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?"

Comments

Double-edged sword

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't automatically assume that Chinese gov't will follow the open standards ideology.

Re:Double-edged sword

[ahfoo]

In fact, you could say the entire three thousand year history of Chinese culture --never mind recent governments-- has treated what American lawyers call intellectual property much the way the FSF suggests.
In traditional Chinese literature, which includes abundant pornography, it has always been considered a matter of good taste that an author who is proud of his works will sign it pseudonymously. Indeed, writers such as Confucious are not, in fact, individual persons, but popular pseudonyms. This is a well known fact.

Re:Double-edged sword

[tiled_rainbows]

In Communist China, the Standards define YOU!

Sorry.

Re:Double-edged sword

[corgicorgi]

The Chinese goverment has always been promoting local business above the foreign business. It's not just about whether they would adopt open standards. There are many issues when dealing with China.

In my experience working in the semiconductor industry, I know China's economy in that sector is growing at a rapid rate. Many big name companies here, like HP, SUN, etc are all trying to get a piece of the pie. The only company to successfully grow their business in China is Intel. Everyone else aren't finding a good way to set foot in China. There are many business standards that China does not adopt from global businesses.

A main one is China does not recognize Intellectual Property. You bring your products to China, a local company to rip your design and sell it at a cheaper price. The goverment will not protect you against that. In fact, I might suspect they allow that kind of business conduct.

This is what I've learn about growing business in China for the semiconductor industry. I would imagine software industry is similar.

Re:Double-edged sword

[gothamboy]

And the US government should ban all foreign made textiles and textile products (or cars or whatever) for the same reasons of developing the local industry?? Let Open Source/Free Software compete on its own merrits and it will/should prevail. Microsoft is doomed in the developing world as the cost of their software takes up a bigger and bigger piece of the total cost of a system. The developing world will either pirate or go Open Source/Free Software. The future of open source development is not in the US or Europe but in Asia, Latin America and Africa. .pa It is also worth thinking about whether Government mandated sw development on a GPL base from places like China will follow the GPL and make new code available to the whole global community. Mandating equals control and is antithetical to Openness!

Re:Double-edged sword

[Big Sean O]

Um, Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister?

Re:Double-edged sword

[ahfoo]

Well, I didn't have to. I chose to because I dig porn.
But the simple answer to your question is that in the history of Chinese literature there are five works called the five classics. All of these were written by pseudonymous authors. Basically, you can't claim authorship and hope to become a classic in Chinese literature. It's an unwritten law --Confucius say. Nah, just kidding.
But among the five classics is the Jin Ping Mei and I've read bits and pieces of it in Chinese, and several English translations and I can tell you that for the vast portion, it is pure porn. It's porn in the sense that there's no plot. It's just descriptions of positions, partners and sex scenes back to back over and over. In fact, it's got some similarities to Sade in the way it's so repetitive.
But despite being porn, it's still considered a classic. And other books among the classics also contain explicit sex scenes like the Dream of the Red Chamber although that's clearly not a pornographic work like the Jin Ping Mei.
I would suggest that the interweaving of sexuality into a culture represents a level of cultural maturity that is still mostly undeveloped in the West. And --watch him stretch it really thin-- you would expect the GPL to work best in mature and open cultures.
Having said all this, I realize you can easily demonstate that the current Chinese goverment is almost the opposite of these things. Indeed, the Jin Ping Mei is not legally distributed in Mainland China under the current government.
But my underlying position is that when you're talking about China you should speak of the greater culture that is China and is the real shared identity of the people of Mainland China, rather than the tenuous and questionable leadership in posion today.

Re:Double-edged sword

[DABANSHEE]

You do know that China's policy in regards software is no different to Japan's policy that created their electronics industry & South Korea's policies that created their car industry.

BTW US policies in regards agriculture arn't that different. Fact is without the subsidies 'n tarifs, America's chemical & hormone feedlot beef wouldn't be supermarket price viable (cows can't normally live knee high in shit unless pumped full of a million chemicals) & Americans would be eating nice healthy free-range local, Oz & Latin American beef instead.

World standards

[Anonymous Coward]

Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?

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!

Re:World standards

[rsilvergun]

Microsoft will have to make their product (Office) compatible with whatever china uses. Not the other way around. How ever powerful MS is, the Chinese Government has way more leverage than them on the open market.

Re:World standards

[Max Threshold]

Perhaps the rest of the world should be asking itself, how do we exchange documents with China? China isn't some insignificant little country, you know. They're modernizing and Westernizing, at least in some ways, and they're economically huge. If this decision works out well for them, other countries will follow suit. Then, the only stupid people will be the ones still using MS Office.

Re:World standards

[iamacat]

3) Spend money on local economy rather giving it away to a foreign company

Unlike private users, governments should take public interest into account when buying software. For example, US government could do well to avoid buying software from companies that have excessive foreign development centers :-)

They can still exchange documents with the rest of the world by exporting them to some standard format, like HTML or RTF. If there is no software to do it, government's demands will sure encourage some local programs to be written.

It would be another matter if they forced common people use a specific word processor, with a nice keyword scanner that reports suspicious documents to the government. Its not out of the question in China, and perhaps in US. But that's something unrelated to this article.

Re:World standards

[Durandal64]

China is a communist government and therefore unconcerned with profit.

Re:World standards

[Milo77]

maybe the chinese gov't does have more leverage than ms, but does it have more leverage than the us gov't + ms. i don't know, but lets not forget that it is the us gov't's job to put pressure on foreign gov'ts so that us companies get due consideration. don't forget: a major reason for invading iraq was because they sold all their oil contracts off to europe, and refused to do business with american companies. this is also why several european companies opposed the war and why the us lets north korea go on their merry way(no multi-billion dollar contracts involved - yet). i am not saying that the us is going to invade china, but the us did just recently lift an embargo. i wouldn't be surprised if for some "unknown" reason the chinese gov't reverses this decision, but they *have* to protect their industries as well, so who knows...? i would imagine this could get real messy.

Re:World standards

[HiThere]

Well, they'll have to make any version they want to sell in China compatible. But this doesn't mean that they'll include compatibility anywhere else.

The DVD companies aren't the only ones to use regional branding.

Conversion Filter?

[teklob]

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

Re:Conversion Filter?

[Anonymous Coward]

which converts MS word documents just fine.

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.

Re:Conversion Filter?

[Magic Thread]

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?

Re:Conversion Filter?

[Zemran]

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.

Re:Conversion Filter?

[jvervloet]

I'm not an expert in these things, but isn't it possible that these conversion filters become illegal because of the DMCA ?

Re:Conversion Filter?

[1u3hr]

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.

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.

Re:Conversion Filter?

[cerberusss]

The idea of .doc being a 'standard' is a nonsense.

I fully agree, but you know what the funny thing is: when Word versions get it mixed up, people somehow accept the fact like a beaten dog. But when my OO makes one tiny mistake, they act like 'Oh it's him again with his crazy software'...

Re:Conversion Filter?

[1010011010]

do you know what saves MS Word documents even better? MS Word.

Actually, this isn't true. I regularly recover MS Word 2000 documents using OpenOffice. Word creates files it later cannot read back in on a fairly regular basis, and OpenOffice seems to be able to read them, even when Word can't.

1. Create document in MS-Word
2. Save document
3. Try to re-open document. Word crashes, refuses to read it, or similar
4. Open document with Openoffice Writer
5. Remove corrupted text (thanks, Word!)
6. Save back to Word format
7. User can continue using Word if he chooses, with this file again

OpenOffice has a better Word Import Filter than MS-Word does. As an added bonus, opening a Word or Excel document in OpenOffice and saving it in OO format -- without changing anything -- results in a smaller file that is also standards-based. Plus, one can export to PDF directly. Practical experience has shown my office staff that OpenOffice produces PDFs more reliably than MS-Office+Acrobat.

Re:Conversion Filter?

[Ben Hutchings]

RTF is open standard...

No, it's a proprietary format. RTF files generated by Word are much like native Word files but with text-based tags instead of binary ones. They are a little more portable than native Word files. Microsoft does publish a specification (489K zipped Word document) for RTF, but I doubt that it covers all the details.

They won't buy our software...

[Phoenixhunter]

...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.

Re:They won't buy our software...

[kfg]

"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

Re:They won't buy our software...

[jandersen]

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.

Re:They won't buy our software...

[gotan]

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).

Nice to see !

[numb]

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.

Re:Nice to see !

[vidarh]

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.

Re:This is excellent

[Catharz]

Awww, too bad Microsoft won't see any profits from the 80% reduction in software piracy.

Inter-suite data exchange?

[KCardoza]

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?

GPL

[porkface]

What if they decide to ignore the GPL and start stealing code without offering sources?

Re:GPL

[slittle]

Aren't they only obligated to 'offer sources' if they distribute binaries? If it's an internal govt project, outsiders are SOL.

Re:GPL

[Bas_Wijnen]

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.

Re:GPL

[kfg]

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

Re:GPL

[PhilHibbs]

Even if they distribute they are only "obligated" to do what Chinese law obligates them too

China is a member of the WTO now, and joined the Berne Convention on copyright. That means that, if the GPL has no standing in Chinese law, then the additional rights granted by the GPL (reduistribution of source) are not available under Chinese law.

Re:GPL

[PhilHibbs]

or even US copyright law (which is void in China btw)

China are signatory to the Berne Convention, which is close enough.

Re:GPL

[cybercuzco]

That means that, if the GPL has no standing in Chinese law, then the additional rights granted by the GPL (reduistribution of source) are not available under Chinese law. Should the Chinese choose to enforce said law. There are many laws on the books in China that are not enforced by the govt because its easier or because it allows people to make more money. And its much much harder to sue the govt to enforce said laws than it is here in the US.

I wonder:

[Tokerat]

Would Linux and other open source be considered "local" if there are Chineese contributors?

Re:I wonder:

[rsilvergun]

Yes. From the article:

"China is placing official support behind the Red Flag Linux operating system, which they trust because the open-source code allows officials to see that there are no data spyholes installed by foreign powers."

What matters is that who's selling it is based in China, and that any standards that come from outside China are open. Even if there are no Chinese contributers, as long as it's Chinese selling and supporting it, it's fine.

OpenOffice support?

[Goenk]

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 :-)

That's local *commercial* software...

[Max Threshold]

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.

Re: That's local *commercial* software...

[Black Parrot]

> Unfortunately, the article doesn't delve too deeply into the causes, merits, and implications of this decision.

No, but it does make passing mention of a couple of things, which were pretty much predictable anyway:

a) Stem hemorrhaging of cash from China to Redmond, Wash.

b) Stem hemorrhaging of information via spyware.

I've been predicting for several years that (b) alone will eventually cause most governments to convert to open source (or home-made) software. The risks of not doing so are simply too great, and in fact I'm surprised that there hasn't been a mass exodus already.

Re: That's local *commercial* software...

[csguy314]

a) Stem hemorrhaging of cash from China to Redmond, Wash.
b) Stem hemorrhaging of information via spyware.

I think you're much more correct with a) than with b). This is the same reason that China has developed its own processor. China wants to cut economic ties as much as possible to the US, particularly in the economic sector. This move, of turning to Red Flag Linux, was expected for a while now.
But as China follows this path, the US may lash out economically. Or maybe the US will just start a new opium war. It will be interesting to see the US reaction as China tries to free itself from US influence. The really big question is how will China free itself from US oil protectorates (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Indonesia, Nigeria, etc.)? Maybe alternative fuels...

Not so bad

[Barnett]

> Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?

Anyone remember paper?

Re:Not so bad

[pair-a-noyd]

Don't laugh.
I went to an office supply store and the little girl there had NO CLUE ON PLANET EARTH what carbon paper is. She didn't even know what isle to begin looking on, she thought it might be with the inkjet cartridges when I told her it was a special paper for making copies of handwritten or typewritten documents.

She even told me she had never seen a typewriter before but had heard of them. She thought is was some sort of word processor. (Yeah, it was one of the first!)

It's amazing how fast we've thrown out the old.
Even in movies all you ever see is some dipshit banging at a keyboard and they aren't even typing, much less do they comprehend what it is they are supposed to be doing (as an actor).

I haven't seen a typewriter in a movie for years now. FWIW, I still have a manual, 1941 Underwood at my office. I keep it just because it keeps me in touch with the past. It still works too..

Re:This is excellent

[slittle]

A few ex-Enron accountants will take care of that.

If only it were *really* local

[corebreech]

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.)

YES!!!! This is the best news I've heard all year!

[HanzoSan]

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.

Data Conversion Between Packages?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Why not?

[God! Awful 2]

All the IT jobs are moving to Asia anyway. Who needs retail software jobs? Not me! Would you like some fries with that?

Nonono... it's "would you like noodles with that?"

I, for one, welcome our new Chinese overlords.

-a

They dont have to, who cares?

[HanzoSan]

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.

Re:They dont have to, who cares?

[endfire]

I can't really see how this means better software, or more competition, given that they have just banned foreign software, which includes also much of open source software.
They could just develop some local chinese lousy product. Or alternatively, they could throw in a few highly skilled thousand chinese software developers and develop good products. Either way, it wouldnt be an outcome of free market or competition, and i'd rather not see that product come out of China...

One Microsoft is enough!

Re:They dont have to, who cares?

[torre]

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.

I understand your exaggerating to make your point but I really doubt that any who sits back and really thinks about the actual impact of this would agree with you. Once you close the loop and force people to use a particular product or source, then your virtually creating a monopoly which as we all know tend to resists doing any real innovation (because frankly they don't have to) to soak up more profits. The real solution to getting better programs is to put them in place via investments/grants/R&D/tax brakes etc, reduce your government IT budgets and give the pencil pushers a choice. We all know the dangers in either making it too easy or too difficult when it comes to government pencil pushers. They'll end up doing what's easier for them and not necessarily what's best.

Just look at it from a business point of view...what better environment exists to create a lovely company?... 1) find a government that's thinks it needs a software industry to protect against the Americans, 2) grab some free software who's licenses/patents aren't particularly valid under the given government's rules, 3) hire a few severely underpaid code monkeys to make the necessary changes, 4) sit back as huge wads of money start to fall from the sky, 5) hire marketers to ensure that the government keeps coming back for regular upgrades until they become so dependant that they don't consider anything else.

Why innovate when you can suck the system dry when both parties are happy: the government feeling good about supporting the local community, and the business who's sitting in huge piles of cash..... Kinda reminds me of the Microsoft/IBM deal.... And we all know what happened there...

Anyhow didn't want to bring you down, we can always hope that your view prevails, but the realist in me just can't see it happen.

Re:They dont have to, who cares?

[grug0]

From the article:

A new policy by China's governing body will rule that all ministries buy only locally-produced software at the next upgrade cycle.

They haven't banned foreign software per se, rather they have banned buying foreign software. It is an important distinction.

One Microsoft is enough!

That's a ridiculous assertion. The government will be using the Red Flag Linux OS, which is hardly going to create the next Microsoft.

Who cares? They cant afford our software

[HanzoSan]

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.

Re:Who cares? They cant afford our software

[junklight]

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?

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

Interesting

[LuYu]

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.

Why not open and unencumbered standards?

[The Revolutionary]

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.

propoganda wording!!

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Force investment in China

[losttoy]

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??

based on the latest microsoft word debacle ...

[vnv]

Do a Google search on "microsoft word hidden information" and it is plain as day why China, amongst many other governments and organizations, is switching off of Microsoft Office / Microsoft Windows.

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?

Re:Slashdot users world wide now conflicted

[wine]

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.

hold your nuclear horses, cowboy

[axxackall]

They don't pirate a thing. They just use what they thing is a correct law regarding IP. And Ia gree with them. The trueth is: there is no IP. All result of intellectual activity belong to the public domain. Period. It's US that breakes natural laws. Writing the software or music is not building anything material - it's a discovery of what has been existing in the nature alway, forever. Publishing CD is a different story. But once they buy a first copy of that CD than relax, you don't own the content. Well, you didn't from the first place - see all above about IP.

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.

How?

[tuxlove]

Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?

Text files? Other non-proprietary standard formats?

Makes sense

[vandan]

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...

Funny how China is blacklisting everything

[chrispy666]

Last week, they declared that they will apply very strong restrictions on their soybean and grain imports, effectively putting most American and Japanese grain trading companies on a blacklist for most of the main grain originating countries (US for corn, Brazil and Argentina for soybean and other grain products). Needless to say this will have a big impact on the world economy.

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...

Re:Funny how China is blacklisting everything

[nich37ways]

Hmm let us see:
Japan in July 2003 upped beef tarrifs to 50%
America pushed up Steel tarrifs recently, has massive subsidys for farmers.
Europe well their farm subsidys are ridiculous with some places in Ireland been better off not growing their crops with the subsidys offered.

So yeah obviously bad China, the only country in the world to use tariffs. BAD BAD BAD play fair no tariffs just like all those other countries in the world, oh wait there isnt any!!

As for banning people from certain countries, every country does that it is called a VISA and what happens is you simply do not let people in from the country you do not like.

Re:Funny how China is blacklisting everything

[echomadman]

Maybe forbidding people from certain countries to come to mainland China ?


Doesn't the united states do this already, if not an outright ban on entering then they make it very difficult for certain nationalities to enter teh US?,
in fact doesnt it do all the things that the "red peril" is instigating now?.. favour domestic industry over foreign etc...

Re:Funny how China is blacklisting everything

[chrispy666]

I don't say it's bad, just that they don't take gloves to make the rest of the world swallow the rules and accept them.

I know of something called visa, as I have one to reside here in Japan. Your cynism is irrelevant. Yes, everyone is increasing import tarifs at one level or another, but no one is doing it as crudely and un-diplomatically than China at the moment.

Being the first grain importer in the world, China HAS to be more subtle when making decisions. Your example of Japan and beef imports is somewhat flawed, as the volume of cargo moved is insignificant compared to bulk commodities such as grain or coal.

The only reason China gave to explain their blacklist for grain imports is "bad quality". No one has seen studies on that, nor evidence of sub-par quality of the cargo. This measure has been taken ONLY to get control of the grain market in Asia. And going the way it is now, they might have a chance to achieve just that.

My comment wasn't aimed at the blacklist or "outlawing" of various things in China, but rather at the methods they use to apply them.

cheers

Free Software?

[Moridineas]

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?

Re:Free Software?

[vidarh]

How is calling it Red Flag nationalistic? The red flag has a history as a symbol of socialism and revolution and the labor movement worldwide ever since the French revolution, and is still used worldwide. You may not like the symbolism or it's use, but how one could label it nationalistic is beyond me.

Re:Free Software?

[Moridineas]

Oh, I think you misunderstood me. I wasn't _criticizing_ the fact that China chose such a, as you describe it, political symbol, and as I see it, a nationalistic one. You might do well to read some about the Chinese government -- to NOT describe the Chinese govt as nationalistic is a very big mistake and shows a poor understanding.

My response would be the same should Suse rebrand their distro as Reich Linux, or the CIA released Uncle Sam Linux.

staggeringly naive

[BobTheLawyer]

Those who think this is a wonderful example of a move away from Microsoft towards alternatives and/or open source are being staggeringly naive.

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.shtm 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.

Re:staggeringly naive

[rsilvergun]

Your missing the point. This weakens and potentially halts Microsoft's expansion into the emerging Chinese economy. Like all publically traded companies Microsoft has an insatiable appetite for growth. Deprived of the Chinese economy, they'll be forced to leverage their monopoly in the U.S. and elsewhere to continue growing and improve 'Share Holder Value'. Hopefully the process will turn their customer base off enough they'll try Linux.

Beyond that, I think you're being a little too cynical. It's perfectly natural for a country not to want to depend on another (potentially hostile) nation for important elements of it's infrastructure. Moreover after seeing Microsoft tried and convicted of anti-trust violations and get off pretty much scott free, I'd be really worried about becoming dependent on their software.

Re:staggeringly naive

[vnv]

It is no great leap of imagination that when all code can contain spyware, spyholes, hidden data, etc., that "opening the source" is a big step towards trust.

In China, there are many factions to the power base. If the source code for software is not open, then even these factions cannot trust each other. Maybe a general put in special spy code. Maybe the information ministry put in special spy code. The possibilities are endless. The only solution is keeping the source open. A government that fights too much within itself will not stand strong for very long.

It is easy to see why China is going with open source. If a general or minister puts in spyware, it can be spotted. If China went with Microsoft, a general could bribe Microsoft to put in special spyware for the general's use that no one else could detect. It is obvious that a government that wants to minimize useless fighting within itself will go with open source. Using open source to foster internal trust may even end up being a survival trait.

As an aside, when it comes to the USA, why would people blindly accept the Microsoft Palladium/DRM/1984-ware OS that is going to be shoved down their throats -- with no source available? This system enables a single monopoly, obviously in cahoots with the government, to be far more oppressive than what China is doing, at least so far.

As Microsoft has been proven in US court to have ruthlessly predated on businesses and citizens of their own country, I would think the government of any nation would be wary of working with Microsoft. As has been shown in the USA, if you let Microsoft operate in your country, you are inviting a vampire into your house that will suck the life blood from you.

Thus in a very simple sense, China could be merely picking "something else" so they get the Microsoft vampire out of their country. It makes perfect sense to go with home-grown software as they'd know the companies, the products, and the people who work there. That's far more secure for national interests than having a foreign vampire roaming around, stealing your secrets and continually causing problems with their insistence on high prices and Western IP laws.

Re:staggeringly naive

[penguin7of9]

China is a country of a billion people, with many diverse ethnic groups. It's a country undergoing massive changes, and the whole coutry is walking a tightrope, always at risk of falling apart or rampant corruption.

I doubt that the current Chinese government is the best possible for China, and they are certainly far from a democracy yet, but anybody claiming to know that they know better how to run China is either an idiot or an ideolog. It took Europeans hundreds of years and many bloody wars to become modern democracies. Americans had to commit genocide and institute centuries of slavery before finally waking up to ideas of human rights and equality. Give the Chinese a break--they aren't doing all that badly in comparison, they are just a little late.

Oh, and as for Microsoft, the Chinese are just watching out for their economic interests: nurturing domestic high-tech expertise is a good thing for them, and replacing Microsoft software with domestically developed software just makes sense.

More hackable?

[Agent R]

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.

This is a very good thing

[Matrix2110]

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.

Re:This is a very good thing

[The Revolutionary]

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.

Re:This is a very good thing

[The Revolutionary]

I agree it is good that China's economy is progressing, and hopefully that the quality of living of its people is increasing.

But in this case, isn't the government of China, if any, specifically the sort of government that would have the mandate of the people to fund free and open source solutions?

In the U.S., there seems to be the expectation that government funded products or services will not compete with existing private products or servcies (except in rare cases), but as I understand it, there is no such expectation of the government of China.

I'm not unhappy that more people will be exposed to technology.

I'm just not particularly pleased that the government of China took the side of proprietary software and patent/royalty encumbered standards, when so far as I can tell, it would have been perfectly within its expectations to not do so.

Not that the government of China cares what I think, of course,

Re:While I despise the communist government,

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:While you despise the communist government,

[clueless123]

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.

Market = Leverage

[gotan]

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.

Trade implications

[Draveed]

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.

Re:Trade implications

[1u3hr]

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.

They're already in. And this is a ruling on what government ministries can use, which is easily cast as national security, which is excempt from WTO rules. Could China complain that they can't tender for software for the Pentagon? Anyway, the US pisses on the WTO whenever it feels like it. The 3rd world is full of poverty-stricken farmers who can't sell their crops in competition with subsidised American farmers, which certainly goes againt the spirit, and probably the letter, of the WTO.

Info regarding WPS Office Suite

[Taco Cowboy]

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.

Security

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Protectionism is a dangerous toy

[kiravuo]

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

On a similar note ...

[zonix]

Even Alastair Campbell has fallen foul of the snippets of invisible data few of us realise our documents contain.

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!

z

Re:not so Hmm...

[1u3hr]

he point is, I'm not the one who gets to say what people should use. You are not either.

It certainly sounded as if you were saying there was no alternative to Word for that specific use (math layout), so I was pointing out others, possibly superior ones. As I work in publishing I've become aware of the tunnel vision that has afflicted publishers in recent years. Five or ten years ago you could submit files in several formats if you followed specific guidelines. Now editors with experience have been downsized and layout is done by staff who know how to copy from Word and paste into Quark, and nothing more than that.

As for general communication, I dread receiving bloated Word files, which have to be scanned for viruses and which all try to hijack my own settings.

Word is fine for composing, but it's absurd as an exchange format. If billg had got into the Internet sooner, instead of disdaining it, we would quite likely now be using doc files instead of HTML, but fortunately by the time he decided to take over the net HTML was established. But he has somehow convinced people to exchange simple memos in doc files instead of plain (or enriched) text emails.

Re:There are more chinese, just do the math.

[Jaysyn]

And where can I get one of these Chinese cars? They must be great since China is so populous.

Jaysyn

Compatibility

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:not so Hmm...

[frovingslosh]

Surely this amounts to no more than about 1% of the Word processing market? The other 99% do little more than write the odd letter or report.

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?

Re:So, you've decided to steal movies...

[junklight]

You will note that I fully accept that its wrong. Its just hard to care when the corporation being hurt are not the most ethical towards the people who make the product. That is NOT the same as it being ok.
Read up on the stories of people involved in the music industry - to pick one at random - Bill Nelson. Recently Bill Nelson discovered that his first successful band Bebop Deluxe where not only earning royalities but he had not seen a penny of them. This kind of story is rife - when royalties are paid the contracts are often unfair and explotative.

So - is it wrong to steal from the music industry - yes of course it is. Do I care that people are stealing from them: no not much.

Good Idea - We should do this too

[catherder_finleyd]

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".

Format?

[carldot67]

Does anyone know what format(s) this software uses? MS-based, OpenOffice, XML, open, closed, binary, easy, hard, portable, parseable??

China joined the WTO

[factorinc]

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!)

We shall see

[Hangtime]

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.

Re:There are more chinese, just do the math.

[sg_oneill]

Although I disagree with the grandparent of this post because there is a current technological and economic bias towards american production, the reason car quality is not necesarily scaleable to population really has everything to do with where the factory is located, not how many people can work on it.

Remember, that these days you'll probably find most of the 'american' cars are actually mexican (wheres the factory!) anyway.

But with a computer , your typing into the factory as you speak!!!!!!! Thats the joy of software economics. Any geek can make a program with the right tallent. Two geeks can make twice as much.

Thus as the personal PC enters more chinese homes, more scruffy chinese geeks will be working on linux and home brew mandarin friendly software.

Either way, as a direct competition to american software, the US industry will have no choice but to hire more american geeks to write more competitive software , so its not a bad thing for americans either way.

Yipee.

Document formats

[satyap]

Otherwise, how will they exchange documents?

Well, they could always use open document formats instead of closed proprietary formats. Really, this should not be an issue. Hmm, wonder if mswordview, strings, and so on violate DMCA.

Re:Protectionism is a dangerous toy

[bar-agent]

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.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalisation/story/0, 73 69,742812,00.html

Industrious Western Spammers Locked Out

[RubberJohnny]

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.

If we replaced "China" with "Sweden"...

[WoTG]

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.