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Sun Announces Linux Deal With Chinese Government
Infonaut writes "Scott McNealy announced today at Comdex that Sun Microsystems has made a deal with China for a million desktop Linux deployments under the new $50/seat licensing plan for Sun's desktop software, which includes its Star Office 7.0 productivity program. Whether this will translate into renewed profits for Sun remains to be seen, but according to McNealy, it represents 'the No. 1 Linux desktop play on the planet'."
Sun says Linux isn't the future, yet they have no qualm of selling a million of them to China :)
That sound you hear is bricks hitting the ground in Redmond.
...that narrow-minded politicians or lobbyists don't use a large deployment in a communist country as propaganda against open source.
Of course, taking a cue from the '50s (and from Dr. Strangelove):
"Mr. President! We cannot allow an open-source gap!"
With apologies to Stanley Kubrick...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
so they switched from their American Windows based overlords to the new American Java based overlords. good move
did you forget to take your meds?
1. Make one million Linux desktops with a secret backdoor.
2. Have US military pay you for software to invade backdoor.
3. Have China secretly pay you to patch the backdoor.
4. ???
5. Profit!
The deal is for one license. McNealy was initially puzzled at how a single license could possibly be enough for the Chinese population, but when your stock is trading at $3/share, $50 is $50.
In the meantime, the quiet hum of CD duplicators echoes across the middle kingdom...
I wonder if it uses the HotJava web browser? Wouldn't that be something?
You must mean BeOS?
Pretty Pictures!
The chinese government has been shown the source code for MS Windows.
So this means... the other 10% are just too stupid to understand they can save $450 by using Star Office instead.
Oh, you're talking about "developing world," i.e. the world outside USA, so the other 10% are the Americans. OK that explains it.
I can see it now...:
Pssst, hey, you wanna buy a cracked version of Linux for only $2.88
Sun's logo has much better Feng Shui than the Microsoft one!
-psy
Someone tell Sun there is an easier way to make $50M than having to work this hard. Simply tell Microsoft you'd be willing to sue a major Linux distributor and the checks will start coming your way. Act irrational and scream something incoherent about source code and intellectual property and you might get $100M.
I guess this qualifies as a 1,2,3 Profit!
1. First they ignore you.
2. Then they laugh at you.
3. Then they say it's a toy OS.
4. Then they say it's great.
5. Then they change their minds again.
6. Then they write it off as crap somemore.
7. Then they realise their market share is going down harder and faster than New Zealand in a World Cup semi final.
8. Then they team up with an unethical has been company in an attempt damage you.
9. Then they bite the bullet and rip off somebody elses distro.
10. Then they proclaim they are the shining light of the OS and all should follow them.
Nerd: Derogatory term typically directed at anybody with a lower Slashdot ID than you.
They've pissed off everybody else, why not piss off their (minority) investors, too?
Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
They want one...million...desktops.
Spam filtering? Why would China want to kill its number 1 export?
MS lost a total of 1 sale to China... However, the blank CDR makers just lost 999999 sales...
Because the Sun never sets on
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
Nobody in China buys software.
And its now official...Linux is for commies.