30th, the WPS Office Suite 2003.
The WPS Office Suite will carry the price of 1298 Chinese Yuan, (about USD 160).
All previous users of any softwares produced by WPS are eligible to upgrade to the latest WPS Office Suite 2003 for Ten Chinese Yuan (a little less than USD 2.00).
Yep, less than USD 2.00 for a complete upgrade.
Dunno if that includes the postage and handling or not, tho.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-990526.html ...that MS was going to show China it's source code to 'prove it was trustworthy/secure'? now china bans foreign software in gov't. coincidence?
Theories:
1)China looks upon the code of Evil and flees.
2)China looks upon the code of Evil and thieves.
Instead of harping over Chinese closed marketness, or Microsoft bashing, why not look at the issue with a geopolitical mind?
Microsoft is a US based company. Why would China want to use a US firms software for all of its government business? That is ludicrous. What would happen if the US government used Chinese software?
Why should the Chinese government trust that Microsoft won't be secretly subpeonaed by US secret courts to open up backdoors to let the CIA in? I wouldn't trust them to not do that.
If the US government buys Chinese software and uses it in government then, maybe you guys have a case against China for not using US osftware.
How much US military hardware is not American? How much of it is Chinese?
Trying to encourage the development of technology in your country by limiting access of outside competition has been tried before. In many cases this has given rise to national champions, who are behind the world in the quality of their products and has caused the customers to suffer. For example consumers in India were stuck with outdated mechanical and electorincal products, until the controls were lifted and the market flooded with mostly Chinece produtcs. The consumers benefited and the local manufacturers were shaken badly.
In a similar way the Finnish government was stuck for years with a national government developed word processing program in the 1980's and early 1990's.
So from this point of view the Chinese government might be painting itself into a technology corner, potentially being stuck to an inferior product.
However the Chinese market is so huge that there is room for internal competition. Also software as a product has a tendency towards forming a monopoly, due to the high costs of entering the market and the low costs of replicating the product. So an occasional shaking of the emergent structure might well be justified.
We should also be asking how much the EU bureocracy is paying to Microsoft each year and how much could be saved by moving to Open Office.
It would be interesting to know if the Chinese directive is targeted only to office applications or if it applies to other software also. This could be a boon to the Chinese software industry in terms of ERP software, network managemet, CAD etc.
kiravuo
Back in 2002 one of the Danish Prime Minister's opening speeches written in Office XP was made available on the Net. The document included previous drafts which could be rolled back.
The drafts revealed that he did not write the entire speech himself, and of course, also things which should have been left "unsaid". I remember the "unsaid" part caused a bit of a stir - to some extend it revealed a sort of a hidden agenda with regards to some political issues.
Afterwards it was said that this would never happen with classified documents, such as NATO documents.
Sure!
zWhat would an EWOULDBLOCK block, if an EWOULDBLOCK could block would? -- me
Seemingly open standards can often favor one corporation over another and China it's no different. Increasingly China has seems to team up with local private corporations and it's not necessarily chooseing open standards but protectionist ones.
China is flip-floping from socialist to fascist. I say that not to be pedantic, but because, while I was living China I met a few entrepreneurs who weld some strong political power.
The lastime I checked if I go to the local FBI headquarters and walked around outside with a sign calling president bush or whoever is in office adolf hitler I would not get arrested.
Go try that outside of the local chinese federal police office and see what type of treatment you get.
I'm not saying Chinese are superior, they dont have to be, they have numbers on their side.
Theres a billion of them, they ARE going to make better software, period, theres no way we can debate this, the chances of us making the best software in the world are slim, its nice to believe we are the best at it but reality and math says that the Chinese will be better at it simply because they have more people and their people are willing to work for alot less money.
Just like with the car industry, and all the other industries.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Wikileaks, no DNS
Its a monopoly for the Chinese maybe but not for us. It means now we can choose to use their software if theirs is better.
Just like Japan making electronics was good for competition, its good for China to make software.
And I say innovation will happen because I know that Microsoft will have competition, I'm not caring what happens in China, I'm American, I'm more worried about the USA, and it would be good for us if that happened in China just like Sony was good for our economy (well for alittle while)
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
"Oh well to bad...Time for the white people civilization to go the same place islams great civilization went... "
What? Bradford???
Does anyone know how much of microsoft's revenue is from foreign sales? It would be interesting to know how much money they are bringing into the country - since that is 'good' from a nationalistic standpoint at least, and might make up somewhat for their strangling and bleeding dry the rest of the citizenry.
No, Pirate their software if they sell it, and if they dont sell it, well then you'll never know it exists because it will be for their government.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
>You can't go from totally backwards despotic >agrarian culture dominated by imperialism and >then turn into western europe in 30 years!
Surely not - but you can do a lot better than China has done. Take a look at Taiwan, South Korea and Japan (and Hong Kong and Singapore) and see if you can find some common features of these countries. That's right they are all democratic and have been quite a lot more succesful in securing benign living conditions for their people than communist China.
Better than before is just not good enough.
Ummm... save as html, rtf... ??? It aint that hard really!
I think the Chinese arent looking forward to DRM - Paladium and other idiot tricks MS uses to try and keep out people from their system or conform to what they see fit.
I would have done the same really, as a country with at least 1/4 of the people on this earth you cannot let people like MS's management walk through your plans.
I think the Chinese Government looks over longer term with their future plans than the shortsighted US governmant.
they don't have to distribute their changes, dumbass.
When the entire Chinese government is using WPS Office, anyone doing business with the government will feel mighty encouraged to follow suit. Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?
This really depends on how open the file formats are. Back when Microsoft was fighting for the Office market, I started using Word because the import/export filters were so good that I could use Word as a translator between the several word processors that everyone was dealing with. It wasn't until they owned the market that they started being incompatible with everyone, including earlier versions of their own software.
I see nothing but good coming from this. With one of the world's largest countries using something else, Microsoft will be facing a lot of market pressure to make their file formats regular and available for conversion to other formats and clean up thir act on being able to import from other formats.
Your comparing communism with the horribly corrupt impotent governments of China's past, and of course it's going to look pretty rosy. Millions and millions of people starved to death under communism (as I'm sure you know). North Korea of today is what China was under Mao. The improvements in Chinese society are coming from a push toward capitalism and liberalisation, not from communism.
Fact: media companies are big faceless corporations which makes it okay.
Myth: it's only fair to pay for quality first-run movies.
Fact: most movies shown on cable get two stars or less and are repeated ad nauseum.
(Adapted from The Simpsons, of course)
BOO! TERRO
I don't see why this should mean better software... I don't expect to see chinese software that's "100x better than the current one", and even if so, probably it will be in chinese btw. But actually banning foreign software can't lead to better software, but only to some really lame and dumb (almost government only?) packages that, having no serious competition, have no reason to get any better. I think it's hard to develop good software in such situation...
I do think that this, if extends its negative influence to the whole chinese software industry (dunno how much government software have impact on the whole industry), will only aggravate the chinese situation, and let them be more closed, more isolated, actually more dead.
Word's equation editor can't hold a candle to the way (La)TeX can format complicated equations. The equations typeset by Word using that system are not only plagued by a clumsy interface (one of the few instances where I find that WYSIWYG is a loser), they also look plain amateurish when compared to that created by LaTeX.
Certainly, there's a learning curve, but after a few days of practicing it becomes as natural as reading a formula. Most of the authors of articles for peer-reviewed journals use it to typeset them. Many of the newer technical books I own also mention that they were typeset using TeX or one of its many macro packages. TeX and LaTeX are the way to go for professional mathematical and scientific typesetting. I haven't seen anything else that comes even remotely close.
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
The software open tendering WILL NOT do any good to China government anyway. It is nothing do with Microsoft Tax, but the bribery tendering nature.
It is a common pratice for multinational company to give rebates to bribe their way through to secure contracts. In addition, there is countless way to bribe e.g. a cuisine diner, free gift, lucky draws, free vacations etc. Such practice will jet up the cost of business and it is the people who pay for it.
Microsoft has the luxury to play the game, but it will burden China government due to their corrupted servants. The China government can't stop their public servants corrupted practice in one day, but minimise the impact is something within their reach.
Good idea. A policy of "US Software Only" would put an end to the Overseas Software Outsourcing. On the other hand, it might be used against Open Source Software, as it could not be certified "Made in the USA".
US Software Piracy figures.
it could become a a bit of a chore, as the payper liesnse softwar gangsters are desperately attempting to have the hobbyists disempowered/illegalized/incompatabilized.
no matter, with yOUR help, they'll (the gangsters) have their phonIE 'options' soul DOWt from under damnned.
as the hobbyists are the total opposite of the phonIE payper liesense corepirate nazis.
you gnu/software folks are to be commended. we'd be nearly doomed by now without y'all. the check's in the mail again.
meanwhile... for those yet to see the light.
don't come crying to us when there's only won channel/os left.
nothing has changed since the last phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated 'news' brIEf. if anything the situations are continuing to deteriorate. you already know that.
the posterbouys for grand larcenIE/deception would include any & all of the walking dead who peddle phonIE stock markup payper to millions of hardworking conservative folks, & then after stealing/spending/disappearing the real dough, pretend that nothing ever happened. sound familiar robbIE? these fauxking corepirate nazi larcens, want us to pretend along with them, whilst they continue to squander yOUR "investmeNTs", on their soul DOWt craving for excess/ego gratification. yuk
no matter their ceaseless efforts to block the truth from you, the tasks (planet/population rescue) will be completed.
the lights are coming up now.
you can pretend all you want. our advise is to be as far away from the walking dead contingent as possible, when the big flash occurs. you wouldn't want to get any of that evile on you.
as to the free unlimited energy plan, as the lights come up, more&more folks will stop being misled into sucking up more&more of the infant killing barrolls of crudeness, & learn that it's more than ok to use newclear power generated by natural (hydro, solar, etc...) methods. of course more information about not wasting anything/behaving less frivolously is bound to show up, here&there.
cyphering how many babies it costs for a barroll of crudeness, we've decided to cut back, a lot, on wasteful things like giving monIE to felons, to help them destroy the planet/population.
no matter. the #1 task is planet/population rescue. the lights are coming up. we're in crisis mode. you can help.
the unlimited power (such as has never been seen before) is freely available to all, with the possible exception of the aforementioned walking dead.
consult with/trust in yOUR creator. more breathing. vote with yOUR wallet. seek others of non-aggressive intentions/behaviours. that's the spirit, moving you.
pay no heed/monIE to the greed/fear based walking dead.
each harmed innocent carries with it a bad toll. it will be repaid by you/us. the Godless felons will not be available to make reparations.
pay attention. that's definitely affordable, plus you might develop skills which could prevent you from being misled any further by phonIE ?pr? ?firm? generated misinformation.
good work so far. there's still much to be done. see you there. tell 'em robbIE.
Who says they're going to provide English versions of any software they write? If all their software is just governmental, why would they bother?
Does anyone know what format(s) this software uses? MS-based, OpenOffice, XML, open, closed, binary, easy, hard, portable, parseable??
I wish at was Friday, but I dont want to wish my life away. So I wish it was last Friday.
yeah finally!
:)
bet your ass the chinese are going to lag
software wise in a few years
be doing business with the chinese government anyways! You might as well just go ahead and cut your own throat.
I Wish I had mod points: mark up to he top
Considering the kind of backstabbing the US has gotten over the last decade for opening its markets to world competition I think it is time to start protecting domestic markets again.
Reciprocity with Europe and Asia has been very poor. Meanwhile we have pushed more and more manfacturing and in some case service jobs abroad.
I bet you still can't buy Kodak film in Japan or a legal music CD outside Europe and the US.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
can a topic about software lead to conversation about "abundant pornography".
So, China with roughly 16% of the world population has decided to sink foreign software makers.
Given the tremendous growth of the Chinese market, this move means that large part of the growth of world office automation software market is not going to M$, Open Office, Koffice etc because another office suite will become the de-facto standard in China.
A lot of industries have been hoping to use China to grow their sinking business. I guess they will have to change their plans. In the future I can see this happening in other sectors of the world economy. Nevermind the WTO, it won't stop China from doing whatever they want. There are a lot of of sanctions against the US from the WTO for various infractions, especially in steel, agricolture, etc. and the US never gave a damn.
And like all bureaucracies. its subject to ineffciencies.... So don't assume
1) that the regulations are going to be issued, and
2) that the regulations are going to be followed once they are issued. Particularly with respect to information technology, the Chinese government often issued regulations that everyone ignores.
I don't have the link, but a few years ago, the former chinese prime miniter's jet was ordered from Boeing, and they were greatly upset to discover bugs in the plane to spy on them. Their aversion to foreign technology products is resulting from incidents as such.
Just a few examples of the stupid US patents on other countries' products:
Bio-Piracy Campaign Exposes Holes in U.S Patent Laws
http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/tur-cn.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/1996/3011am.htm
The US Patent System Legalizes Theft and Biopiracy
Absurd patent laws
Since I see a lot of common fears in the threads above, I'd like to reiterate that the news report was discussing that the Chinese government was in the process of upgrading to a new VERSION of the same software package. They haven't been using MS Office, and probably won't start soon. Not all parts of the government have to conform to this policy, special exceptions are allowed upon request.
This policy won't change how businesses or individuals in China have to operate, nor do we know if Hong Kong's government will have to change. China has entered the WTO, as of January 1st 2004 they are opening their market to free trade. A lot of the old intellectual property issues will be fixed over the next few years, mainland China is soon to become the biggest importer of British and American goods (by way of Hong Kong of course!)
Forget about the Free Software angle for the moment, how is this any different then we as a country (the United States) saying we will only use American-based software. The answer is, it isn't. I am more concerned for the ability of American companies to develop software and export it to China then I am about Free Software. While this may see like a wonderful thing for Linux and the much larger software suites and it maybe great, its a real crap storm for small companies that provide niche-based software.
Look at all the software packages that might be used in the Chinese government created by companies all over the world. Now these companies are being told "Nope, you can't sell here anymore." That's a great deal of the world's producers being effectively shut out based on nationality. This is not a win for Free Software, this is a win for protectionism disguised (apparently very well) as advocacy for Free Software. This is no different then farm subsidies in Europe, and U.S. protection of the steel industry. (I have problems with both by the way).
One final thought, the last country in the world I would expose my source to is the Chinese government. The Chinese have not been known to be respecters of intellectual property. How fast do you think it would take for source of your application you developed to be handed over to a competing Chinese company. A month tops I believe.
As for you apologist who believe it necessary to protect new industries in developing countries, I have a rebuttal when it comes to software. The reason to protect industries like this would be because they have high barriers-to-entry and large capital costs. For instance, the building of farm equipment is one I would support because it is both resource intensive and long lead times to development and production. Software on the other hand is just the opposite. I can seat down someone in Russia, India, China, Egypt, Costa Rica, or the US give them a text editor and a compiler and they can become a software company. The resources and talent to build software can be found anywhere in the world as long as you got a computer and an internet connection to download the software. Therefore protecting local software companies, especially as an inflow of jobs comes from other parts of the world at the same time, is protectionism at its worst.
At least it is poetically Yin/Yang.
As a diehard ABMer from the days when I would come in and boot the green screen genuine PC with a 360K, I have never thought "excellence" when I've thought of Microsoft. It has been an oppressive business monopoly, not a monopoly of excellence. So it is fitting that only an equally oppressive government decree could counter it.
I'm more positive about this than not. With a linux base, it is more likely to promote creativity and advances than if the Chinese government had mandated that only Microsoft software could be used in government. Although Microsoft could be our secret weapon to maintain world dominance if only the _U.S._ would use linux.
Great! So instead of buying from a monoply that came to power through shrewd, unfettered free enterprise, the Chinese have decided to buy from one they created themselves. Great Idea, China!
"Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?"
XML ?
Doesn't one have to buy IOS with every Cisco router? How do they expect to be able to purchase Cisco routers (for the Great Firewall, perhaps?) and then not buy the foreign software that is required for them to operate? Are any routers made by a Chinese corporation?
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
This is why the USA needs to protect it's own as everyone else is preparing for WW3 and we're not protecting whats left of our economy at all.
Throw out all H1B visas, put a huge tarriff / ban on importation of CS works from outside countries, etc...
Point the nukes at China, last I checked we needed to cut back our numbers due to our treaties with Russia.
Rebuild Russia to a huge superpower as it should be so that the world fears them and US Only.
Capitalism Freedom; any Communist thinker will tell you that easily. Consumerism Freedom, either. If you feel up to it, try any of the folowing and see what happens:
1. Get a Chinese bible, stand on a street corner, and start reading from it out loud.
2. Carry a campaign sign for a non-Communist candidate for some public office.
3. Tell someone you want to have three children.
4. Offer to buy a piece of land in the countryside.
The American continent has had its share of repression, but nowhere is there as much a lack of freedom as I believe there is in China, except possibly in Cuba (and it's almost possible to get off that island by swimming).
Other countries' restrictions on import are often due to similar reasons. These should be understood.
So do you do that on a regular basis? :-)
The same thing happends here. Its a national security thing. Knowing that the nsa and such probably has backdoor access to windows os. and the same reasons usa won't use linux and such since it isn't 100% made and supported in the usa. It helps security and say a major world war they would still be reliant on themselves and not a foreign / potential enemy.
well there goes a butt load of competition for US programmers :-)
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Have you ever heard of format filtering? D'Oh!
No kidding. If MS can't stem piracy over there, what the hell is Stallman going to do to enforce the GPL? I mean, China *really* believes in Free Software!
I can see the slogan now: "China - 1 Billion Free (as in Tsingtao) Software Zealots Can't Be Wrong."
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Gez I can't stand these fuckwits who go arround speaking with authority about subjects they know nothing about.
You remind me of those nongs on web forums like military.com's that at least once a week type up a post in a authoritive manner, going on about how Powell was right because Iraq supported the Palestinian terrorist group Hezbollah.
When actually it's Iran & they've obviously gotten Iran 'n Iraq mixed up, & Hezbollah's Lebanese Shia not Palestinian.
Look please people, if you want to speak with authority on the web, at least either talk about subjects one's knowledgeable about, or at least read up on the subject, & Murdoch tabloids don't count in that regard
1. Get a Chinese bible, stand on a street corner, and start reading from it out loud.
Probably nothing will happen. The Chinese gov't doen't do anything unless it perceives you as a significant threat. It is quite common to see ordinary people in China critizing their gov't openly with impunity , AS LONG AS they don't publish it in the press, and they are not perceived as part of a bigger, significant opposing power.
3. Tell someone you want to have three children.
Depends on where you are in China. In some provinces, having more than one requires paying a fee. If you don't pay the fee, then your extra ones just run around without healthcare/education/etc benefits.
As far as I know, no one gets jailed for having more than one child. You hear of forced abortions because in the outback countryside local officials wanted their villages records look "good" to the central gov't. It is not official policy.
4. Offer to buy a piece of land in the countryside.
Pfft. Hong Kong people buy property in China all the time. The mainland Chinese almost encourage it.
The American continent has had its share of repression, but nowhere is there as much a lack of freedom as I believe there is in China, except possibly in Cuba (and it's almost possible to get off that island by swimming).
Based on what do you make this statement, have you been to every country in the world to make the comparison? Have you been to Myanmar? Hong Kong is part of China, and I assure you people there are freer than those in Singapore (half kidding). Not to mention various theocracies in the world.
You do know that artists did ok before IP laws existed?
Riiiight. So, now my software, like my machinery and equipment, textiles and clothing, footwear, toys and sporting goods can be "Made in China (by political prisoners) " Because, of course, the PRC is all about "free as in freedom" software, and choice in every aspect of daily life.
IMHO, the real reason behind this has nothing to do with anything as piddly as market share, etc. I think that the real rationale is to build a software "Great Wall" such that in the likely event of info-conflict, their systems wouldn't be vulnerable to son-of-msblaster, ilovemao, etc...
Carthago delenda est!
Virtually every govt dept of every country in the world has 'buy local' regulations in regards industries that exist in that country.
Meaning in just about every country with a car industry, govt depts have to buy local cars, or at least give them preferance.
Finally at last a country feels confident enough to treat the software industry in a similar fashion & the dominent country in regards software yells 'unfair'.........diddems, I say.
Protectionism is normal. It is free trade which is the relative newcomer to the political scene. It has really only taken off in the last 50 years, since WWII. Free trade is disadvantageous to developing countries. We (the US) employed protectionist policies with abandon in the 1800s. I'm sure China has no love for free trade; free trade arguments were used to sell the Opium War.
, 73 69,742812,00.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]
Also, have you heard of a country called North Korea?!?? How about Palestinians in Israel?
Indeed, China has tons, more than tons, of abuses, some of them capitalistic ones (private factory owners exploiting their workers, etc) But one must at least get the facts straight.
Have you ever tried to write Chinese on a word processor designed for a Latin alphabet? I understand the experience is...unique.
Even with all the hooks that MSOffice has into the MSWind OS, native word processors have flourished in the various oriental countries that use non-latin based scripts. So I doubt that this is protectionism in any normal sense.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
This is an insidious plot to block our red-blooded American spammers from access to cutting-edge Chinese ratware. It is an outrage. Congress should intervene.
Hah! Carbon paper is not trivial to find but you still can find some. Try finding ink ribbons (is this the way that is said in English?) for a 1964 Olivetti (italian) typewriter!
Based on what do you make this statement, have you been to every country in the world to make the comparison? Have you been to Myanmar? Hong Kong is part of China, and I assure you people there are freer than those in Singapore (half kidding). Not to mention various theocracies in the world.
Urk... I meant to say "nowhere in the Americas". Admittedly, I've never been to any part of southeast asia. There are probably other places less safe than the average Chinese city, too.
It's also possible that many of the abortions in the USA are "forced", in a sense, by economic conditions or by parents who don't want the family to look bad. In fact, my brother (jpl29@email.byu.edu) claims that the most-active pro-abortion NGO in this country has been accused of racism because of where it builds its clinics and what people it recommends abortions to.
cows can't normally live knee high in shit unless pumped full of a million chemicals
Your use of hyperbole damages your argument. I highly doubt that beef cattle are living "knee-high in shit" and I completely doubt that beef cattle are injected with "a million chemicals".
Americans would be eating nice healthy free-range local, Oz & Latin American beef instead
Here you are implying that US Beef is unhealthy. What evidence do you have to support this? Do not claim "heart disease" becuase I think that is a function of obesity (which is caused by too many carbohydrates in our died). It seems to me that more people die of cigarettes and misuse of automobiles than they do of US Beef.
Note that I've never said you were wrong. I may, in fact, agree with your real argument (that the state of US Beef cattle is unhealthy for consumption), but you need to remove the exaggerations first.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
When will we see a government -- a people -- that will stand up to large corporate interests
If you would be willing to step down off of that soapbox for a moment, I have an honest question for you (or any of the other neo-anarchists that have been posting in this thread) -- don't worry, I'll wait...
(waits)
OK, good. Ready? Here goes: What is the difference between "a people" and a "large corporate interest"? Honestly.
There. That was a simple question. To help spur some responses, I'll jump right in with a few thoughts of my own. Such as: the reason that corporations/governments are formed is because collective activity of members of a group is more powerful than individual activity. I'll also point out that your "rallying cry" with the implicit assumption that "large corporate interests" are somehow directly against the interests of "a people" (as if a corporation isn't simply another efficient collection of people structured in such as way as to achieve results -- i.e. to produce goods and services and derive profits from said goods and services). I will secretly wonder why there is this poisonous antipathy directed at corporations when, inconvenient as it may be for your worldview, corporations have largely driven the progress/innovations/increase in wealth of the past century. Look at 1985 East Germany/West Germany. One outlawed corporations. One didn't. How did they compare? Witness the difference in living standards in parts of the world that have adopted corporations/capitalism versus those which haven't. (And before you jump in claiming racism/Westerners stealing from parts of the underdeveloped world, witness what happened to the living standards in Japan/South Korea/Taiwan/etc. when they "got with the program") Heck, just to keep it on topic -- look at what has happened to China in the last 15 years -- did you realize that number of air-conditioners owned by ordinary mainland Chinese citizens has been skyrocketing? Say what you will about people not needing cars/televisions/etc. -- but it seems to me that if a way of living can bring its people air conditioning there is some merit to it. When did this start happening? That's right -- when corporations started taking hold.
I'm not exactly a right-winger -- I have plenty to say about neo-imperialism... And I don't believe I said anywhere in my post that "the market" needs to resemble the Wild West... but give me a break... We have evolved a better way of doing things. You can go back to guilds or feudalism or hunting and gathering if you like... But if you really want to stand up and bash "large corporate interests" as if they aren't composed of people and give benefits to the people, I would love to hear your argument.
Really.
I would have to say that explosives are the most abused technology in all of history.
Probably nothing will happen. The Chinese gov't doen't do anything unless it perceives you as a significant threat.
How true. If they think that people are listening to you, they will kill you. The communist government has thousands of Christians in jail right now, for the crime of going to church. Some of them survive being jailed. The Falun Gong are getting the same treatment, so we can say that the communists are equal opportunity murders.
Now, I haven't been in China for two long weeks, so I can't claim to be an old China hand like the grandparent poster. But I do have friends and classmates who've lived there their entire lives (30+ years each), and I do have some idea about what daily life there is like. You are entirely free there, to do whatever the government has chosen to ignore. If they decide to change their policy, you get shot or sent to jail.
Have you heard about the ``four freedoms'' and ``let a thousand flowers bloom'' campaigns? They encouraged free expression, then rounded up the suckers who'd taken advantage of the temporary slackening of restrictions. That was the same party and the same government (different people, to some extent) that the Chinese are suffering under today.
See what I've been reading.
> What will it take for the rest of the world to wake up and realize that the only software you can trust is open source?
As much a defendant of OSS as I am, I can't agree with this. Home-made software is, in some situations, better than OSS because
1) you still has access to the source
2) you can include in it things you don't necessarily want to be disclosed (this can be a flaw too, of course).
And open-source continues in the rest of the world like it has, then it will be a government-backed monopoly versus an open-source world.
China may be big, but it's not THAT big. They'll eventually give up on any private company's offering, even when it's within the country, because it's quite likely that for business and personal purposes, the Chinese people will not use the government's choice, but the international one.
So if the government supports open-source, it's a good thing all around. If it doesn't, it'll be a setback but not a mighty one.
what would Slashdot say?
"Hurray for advanced socialist societies that care! First health care, then the software industry."
"Good for them! Anything to reduce Microsoft's power."
"Those Europeans are smart, they'll save a lot of money this way."
Ah well. At least not all of the comments in this thread were completely negative.
You should not despise that easily, just come by and visit and you will see what this so called "comunists" are doing.
Repeat after me three times: Capitalism and democracy are not the same thing.
One is a framework for organizing an economy, the other is a framework for organizing a government. A country may have both (US, Japan, European states), democracy only (early days of post-Soviet Russia), capitalism only (China), or neither (North Korea).
The Chinese leadership has been rather shrewd in its understanding here, recognizing that by freeing its economy it provides enough material success to the common man to quell any push toward greater personal freedom (the real threat to these same leaders). We fat Westerners tend to overemphasize the importance of personal freedom to a poor and oppressed people. To lowest order, people just want to eat. It remains to be seen what will happen in China when the common man's material needs are satisfied, or if economic growth stalls.
You cannot mandate competition by mandating usage. The company with the product that the market has clearly chosen against now has no pressure to innovate since their product is driven by legislation and not the marketplace. The product that is legislated against has no reason to innovate since they cannot get that contract anyways (they already have a product the marketplace has decided it superior, yet they are being punished).
Go back to your shitty Econ 101 class.
The Xiaoping Dynasty is now putting action into their plans to electronically seal-off the nation...slowly moving towards the erection of The Great Firewall?
[ you and I are ugly ]
However swampy Viet Nam uses cattle as draft animals in human manure fertilized rice paddies. They seem to do very well in that environment. Perhaps we should look to the inner purity of their third world lifestyle!
- High Tech workers, please say NO to Union Carpenters, their Union sees fit to control our compensation.
Globalization has supported the plundering of all the 'developing countries' -- which if we were to be accurate would be called the 'never to be developed countries'.
Globalization is wrecking the native US economy, so that the people that the very top can become rich beyond even their wildest dreams of avarice.
Right now, the Euro is destroying European culture by turning Europe into one big homogeneous blob. Even the creator of the Euro has many regrets over its creation and wishes it had never been done.
When a country stands up and says "we're taking care of our oursleves", I can only stand up and applaud. Of course China is not a perfect country. Nor is the US.
The wisdom of history tells us all governments turn bad over time. So we have to look at the actions of the great states in this context -- they all have corrupt governments. In a very objective sense if a corrupt government leaves any crumbs for the people, one should simply be grateful. Thank goodness it is not the soldiers come to take you away and end your life before its natural time.
1st Pasture beef & Lamb are actually cheaper than feedlot beef & lamb. The fact is without huge subsidies over 95% of America's feedlot industry would be unsustainable.
You see feedlot meat has huge costs - corn has to be grown & rotated apon thousands apon thousands of acres of prime agricultural land. Massive ammounts or petroleum based fertilisers are needed, Huge amounts of expensive anti-biotics & hormones are need as the cattle have to cope with living waist high in shit. Ontop of which there's the huge enviromental cleanup costs associated with clearing all that shit & the associated contamination. The abbatoir costs are much higher too, as extreme practices are needed due to the fact the cattle have spent most of their lives waist high in shit & it's embedded into every pore of their skins.
Hence in Oz, where feedlot subsidies don't exist, feedlots only exist for the gourmet & Jap export marbled meet trade, the end supermarket cost is just to high for supermarkets
Cattle can simply graze on huge cattlestations consisting of marginal open woodland & former unsustainable dustbowl cropping land that been semi re-wooded by nature over a couple of decades, They can also drink rank bore water brought up automatically by windmills. Many arn't even likely to ever see humans till they've hearded up by choppers, motor bikes & dogs at slaughter time.
Sheep can graze quite sustainably on arid land Salt Bush as long as one doesn't overstock. They to can also drink rank bore water brought up automatically by windmills.
Here's some linkage on a Journo who actually bought a steer & ran it through the feedlot system, the reality of that steers life's absolutelly revolting & totally unviable economically
NYTimes blurb
NPR Real audio piece
1st Pasture beef & Lamb are actually cheaper than feedlot beef & lamb. The fact is without huge subsidies over 95% of America's feedlot industry would be unsustainable.
You see feedlot meat has huge costs - corn has to be grown & rotated apon thousands apon thousands of acres of prime agricultural land. Massive ammounts or petroleum based fertilisers are needed, Huge amounts of expensive anti-biotics & hormones are need as the cattle have to cope with living waist high in shit. Ontop of which there's the huge enviromental cleanup costs associated with clearing all that shit & the associated contamination. The abbatoir costs are much higher too, as extreme practices are needed due to the fact the cattle have spent most of their lives waist high in shit & it's embedded into every pore of their skins.
Hence in Oz, where feedlot subsidies don't exist, feedlots only exist for the gourmet & Jap export marbled meet trade, the end supermarket cost is just to high for supermarkets
Cattle can simply graze on huge cattlestations consisting of marginal open woodland & former unsustainable dustbowl cropping land that been semi re-wooded by nature over a couple of decades, They can also drink rank bore water brought up automatically by windmills. Many arn't even likely to ever see humans till they've hearded up by choppers, motor bikes & dogs at slaughter time.
Sheep can graze quite sustainably on arid land Salt Bush as long as one doesn't overstock. They to can also drink rank bore water brought up automatically by windmills.
Here's some linkage on a Journo who actually bought a steer & ran it through the feedlot system, the reality of that steer's life's absolutelly revolting & totally unviable economically. They do literally have to pump the steer full of anti-biotics (passed prohibition levels for the EU) so it can cope with living knee high in shit.
NYTimes blurb
NPR Real audio piece
Is the wps office file format freely publicised? Weather it is or not, i think the openoffice/abiword/kword devs better start adding compatability or oss word processors may lose a lot of grount in china.
The word processor they're preferring is just another proprietary word processor. Wonderful, now the world has multiple incompatible proprietary formats for documents. And it's not as if they're really competing with each other: the mandate might ensure that Chinese only use one product, and its poor showing in the market will ensure that no one else will touch it.
For codecs it's even worse. The world already has patent-encumbered codecs that inhibit appropriate use. Why does the world need two incompatible sets of patent-encumbered codecs? All that does is inhibit data exchange and tax everyone. The world would be better off if they supported the Ogg Vorbis / Tarkin / etc. group.
Even their support of Red Flag Linux may not be all that helpful to open source software. I suspect Red Flag will end up with all sorts of proprietary bells and whistles. And again, due to protectionism, it probably won't be competitive worldwide, because it doesn't have to be.
True, this will probably harm Microsoft. I suspect that it won't really harm U.S. firms that much, because I understand that piracy is so rampant that only a relatively small percentage of software is bought legally anyway. But that doesn't mean this policy will help open source software. And in the end, it's likely this will harm China, too, because organizations that don't need to compete tend to be uncompetitive.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
It's simply inaccurate to maintain that there are merely a series of local laws regulating intellectual property, and that each nation is free to do as it will in this regards. It's a global economy, therefore there are certain global minimal standards of behavior that are enforceable (if nations choose to enter into that community of trading partners). For starters, go check out some background on the Berne convention, and the recent Uruguay round, TRIPS, etc. See, e.g. the WTO site (wto.org)
So far everyone has been jumping on the OSS bandwagon and going on about how this is good for Linux and a slew of open source office programs. However the article talks to the Chinese Govt. wanting to have locally produced software. The question remains;
If I am Microsoft, or HP or IBM and I set up a Chinese based software development lab (and many have) employing hundreds of software engineers, does this legitimately count as locally produced software. Certainly the Chinese Govt. would not want these labs shut down and, if this story had any creedence, you can bet that MS and many others would pull out. So the question remains, is this just a ploy by the Chinese Govt. to create an additional loophole to mandate sofware firms wanting to sell software into China into having to set up a "Development labs?" (think jobs, skills, knowledge sharing)
This is probably more likely. And I know this story is only talking about desktop software, but it would only be a small step to transition this "law" into the back office too.
Well, looks like Intel/AMD is gona be next on the target list once China develop it's own brand of x86 CPU. Given everything is so centralized, I wouldn't be suprised that there are goverment agencies already thinking about it.
1st Pasture beef & Lamb are actually cheaper than feedlot beef & lamb.
Forgive my ignorance, but I don't know what "1st pasture" and "feedlot" mean in this context. Furthermore, I wasn't asking which was cheaper. I was asking for evidence that US Beef was unhealthy for consumption.
Huge amounts of expensive anti-biotics & hormones are need as the cattle have to cope with living waist high in shit.
I requested that you remove the exaggerations. What part of that request did you fail to understand?
Ontop of which there's the huge enviromental cleanup costs
The concept of "protecting the environment" is subjective.
the cattle have spent most of their lives waist high in shit & it's embedded into every pore of their skins.
I asked you to remove, not repeat, your exaggerations. As if every cow has every pore filled with feces. How would one know? Do we examine every pore on every cow for feces? Or could it be that emotional arguments are more fitting to support your position than rational arguments?
Here's some linkage
The New York Times has about as much credibility as the World Weekly News. It is a spokespaper for Leftist agenda. The New York Times recently added itself among the ranks of some of the most evil corporations in the country: those who abuse eminent domain NPR is also a Leftist mouthpiece and whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby. You need to come up with more objective and rational sources for your position.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
Let's not talk about opensource or free software. These are side issues. What the Chineses government is doing is nothing less than a declaration of war against corporate US. It's time somebody put these IP hoarders in place.
Free market is the word big US corporations use when they want to pressure foreign governments. Wake up, there's no such thing as a free market, which is free only to those who can afford to pay.
If Mr. Bill only sold one copy of MS Office for the entire country, what difference does any of this make? Some people may believe there are useful programmer "back doors" hidden in the legitimate copies of the software for American intelligence agencies to exploit.
Goddamned kids! Get off my lawn!
Okay, now it's your turn to provide evidence. "Objective and rational sources for your position" would be appreciated.
What kind of "objective and rational sources" would you accept for something which is obviously a highly subjective opinion? If you want me to explain why that is my opinion, I would be happy to. Otherwise, I would like you to do the first thing I asked you to do: remove the exaggerations from your claims and explain to me why you believe them. Posting Leftist propaganda isn't going to cut it with me.
And I notice that you've found it easier to attack me than to actually defend your position with intelligece and reason. It's awfully telling.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.
I tried replying to this a couple of days ago, but /. kept choking on it. Here's another try:
Huh? You must be refering to someone else. I just entered this discussion so I have no exaggerations to remove from any claims.
My sloth led to my false accusation. Please accept my apology.
I'm asking you independent of the previous discussion to explain why NPR is guilty of the things you say they are. I'm not saying I'll disagree, but I would like to hear what leads you to believe the things you said.
I hadn't listened to NPR in years, and my accusations were based on my previous opinions before I stopped listening. I did a web search, figuring that my point would be easy to justify. I was wrong. In both cases ("NPR is Leftist" and "NPR is a whipping boy of the powerful Jewish lobby") I was quickly able to google information which countered both of my claims. How embarrassing!
Hence, I retract what I claimed about NPR.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.