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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!
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.
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.
Fine if you write a few letters or track your spending with a small spreadsheet.
However, anything complex and critical (like the stuff you send to your client or they send to you) must convert with 100% accuracy. This is why Koffice or OpenOffice will not do well in a business environment.
Maybe you think OpenOffice.org Writer and Koffice convert MS Word documents "just fine," but do you know what saves MS Word documents even better? MS Word. Sometimes those few things the conversion filters still mess up are important. Though they do work most of the time, conversion filters aren't perfect, nor are they the easiest or best solution.
Besides, last time I checked OOo didn't support WPS Office formats. Does China have local competition in the word processing market? Is there a Chinese Free Software movement? If not, why is anyone going to write a conversion filter for these formats?
.. 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.
Aren't they only obligated to 'offer sources' if they distribute binaries? If it's an internal govt project, outsiders are SOL.
Opportunity knocks. Karma hunts you down.
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
GPL'd code is usually hard to steal, since anyone who has it is allowed to make copies and distribute them.
But that's not what you mean. You mean they will use a GPL'd program, change it, and block it from being exported. Nothing will stop them (except ethics maybe, but I don't get the feeling world leaders have much of that). And it's not even illegal (according to international law, or even US copyright law (which is void in China btw)).
The people distributing the source allow redistribution, just as the GPL says they must. Exporting laws are generally not considered a limitation to the person you distribute the program to, but rather a limitation which is just part of the world. If the chinese would have a problem with it, then so does the US government for their anti-encryption-export laws.
The only license violation that might happen (IMO) is that they modify a program, then they do redistribute it, but refuse to distribute the source (of their modifications, or of the whole program) as well. As long as they keep it inside China, they'll probably get away with it. However, I don't think they want to keep their code secret. They probably will want to train IT professionals, and then having lots of source code availabe certainly helps.
Extremely good point and well made. Sure piracy is wrong and under current laws illegal. It is really hard to care when the alleged "victims" are multi-billion dollar corps who seem intent on stamping out real music in favour of plastic manufactured nonsense and who are unwilling to actually pay the artists who make the music anyway.
I for one am glad China are making this move - even if they throw up their own Microsoft its more competition and that can only be a good thing
"Maybe we should send the British navy back in to convince them to start buying our goods again."
Ah yes, the "free market" by military cooercion. Works every time. You do understand that this behaviour played a significant role in the success of the rise of communism in China in the first place?
Nevermind the fact that American copyright law does not extend beyond its borders and that the Chinese ( and Icelandics, Hugarians, New Guinians, Bhutanese, etc.) have the right to decide on their own just what constitutes "piracy" of intellectual property and what doesn't. The Chinese are free to take a more Jeffersonian approach to such matters than America is if they wish to. Ironic, isn't it?
Nor are the Chinese alone in such "piracy." Walk up to nearly any street vendor in NYC and you can walk away with bucket loads of pirated and unlicensed merchandise. At one point the Sam Goody Record stores were selling illegal rips as the legitimate article as fast as they could truck them in. Hell, you yourself just might be in possession of "pirated" music or movies obtained through various purely American channels.
Free Tibet. Up with Democracy. Fine. I'm with you.
But Intellectual "Property" isn't natural law. It's a purely human construct of extremely recent vintage and more dubious under the American Constitutional form of government than just about any other.
It's local code. Like how long you get to park at a meter for your quarter.
China isn't in our local jurisdiction.
KFG
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!
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??
China's respect for human rights and their software usage are totally unrelated issues.
It is a good thing they choose other software than Microsoft, for this will create serious competition in a monopolistic market. This will stimulate innovation and will drive prices down in the long run.
The Human Right issue is of course a serious one and should be dicussed at any UN summit over and over again, as should the illegal detention of outlawed warriors on Guantanamo Bay for that matter.
That sounds like such an intelligent idea! Yes, do let's send the British navy over there, just like the opium wars (that was when queen Victoria was the greatest drug dealer in the world). After all there is all of ~50 million Brits, and the Chinese are just 1.2 billion.
As for human rights issues - I wonder how they would compare if one actually made an honest analysis? China still does have some serious issues I'm sure, but as far as I can see, they are actually working on improving things. On the other hand, here in the West things have gone the other way recently, not least in USA; if this continues much longer, we will be less fortunate than the Chinese and the Tibetans.
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 !
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
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.
To some degree I agree with you but often I have found that converting a .doc file into OO has resolved a problem that collegues were having. The idea of .doc being a 'standard' is a nonsense. It is not even a 'standard' in the MS world as collegues using different versions of MS Office can have problems. Most of the problems are caused by fonts not being available on the different machines and that is what causes most of the issues with opening a .doc file in OO. Other problems caused by issues like errors in history and security get striped out if you open with OO.
I have to use MS Word on XP at work now and think it is rubbish. I take work home and find OO much better. I have all the TT fonts loaded and tend to stick with them.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
Even if they distribute they are only "obligated" to do what Chinese law obligates them too. Why is this such a difficult concept for some people? Your GPL may well simply have no legal standing in Beijing.
If you think it does than you can hire a Chinese lawyer to make your case in the Chinese courts.
If they distribute in Newark and you feel they are thus obligated under US law all you have to do is legally serve them ( under US law) to appear in Newark.
Then we'll just have to free "Skylorov" all over again.
Remember him? The guy who wrote software in Russia that was legal in Russia and we all got bent out of shape over his being arrested for violating extortionate American Intellectual "Property" laws?
People, for God's sake, try to figure out what your stance on ip is and stick to it. The GPL only exists in the first place because of western copyright law and seeks to subvert it with its own weapons. If such western copyright law does not exist as such the GPL becomes a non issue.
KFG
So they pirate "your" music and whatnot and decide not to embrace american IP law that's more and more perverted to serve just one purpose: keep the big (mostly US-) corporations on top and make it hard for anyone else to enter the market. And why shoud China play by a set of rules that only puts them at a disadvantage? The USA didn't either, if they did they'd probably still be some kind of british colony but definitly not what they are today. Neither did americans respect foreign IP when they reprinted works of foreign authors without paying royalties until 1891.
And yeah, why not send in the troops when economic interests are threatened. Like invading Iraq for example (and no, they didn't find those weapons of mass destruction, or any proof of a connection to al Quaeda, all they found out was that all official reasons for starting that war were bogus and that Bush and Blair even knew they were bogus).
"By the way if anyone here is in advertising or marketing... kill yourself." -- Bill Hicks
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?
Add to that that each step "up the ladder" for these nations will erode their cost advantage. Taiwan used to be cheap. Now they are quickly losing low end manufacturing jobs to Korea and China because their boom has driven salaries up. At some point there will be noone left to lose jobs to, and things will start to stabilize.
If it's "complex or critical", you shouldn't be using Word anyway. If it's plain text, use ASCII. If it's formatted, use PDF. By all means, use Word to compose your documents, but it's a terrible exchange or achival format.
Anyway, I've worked in offices for over 10 years. For business purposes, WordStar 4 was fine. It had spellcheck, it had bold. What else do you need in a business document? (I admit, I later upgraded to WordStar 5.)
I also do DTP. For that I extract the text from the Word docs that have unfortunately become ubiquitous before laying them out in a rational way using stylesheets. Then I make PDFs to pass on to the printer.
All this talk about "incompatibility" is basically FUD. If you want compatibiity, use an open standard, not a transient obfuscated undocumented one that has the bonus feature of including viruses.
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
WPS Office is proprietary and AVS (their video/audio standard) is patent/royalty encumbered.
While there is Red Flag Linux, I wonder whether we have any reason to believe that the government of China will not act in the interests of proprietary software producers just as much as do the governments of Western nations.
In the case of Red Flag Linux, it may simply be that it is deemed acceptable because there does not exist any satisfactory proprietary and locally produced operating system.
Whereas with an office suite and the audio/video protocol where there are existing local proprietary solutions, the government seems more than willing to favor these existing proprietary solutions over existing open source solutions, and also over developing new open source solutions which would compete with these existing proprietary solutions.
I'm not quite ready to praise the government of China over this move.
.sig Realistic fines for copyright in
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
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.
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.
It's not always that simple when dealing with the Microsooft monopoly. Several years ago everyone in our office was running Word 95 and whatever the version of Excel was that came in the same Office package. Bill wanted more money and so came out with the next release of Office. I could see that no one in the office except my senior programmer and myself even understood that other 99% you mention (we had actually done some slick things with it). We determined there was no feature in the "upgrade" that would be of any use at all. I was able to avoid upgrading for quite a while, simply because there was absolutely no need for it. But it turned out there were idiots at the company headquarters who had upgraded (with no good reason) and were too damn stupid to save their documents in a format that our office could read. I wanted to fight it, but the order came from senior management (who didn't even use computers) that we had to upgrade all of our systems so we could exchange files with the HQ systems.
Do you start to understand how pervasive the MS monopoly and their closed file formats are?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
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.
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".
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.
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.
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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]