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China Plans Domestic Software Quotas
October_30th writes "In order to fight the alleged Microsoft monopoly, the Chinese government is establishing quotas for foreign software. While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically. Regulations like this are, of course, expected to come under fierce criticism from the WTO."
In order to fight the alleged monopoly on Chinese clothing in America, the United States government is establishing quotas for foreign clothing. While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of clothing worn by North Americans be produced domestically. Regulations like this are, of course, expected to come under fierce criticism from the WTO.
Bloody brilliant. Maybe the state banks will be able to pick up the slack on this one. Probably not.
In order to fight the alleged Microsoft monopoly
Maybe they should make some alleged quotas if it's only an alleged monopoly?
Karma: -2^0.5 . Mainly due to the imbibing of dihydrogen monoxide
WASHINGTON--A federal judge has determined that Microsoft holds a monopoly in computer operating systems, strongly criticizing the company in a decisive statement that could signal the outcome of the landmark antitrust case.
Silly China, when will they learn that protectionist trade barriers cause depressions
The wording looks flawed. Free Software respects their independence, although it's not "produced" in China. (After the IIS backdoors were discovered, every government in the world should have moved to free software - give it 10 years.)
Please help publicise swpat.org - the software patents wiki
But, they can limit Comercial (Don't confuse, i didn't say propietary, i said comercial) software, since it is actually "imported", but can they limit the use of non-comercial Free Software?, I mean, you can put a limit on how much someone can sell or buy, but _not_ in how much he thinks or listens.
If this doesn't apply to Free Non-Comercial software, that will be an amazing incentive for people to start using, or at least looking at, GNU.
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Like tariffs, quotas are used to protect domestic industry at the expense of foreign industries and more importantly consumers. They usually require this protection because they either have a poor product or a product that costs much more than their competetitor's. Preventing imports forces consumers to spend more than they normally would on the same good.
However in terms of software this may be a blessing for China. Linux's problem isn't price so much as it is marketing. However the real question is whether China will be able to use Linux or must they code their own O/S?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
If you count all the software copied within China as "domestically produced", that is. Maybe their goal should be a little less domestic software production...
Software developed locally in the US vs that which is shipped off to India ? Congress critters trying to change legislation on H1B? Am I trolling ? They're both quotas, one on workers and the other on software (their product).
How exactly is demanding American workers be given preferential treatment for IT jobs different from a market in a country putting a quota on foreign software?
Neither one of those is right, but some people in those countries want both to happen. Having said that, this could be the shot in the arm that the Chinese need to boost their own development of software. Just hope that it won't become an inefficient beast due to lack of competition from outside their own country.
It is pretty hard to pin a country on Linux (or *BSD) these days. They are pretty much children of the world (including China). I wonder if the Chinese Goverment will take this into consideration when establishing its quotas...
This will just backfire on them. Irregardless of whether this is designed to reduce Microsoft's monopoly, a quota that restricts the use of ALL foreign software is going to have a negative impact on China's ability to advance their economy.
It will help local software companies, but there will probably be no net gain to the nation as a whole. When you restrict the ability for domestic companies to use foreign software (especially when it is the best tool for the job) you are handicapping economic growth.
Quoted from the article:
"I believe the era of exorbitant profit for software should end," said Li, the science ministry's deputy director in charge of new technology. "Basic software services should be cheap, just like water, electricity and gas."
This is great news for Open Source, whose goal is to make software cheap and affordable for everybody. Microsoft has been making exorbitant profits from their products for way too long, and I'm glad that China is embracing the new way of Open Source where software is a basic social right of all citizens.
This move isn't solely in support of Linux, because China wants its own software industry to have a chance to grow and flourish before Microsoft gains total dominance there. Once the Chinese software industry has grown, the largest software companies there can be socialized and given to the People of China.
Have you read the GNU Manifesto lately?
this may work for goverment-issued computers, but i dont think the Illuminati has to worry about the home systems
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
I'd wager that their domestic software industry will do well, but their domestic industry as a whole will not.
Why?
Ok, limiting software that people can use limits people's choices (obvious), but it also removes the ability for people to choose the absolute, best software they need to do their job. Consequently, you'd have to make some purchasing decisions which might actually affect the ability of your company to do work. Imagine how a video post production house trying to get by without AfterEffects, Flame, 3D Max, Maya - you get the picture.
The only way they could possibly circumvent this is by loading their machines up with 70% worth of crap they don't want - hey ho, I think I've found the solution!!
Before someone screams "Yay! Another victory for the anti-Microsoft lobby", its worth noting that this is not good.
From the article -
China says it is merely trying to level the playing field for its own software companies.
Bah! If every country were to level the "playing fields" - there is no point in such things as patents and WTO laws.
Why does the US still buy Japanese and Chinese products? Maybe the US should "level" the playing fields too. Why does any other country have to respect any other country's patent or trade laws?
As much as I like the fact that this means widespread adoptation of Linux - just remember that they are essentially violating even the basic trade law premises of free and fair trade.
The article's ending makes it worse -
So far, Linux has not made big inroads. IDC software analyst Jenny Jin estimates it has "a very small percentage" of the operating system market, probably less than 4 percent.
I wonder what this means. Homegrown Windows like OS? Whatever it is, this is plain wrong.
While other countries respect trade laws at the expense of their workers, industry and economy, why should China be allowed to be any different?
the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically.
So how do they plan to calculate the percentage? Number of software packages? Size in megabytes? Lines of source code? Weight of documentation?
Chinese programmers: Please make lots of free, useless little utilities so for every foreign software package your people need, they can install two of yours to balance them.
Back during the "Japanese Invasion" of the auto industry (when the Japanese got their quality up and held their price low, resulting in a major market shift among consumers) the US passed similar legislation, requiring a percentage of "US content" in any company's cars sold in the US. I think the number was also 70%.
Interestingly, the Japanese did this by opening assembly plants in the US. And employed US auto workers.
The US auto companies had claimed that there was a cultural gap, that the reason US car manufacturing had such a hard time with product quality was the US union auto workers. (Union reps said it was management techniques.)
The Japanese hired UAW members. And got better quality than in Japan. B-)
A friend of mine, a union organizer, put it this way:
"The US auto workers will give you what you ask. If you ask for quantity they'll give you quantity. If you ask for quality they'll give you quality. And if you ask for trouble they'll give you trouble."
B-)
What had ACTUALLY happened is that the Japanese had wholeheartedly adopted a management style promoted by a US theoritician, with major worker involvement and worker-to-management information and idea flow. Meanwhile, spured by the McCarthy-era anti-Communism witch hunts, the US executives eliminated anything that looked socialist or communist ideas from their own workflow, cutting themselves off from information and ideas from their blue-collar workers - who knew the actual processes and factory goings-on the best.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So I guess they won't be using Linux or OpenOffice then.
so, if Microsoft (or any foreign software company) decides to outsource some software development to China, will it be considered a domestic product, since it would technically be made in China?
As soon as you get your welcome screen up, your PC's 100% US software... then you get a knock at the door...
"I was just about to install Feng Shui 5.1, honest!!"
Hmmm... come to think of it, you wouldn't be able to install any OS...
China has an evil invader from space, Bill Frieza, who is seemingly unbeatable. China can either not fight Bill Frieza, in which case he will enslave them to fight smaller battles around the universe, or china can try and fight Bill Frieza and end up being anhiliated.
China's only hope is to gather together the 8 magical Dragonball CPU's to summon the Eternal OS, who will grant them one wish so they can defeat the evil Bill Frieza.
Will China be able to find all 8 Dragonball CPU's in time? Will Bill Frieza anhillate the earth? Find out next time on Dragonball Z!
This could be one of those rare cases where the enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
China has violated so many of the promises it made when it entered the WTO(while still enjoying all the benefits) this really will not matter. So far, China has been making a lot of influential WTO members very rich so they look the other way. Basically China has immasculated the WTO, and I for one am sick of it. They want all the benefits but none of the costs of free trade. Every time America tries to protect one of its own industries, China raises a huge hissy fit and threatens the US with a trade war, although the amount of exports to China are so small we really could do without them.
Either get the WTO to grow some balls and challenge China or scrap the organization. I am tired of Chinas constant protectionist bs while forcing free trade on other countries. And before the China supporters flame me I know that there overall trade deficit is not that high, but if you take a look at there trade policies(namely demanding technology transfer, and destroying any standards that are foriegn and turning around and forcing companies to use Chinas standards if they want to do business) you can tell that they do not plan to trade with these other nations very long. Trade with China is a very bad idea, maybe once the WTO actually enforces its rules, it might not be so bad, but for the time being it really pisses me off..
CEO Steve Ballmer visited last November and fondled donkeys with the Ministry of Education to provide $10 million to promote computer use in schools.
Should read:
CEO Steve Ballmer visited last November and signed an agreement with the Ministry of Education to provide $10 million to promote computer use in schools.
But what's the difference?
EVERYDAY IS CATURDAY
Yessir, I love it when people discriminate like that. Nobody screams about enforced quotas for US Government jobs and contracts, but let a foreign government demand a quota on something as simple as software, and look out! Love double standards! Love 'em to death!
To: balmer
Subject: political party contribution failed.
i thought my last bribe^H^H^H^H^H contribution to the glorious chinese democratic goverment to help censor^H^H^H^H^H^H provide balance media coverage and universal civilian access to this newfangled internet thing should have worked.
looks like they need further detailed explainations about the total cost of ownership of windows compared to that finnish thing err whats it called now, sco openunix or something.
keep me posted
Sir William
stop edit shit how to i stop this word recognition software stop err exit quit help
NO CARRIER
If the average US citizen made $0.70/hr, they wouldn't be able to afford the products made by companies that would be forced to produce them at below-cost to meet the buying potential of their customers. Therefore, these companies go out of business, further adding to the ranks of the unemployed, who can now no longer afford to purchase products by the surviving companies, who now are forced to cut prices again to meet the buying potential of their customers.
Now all that's left is Wal-Mart, and nobody can afford a basket of radishes there anymore.
Wages aren't the only costs involved in production.
China has to be very careful about proposing legislation that will get knocked down by the WTO. The Chinese are very sensitive to reproachment by other countries and international organizations. I don't know how they will react if the WTO finds them guilty of violating WTO agreements and fines them billions of dollars.
If China believes it has the capacity to create a powerful software industry, it should get out of its way rather than remove incentive for them to compete.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
If they're importing stuff, their economy suffers if they're not exporting more than they're importing. Currently this is the case with things, but to say that you're handicapping economic growth by not importing things, implies you know very little about how economics works.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Hopefully this Chinese action will destroy the WIPO. The entire reason we in America are sacrificing our jobs/environment/politics/freedom here is to create a stable WTO, in which China is an open market for those higher value goods we produce for them as they grow. If they get away with this protectionism, we should trash this slavish WTO devotion, and just practice fair trade (not the neoliberal "free" trade), negotiating to protect our consumers and labor market from their predatory capitalism.
--
make install -not war
Are you trying to deny that Ballmer fondled donkeys? Sheesh, Microsoft apologists some days...
That would sure help preserve the US IT industry.
Then again, Bush would have to care first.
Steve
the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically.
I see a great opportunity here for some clever Chinese student to make a fortune...
Write and sell a fairly cheap (whatever would compare to USD$20?) set of a few thousand "utility" programs, that do basically nothing (such as "print-a", which "inserts the ASCII character 0x41 into the standard output stream, for use in automated scripting requiring the letter 'A'", as an example of what I mean), but absolutely guarantee that a company can remain in compliane with this quota no matter how much imported US software they use.
The only problem involves the definition of "percent" as relating to software - Does it mean "per 100 packages" or "per 100 bytes"? If the latter, a similar approach would work (such as "lib-a", which fills exactly 70% of your hard-drive with readily-accessible "A" characters), but would certainly seem a lot more wasteful of a large HDD...
While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically.
implies that they plan to issue a general nationwide ban on too much foreign software. However, that's not what the article says. It actually says:
Officials say a new law will be announced by this summer requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China.
So we see that this policy would only apply to government purchases. Thus, this is little different from when a corporate IT department standardizes on choosing certain software products and not others.
The U.S. federal and state governments also promote a variety of policies by placing extra conditions on their procurements and contractors.
So, while this is somewhat interesting, this doesn't look to me like as big a trade issue as a lot of posts seem to be making of it.
You know, this is typical we want think we are better than the rest of the world China. Let them go off on their own and when the rest of the world is using Monopoly Office 2010 and cursing at Clippy who in 2010 accounts for 20% of the MO distribution they will be using their own hacked out version of Government BackDoor Repressive Office 2010 that is equivalent to MO 2005! GBRO's touted features will be a spell checker that removes government "NO-NO" words. Best use of resources is to not reinvent the wheel twice!
America is the continent dipshit.
And Americans are the people who live in the United States of America.
Try telling a Canadian or a Mexican that he's American.
MoFscker
I can see several ways in which this could be bad for all the rest of us (while not being all that good for China, either).
1 - mass civil disobedience, encouraged by the Chinese government looking the other way: China writes some code, and makes up the slack by pirating everything else. Everyone justifies the piracy by pointing at the government and saying "well, I'm not allowed to BUY it". The rest of the world ends up feeding China's growth but doesn't actually get any money.
2 - GPL black hole: code goes into China but code doesn't come out. What's to stop a desperate Chinese coder from "borrowing" a pile of downloaded source, making a few changes, and selling binaries within China? Nothing. The rest of the world ends up feeding China's growth with free code, and gets nothing in return. The Great Firewall of China might aggravate that even further - maybe insiders *want* to share their code with the rest of the world, but aren't allowed to?
3 - hmm. China's also making custom processors. What's to stop there from being a positive feedback loop here of Chinese code for Chinese chips driving Chinese chip sales in China, which drives Chinese code in China? Nothing - that may even be by design. This'd close off sales of both hardware and software to China even more. Good for China, bad for everyone else.
Like many other posters, though, I don't think China could get away with this, because of the WTO. They'd get hammered not only by the US, but also the EU, India, Japan, and anyone else who makes software that I'm forgetting.
"If a software program is dominant for a long time, it's harmful for the development of the software industry," said Li Wuqiang of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
You my friend get +5 Insightful from me.
while sco {
wget -O
}
Its interesting to note how slashdot user opinions change overtime. A few years back, capitalism and freedom were reigning supreme. Such protectionist policies werent really appreciated anywhere.
.... wouldnt it be better if americans would be courageous to just compete with the best of the rest and take head on their strengths? .. that is the freedom that 'you' championed.
The US was the champion of capitalism, sometimes even arm twisting countries into opening their markets. Those that did so were endowed lavishly with grants and loans. Of course, opening markets and free economies lead to more social freedom too which would be better in the longer term.
But then, perhaps the US forgot the implications of free competition on their own economy. Suddenly americans want protectionist legislations. Outsourcing is the top-demon.
Ahh
Well
Now when you look at what is happening in america, china and maybe what will happen in many other countries, are we going back to a milder version of socialism?
Disclaimer: I would have never been against protectionism for the sake of protecting jobs in any country. But then you worked so hard at doing away with that system. You promoted competition. Good. But dont get scared when it comes back at you!
Life is just a conviction.
nothing but anecdotal "evidence"
Evidence for dramatic decline in labor force participation:
St. Louis Federal Reserve Data"
This the real "unemployment" measure. It's down
to the rate in 1980s; after a decade of mass immigration and as the echo-baby boom enters the work force. The Bush administration does not count "contractors" who can't get new contracts and people who haven't found a job in more than 6 months.
Uh. 2 other points: Dukakis was a governor.
How is his voting record comparable with Senator Kerry? Also, It's John Edwards who's gonna kick draft-dodger Bush/Cheney's ass.
Actually, no, the continents are North America and South America. There is no continent called America.
Secondly, the idea that Americans can be stuck with the term USians doesn't make sense. After all, that term could just as easily apply to people from the United States of Mexico, or probably a dozen other countries with United States in their name.
Finally, I think I'm going to start calling people from the U.K. "UKians", and I'm also going to start calling people from the E.U. "EUians". After all, someone from the E.U. can't call themselves a "European", since that is the name of the continent and the E.U. does not comprise all the European nations.
In short, all you jokers who think it's fun to tweak Americans with the stupid name "USians", get a life. We're Americans; deal with it.
Actually, you're the dipshit. Money has no intrinsic value. If the average American made $0.70 an hour, yet remained as productive as they are now, the value of a doller would be much higher, so the *real* cost of living would be the same.
And yes, we had a depression in the 1930s. Such cycles are a natural part of any capitalist economy. What's your point?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Japan placed voluntary restrictions on exports to the
l 7 81-32.html
United States of cotton goods (1957), steel (1969),
wool and synthetic fibers (1972), color televisions (1977),
and automobiles (1981).
http://www.jinjapan.org/access/trade/friction.htm
http://www.cpas.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cis/asia/eng/85-H
Between Nov 03 and Dec 03, the participation rate went from 66.2% to 66.0%, unemployment rate thus went from 5.9% to 5.7% and everyone hooted and hollered over it. The reason for the drop in unemployment was a net of ~538,000 people dropping out of the work force. The size of the work force and thus the enemployment rate grew between Dec 03 and Jan 04.
The scenario pointed out does happen.
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm
Basic software services should be cheap, just like water, electricity and gas.
Water is not cheap -- neither is gas, nor electricity. Just ask the tens of millions of people who can't afford them.
Furthermore, ditto food -- not cheap, for the starving.
-kgj
-kgj
China isn't really communist anymore.
China tried same result in 1970s. Each small village and rural family had to produce X steel amount to meet national goal. Result was pathological disaster.
I suggest you read Slashdot
I would like to serious challenge the neutrality of the article.
It sounds like the Chinese government is going to ban most of the foreign software. But, all the facts quoted by the articles only indicates the Chinese wants more Linux in government desktops.... It is *not* a violation of WTO. Just like US government can say it wants a bigger share of MS/linux/BSD/Macs for the government desktop due to security/stability/easy-to-use or whatever. In any case, Linux is more like an "international" product...
In addition, the article is neither from a reputable international news agent nor from the offical Chinese government announcement. It is very speculative in nature. All the quotes are old paste-and-cuts not directly related to this... It has 3-4 quotes from various Chinese goverment officers talked about "it is not the best interest for anyone is there is a software monopoly". A couple of analysts indicates further changes will benefit Linux, while the adoption of it at this moment is not great....
You're confusing a single economic policy with an entire socio-economic political philosophy there. The governments of most countries were protectionist prior to the mid-XIX century (for instance, England had the infamous "Corn Laws" and "Navigation Acts"; and, in the U.S., the New England States nearly seceded in the late 1820's over tariffs), but that didn't make these governments socialist in the least. It was classical liberalism (today's conservatism, at least in economics) that proposed free trade. Quite the contrary, as modern socialism didn't even exist then.
In fact, IIRC, isn't Marxism opposed to tariffs, at least in theory? Aren't they mostly used to become economicly self-sustaining, so socialist states don't need to rely on their capitalist opponents? I could be wrong on that, it's been a long time since I delved very deep into the subject.
The parent and grandparent are both right, with more elaboration:
The parent is correct that if everyone earned 70c/hr, yet remained as product as they are now, the value of the dollar would be much higher, so the purchasing-power-parity in 2003 dollars would remain the same, and hence the "real" cost of living (in PPP 2003 USDs).
The grandparent is correct that if everyone *WERE* to earn 70c/hr, we would have a depression.
How can the parent and grandparent be correct? The fourth-dimension, time, the axis Mardy (Michael J Fox) wasn't very good at in Back to the Future, needs to be remembered. When experienced with RAPID deflation, which implies the power of the dollar increases rapidly, we enter an economy which is reluctant to make investments. The best investment, in a deflating curency, is to hold on to your bank notes or bonds, not to lend loans on houses that this year will cost $100k but if the owner forecloses five years from now will only fetch $20k of a much stronger greenback.
Thus, if we have rapid deflation, or sustained deflation, we will enter a depression where the financial elite close their purses and reap the rewards of monetary growth without making loans to those paupers we commonly refer to as ourselves.
I live in China. We can buy almost any MS product (or Adobe, or Symantec) on the street for less tham USD 2. (Not quite, but almost free, as in beer). Locally written software is also routinely pirated. The government may have some control over what goes on their own computers, but that is hardly certain. It is, put at its highest, a statement of policy that should not be ignored, but it is not going to impact on US jobs all that much.
Right. I'll take this a lot more seriously when the WTO starts throwing fits about the well documented abuses of Microsoft's own monopoly power in the marketplace. Until then, it seems a bit hypocritical of the WTO to be barking about -- fundamentally -- Microsoft being victimized by a the presence of an uneven playing field.
The Chinese appear to be acting unilaterally in what they perceive as their best interest. Maybe they're just following the U.S. lead.
I honestly believe the rule of international law is an important value, but also believe the U.S. could stand some introspection on this very same point. And as for Microsoft, I can't tell that the company has learned anything from its run-in with the Justice Department, except for how to be sneakier in extending its monopoly, a reinforced appreciation for the power of public perception, and perhaps a clearer understanding of why it's worthwhile to donate generously to politicians who don't believe that the power of large businesses should in any way be restrained.
This isn't unique to North America. It happens all over the globe, England included. Such is the nature of living languages.
I think what China is doing is extremely bad for me and others alike in the US, but excellent for it. Protection makes sense when mixed with competition. I just hope it finds a suitable 'x' in the x% local-competition and 100%-x% aggressive-open-competition formula.
/my/ country ... I also wish the democratic populace would lessen their support for flagship varsity teams (MS, IBM, Oracle, etc.) and think of their JV team which may yield a future Varsity player better than any in existence, given the opportunity to train.
The best example is my highschool, which had an idiot coach who reserved the tennis courts four and half of the five days to the Varsity team players, giving only 2 hours for JV players, many of whom had never played tennis before.
The end result was that our varsity team improved dramatically, but our JV team was as bad at the end of the year as the start. What did this mean? Kids like me and a *select* few others with parents willing to pay for lessons were able to practice and get into varsity. Those without the money continued in JV and never made varsity. This resulted in our varsity team winning LESS than our varsity team of years past, because we were filled with the affluent JV players and not the talented-yet-latent JV players.
This ties in wonderfully well into economics. Those who have parents/foundations/communities etc. which let them *practice* are the ones who will succeed in a capitalistic, hyper-aggressive, winner-takes-all society (just watch our Reality Shows where all but the best leave in humilation and with $0).
China realizes that the average chinese family cannot compete with "Varsity" teams and is letting their "JV" teams have court time, in the hope that they will one day become "Varsity." Kudos to the brilliant PRC! However, I really wish I could post more kudos to
This is not to say let -everyone- have equal time. Oh, not at all! Just let the JV have *some more* time than currently given. Dedicate resources to ANALYZE them, spot the rapid achievers, and send them up to the next grade where they're given some more resources. Let the dedicated resources mitigate the leverage affluence provides to the few.
Please note, there's the even simpler matter of Dominos selling pizzas at $3.50 to kill competition in my homecity, locals unable to sell below $6, only to price it up to $22 once colonizing the area. Pizza Hut moved in and the "added competition" has reduced the price to $20. Yay... duopolies..
Side-rant: I wish schools would teach kids who flunk classes Civics instead of that class again.. I rather they graduate knowing how to be a member of a democracy than memorize the A B B C E D A answers to the final they're retaking for the 5th time. The only Civics anyone learns these days is from Rap which teaches the alternative to the status quo is drugs and promiscuity or from advertisement which teaches you should revitalize your hair by giving patron to status-quo brands X, Y and Z. I doubt drugs, promiscuity, or giving patron to brands will improve our Civics.
Soemthing similar happened with hardware and software in Brazil in the 80s.
Eventually, the exception system was widely abused. Some companies used the protection to develop, some companies suffered of the lack of competition.
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
Looking at this on a purely analytical level, this is a bad idea. I mean, how do they plan to enforce it? the 70% figure... how do they measure it? Bytes? Can you cheat the system by writing a 3 line VB script that includes 100 megs of high-res .tiff files?
:)
Obviously, they can't go by lines of code with closed source systems.
Ultimately this could backfire and cause the computer industry there stagnate as
A) companies spend time writing applications that they don't need to write in order to maintain quotas. It would be better for Chinese coders to spend time writing code that actually needs to be written and
B) it means people actually need to worry about software was written. That requires a lot more information and checking. Chinese OEMs, VARs, etc, are going to have to spend a lot of time (read: money) on figuring out where all this code comes from.
Any time you add an "unnatural" regulation, you're creating a lot of expenses beyond what it would cost simply to comply by forcing people to figure out if they're complying.
A "natural" regulation is something like "don't drive over 75mph" or "you must add iodine to salt if you produce it". It's obvious if you're driving over 75, and it's obvious if you're adding iodine to your salt. Pretty much any taxation would be an example of an "unnatural" regulation. It's natural to simply give the person all the money for the job they do, and it takes a lot of work to figure out how much you owe in taxes. And it creates a huge infrastructure (and cost) in collecting and enforcing those taxes.
Of course, it's a gradient, but I'd say this requirement is pretty unnatural. How do they figure OSS with or without some Chinese contributors? What about code from US companies with outsourcing operations in China? It seems like a big mess to me.
One easy way to do it would be to require that 70% of licensing fees go to Chinese companies. It's pretty obvious who you're paying, and it would certainly accelerate the adoption of OSS in the middle kingdom
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Well if China can get away with this under the WTO's side, I hope some non pro-BigBusiness types can bring similar legislation up in the US. I for one, an unemployed IT worker at the moment, would welcome some kinds of protections on jobs for citizens who are highly motivated and skilled, but shut out of a labor force that has been moved overseas who don't have to pay for the cost of living I do.
Be very, very careful what you put into that head, because you will never, ever get it out. -Thomas Cardinal Wolsey
Its a favorite argument of the anti-outsourcing crowd to claim that all these companies are murdering themselves because their customers are the same as their employers, and if they outsource, the economy will go bad, and the company will lose all the money they save through outsourcing, and then some.
But what they forget is that the economy of the country they are outsourcing to is going to grow, and they can sell their products there. There's also the fact that A) not all their customers are going to lose their jobs, and B) Not all the people who lose their jobs are their customers. In most cases, income lost due to poor consumer confidence won't be more then the amount of money saved by outsourcing.
It should be obvious with the "jobless economy" that it's possible to have a good economy without a strong job market.
Don't like it? then vote for Kerry in November. I'm willing to put up with trade inequity if it means getting rid of bush. A good job market after I graduate collage is just a tasty bonus.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As I assumed when reading original story, and as subsequent posts bear out.
WTO(World Trade Organisation) = USA.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Actually, no, the continents are North America and South America. There is no continent called America.
Actually, that's not quite right either.
See this as reference, there is more than one way to divide up the continents.
Your way, with both North and South Americas, isn't listen there, but it's usually used when one talks of political/social divisions instead of geographical, IIRC.
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
The long term is not entirely how you think it really is. My father worked as Plant President of one of these "sweat shops" in the car industry. His hardest decision was whether or not to employ child labor.
The problem of child labor and the labor conditions is that what we consider right and what the people of the country consider right are two entirely different things. That is the entire problem in a nutshell.
In the case of child labor my father could have not employed children and that would solve nothing as the child would get work elsewhere. Or he could employ child labor with a minium age of say 12 and make sure that they do work which they can, get a fair wage like other workers and if possible get the entire family to work there. At least under those circumstances child labor is least disruptive for all those concerned.
Now about cheap labor? Well with time cheap becomes more expensive and people's standard of living improves. I have seen it happen in many countries and it will continue to happen.
HOWEVER, and here is what I think the root of the problem is. Many "non civilised" countries are becoming very bright and adept at doing what we took for granted (eg software, design, hardware). And that hurts because it shows Western Civilization better wake and start smelling the coffee!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
There is precedent for this in the EU television Directive of 1989.
That Directive requires that European broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works.
If China is attacked under WTO rules, they can point to this unfortunate precedent for cultural protectionism.
Lenz Blog
Why do you keep whining about this? US goverment would pass similar law in the same situation required.
Note that this doesn't affect ALL software sold in China, only software used by goverment. It isn't suprising that when goverment buys stuff it tries to buy homegrow stuff.
Secondly, the idea that Americans can be stuck with the term USians doesn't make sense. After all, that term could just as easily apply to people from the United States of Mexico..
Then why do Mexicans calls us "Estunadu Unidunese", literally "United Statsian"
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
The problem with most of the replies here is that they didn't read the article.
requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China
So, please, don't cry about companies not being able to choose the best tool. They can. It's more like the decision of the Munich local government. But it seems most of the US-based commenters lose their ability of independent thoughts when it comes to China.
Move Sig. For great justice.
Because I would get sick and angry. The American govt. and many American institutions always talk in favour of free trade and try other nations to come into the WTO. But while talking like the biggest supporters of globalisation abroad (maybe because of jobs they talk different at home) the US has never been very supportive of free trade.
They only allow free trade when it serves their interest. This is not to say they are the only ones, because the EU also protects their markets wherever they can.
Only Americans seem to think that the US allows free trade, which it doesn't. The only countries that swallowed this load of crap and opened their boarders to foreign products were developing and least developed nations.
While the EU and the US heavily protect their markets (mainly through subsidies, 'cause they can afford to) in some areas China is now doing the same in other areas.
What China is doing is bad, but they are just following up on the example set by the US.
A few tweaks in an Open-Source piece and a simple re-compile may be all that's needed to qualify as "Made In China".
I suspect that China will be entirely unable to enforce any requirements that its software be Chinese-made. The streets of most Chinese cities are covered with small business people selling various qualities of pirated media ranging from burnt CDs, VCDs and DVDs with Hollywood's latest to pre-release versions of most popular programs. This disregard for software property rights, unsurprisingly, is mirrored in other products, the most incredible of which is a pirated car. This piracy problem is so pervasive, that I would be surprised if much software purchased by the government was legitimate. I suspect that this announcement is more of a political ploy than an actual policy statement.
"...What is good for General Motors is good for America." -Charles Wilson, Secretary of Defense and fmr President of GM
While slightly OT, he did bring up the issue.
The WTO is running around acting like a sovereign nation, dictating what the entire world must do, at the least common denominator.
China is a independent nation, they shouldn't bend over due some 'committee'.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
That may be true, but it's still wrong. It is morally wrong to pay workers in another country ANY amount of money and then take the profits and products they produce elsewhere. Free trade agreements that screw domestic workers out of their jobs aren't evil for that reason alone -- they're evil because they steal from the economy of other countries. Products and profits belong in a worker's community, not in another country!