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Japan, China, S Korea Agree To Standardize Linux
Ooi writes "Japan Today News reports: 'The governments of Japan, China and South Korea have agreed to work together to come up with an alternative computer operating system to reduce reliance on Microsoft's Windows, the Yomiuri and Nihon Keizai newspapers reported Sunday.
According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely. The agreement was signed in Beijing on Saturday by senior government officials from the three countries.'
Australian IT has an article on the issue prior to the meeting." A few weeks ago, I spoke at the Asia OSS meeting in Hanoi of which the three gov'ts above are also members. There's a very serious commitment to OSS especially among the governments represented there.
so here are 3 countries which have tradionally been 'not too friendly' with each other that can agree to standardise on a single installation of Linux...
This is cool, but the $24,000 dollar question is - will they go with KDE or Gnome as the default ??
Surely this should be a slashdot poll!
Asian distro defaults...
(o) Vi and Gnome
(o) Vi and KDE
(o) Emacs and Gnome
(o) Emacs and KDE
(o) Cowboy Neal is my interface and text editor, you insensitive clod!
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
It's all well and good these countries developing Linux, but will it remain open source?
Can open source be inforced with these governmental development?
So how much can we expect Linux and OSS to be exploited for oppression and control of the population? China already takes a lot of measures to control the internet (students get arrested just for entering key phrases like "taiwan", "human rights" and "democracy" into google), if they can control the OS too what is to stop them from using that to further control (and while the GPL forces it to be open source, they can easily make it a political crime to use any clean/lite version of their distro)
a govt should remain neutral to any particular business - ofcourse if there is a monopoly there can be a monopoly suit - but as far as encouraging or shielding linux goes - that's totally wrong.
It has been clear for some years that most countries are very unhappy with the existing OS monopoly. Given how critical IT has become, it is simply unacceptable to rely on a single, foreign vendor like Microsoft. Linux (in some evolved or forked form) will be the standard OS everywhere, at least outside the US. Other open source projects, like FreeBSD, may also conquer quite a few markets. Paradoxically, the only solution is an free, open source Windows, but I doubt Microsoft is so brave!
I'm just hoping Christmas Island joins in too.
Remember, Mainland China is a place where women are sentenced to rape camps for having the wrong religion. What punishment is in store for those who use the wrong Linux distro?
Why ?
These 3 countries are out to save a buck and at the same time try to get a bit of traditional American IT industry, OS making.
I think Americans in generally should be less worried over telemarketing jobs going to India, this is the real threat, the risk that high tech IT jobs moves east, far east.
SCO will have you in its sights now!
Japan, China and S Korea: that's a combined population of over 1.5 billion, multiplied by $699 equals BUY SCOX!
Enquiring minds want to know how you reached that conclusion.
AFAIK, most of the windows copies in china are pirated.
They use MS, but don't support them.
(1.2 billion Linux users) x ($699) =
PROFIT!
Geez. With this, Darl might approach the riches of the head of Ikea, who recently bumped Gates off the "richest dude" list.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Its a free open source operating system that is a clone of Windows NT. Reactos website
I have a fetish for traffic cones
This is horrible news! With Sweden claiming the world's richest business man owning IKEA here , Bill Gates needs all the support he can get to jump back on top. If we all work together and pledge to purchase a copy of Windows XP Pro and Office 2003 Pro we can make the dream happen... we can put Bill back on top and win one for America!! Down with crappy swedish furniture manufacturers and up with global monopolistic software giants! USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!
Wasn't that the Idea with Red Flag Linux (or whatever it is called... Slashdot's search feature rarely returns anything that has my search terms)? Will South Korea and Japan go for Red Flag or will they start a-fresh?
At least China already has some experience in this market. Kudos for supporting OSS and maybe (if that actually write any code) helping Linux improve even faster.
"With Western eurpean cities "
What of the Wyatt Earpean cities?
For goatse.cx?
So in the near future, will we see SCO/RIAA file 1.3 billion lawsuits , 1 for each person in China, Japan and Korea? That would be a fabulous waste of money. They can just issue 1.3 billion trial delays, and SCO can take a rest for 30 thousand years!
stuff |
For example, the apt-get software is a key tool in the system administrator's arsenel. It has a relatively simple command line syntax, but it is obviously in English, and therefore would pose a problem for Japanese, Chinese or Korean administrators wanting to come rapidly up to speed. What would people think about tools like apt-get being re-engineered to include a language abstraction layer, so locales could be exchanged like plugins, to customise the tool for new countries? In fact, this type of localisation need not be limited merely to language changes. Entire cultural paradigms could be replicated via a plug-in system. For example, in Chinese markets the apt-get package management model could be described as a yum-cha cart, bringing tasty morsels of .deb packages to each table, or system. The package database would be the little card the attendant checks when you receive each plate, or in this case, .deb package
I look forward to the community's response!
Nano is great, whenever I'm training a Windows-trained sysadmin for a Linux system, that's the first editor I throw at them. It's easy to use, and doesn't confuse the issue with either inscrutable modes or forgettable key combinations. In its default mode it even tells you the most important control keys on screen.
These people don't need much in an editor, just editing a few config files and maybe writing a short script. Nano does it easily.
Of course, I don't know how well it works with CJK scripts, I suspect badly, so it won't work well for this group.
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Heh! I'd like to see Microsoft "innovate" themselves out of this one!
Steve...
I wonder how this will fare for Red Flag Linux (English)? Nothing like a government-sponsored monopoly to cut into profits...
$ echo "ceci n'est pas une pipe" | sed -Ee 's/(eci n|pas )//g'
These 3 countries are out to save a buck ...
Nothing wrong with that.
and at the same time try to get a bit of traditional American IT industry, OS making.
Since Linux is not traditional American IT industry software, there is no technological drain happening here. This decision does however have the potential to shrink the market share of a certain technologically stagnated and sloppy American OS vendor but that is only to be expected when this American OS vendor's product sucks bigtime. Another factor is the simple fact that given the USA's obsession with intelligence gathering nobody trusts this American OS vendor not to cave into the pressure to spike its product with backdoors
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Microsoft does have a majority share, but total control, on the platform it co-invented with IBM (the PC).
In the PDA, Palm is quite big (no Microsoft dominance). Microsoft is no-where when it comes to the OS of the Mac platform.
"And how is this different from the modern "Everybody is a terrorist until proven otherwise" USA."
No, under current US doctrine, you are only a terrorist if you have been proven to be one.
According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely. Dude, this is SLASHDOT. In Slashdot, EVERYONE knows what Linux is :)
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
Kind of an interesting analogy. This could be similar to the Big Iron vs PC issues that happened during the 80's. Everyone wants the speed, responsiveness, and immediate feedback of the PC. From a core OS standpoint, Microsoft just doesn't provide this. If you want a change, such as how it handles your system of written communication, you either pay the big bucks and DIY or wait for them to do it for you. Security issues tend to take longer with Microsoft. Etc, etc...
Microsoft won't ever go away. But I fee that they will become less relevant.
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
Some judges may beg to differ.
y =c net&tag=st.ne.1002.tgif%3fst.ne.fd.gif.b
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-232565.html?legac
At the very least, given the big number of hardware companies in those countries (added those of Taiwan that probably wasn't in the agreement because China doesn't recognize it, but whose interests lie in the same line), this agreement will help improve Linux driver support.
That's good news and no mistake.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
The development will be done by the private sector, but will be funded and co-ordinated by representatives from the member states.
This will assure is us that there will still be hardware capable of running linux when the next generation of hardware coming from the U.S (and E.U. ?) will be forced to use DRM to limit its OS choice to two (MS,Apple) or three (SUN).
Some judges may beg to differ
Some judges lie.
I'll believe it when I see Korean websites that are actually usable for people running Linux. In the Korean web, IE6 on Windows is pretty much required to do anything useful at all.
Korean Ebay is IE6 only, Korean banks offer internet banking only to IE6 users, Many Korean government websites don't function properly with anything but IE6, etc. etc.
I've been seeing articles about Korea's "committment to Linux" for a long time, but I've yet to see any evidence that the Korean web is anything other than completely and utterly owned by Microsoft.
True, but even using windows and not paying for it puts the country effectively at the mercy of Microsoft. Should they no longer support local languages or worse, break existing installs during an update/service pack, suddenly you've got a country full of users who are SOL and quite unproductive.
As the old line says, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket"
*looking around my house* Windows 2k, XP, 2k, 98, 2k... yea... I'm screwed.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
For Japan, the most wanted goodness in Linux is security, which is considered higher than that of MS Windows. Money is not that big issue for Japanese government, as Japanese electronics giants such as Fujitsu which are close to the governemnt are traditionally big for their SPARC servers. Migrating to Linux may be short loss for those companies but killing license fee to MS and Sun will offset it.
For Korea, the most wanted is cheapness of Linux, that will help the country to grow without paying licence fee to the US company.
For China, to kill rampant piracy to meet global standard, Linux is ideal solution, and of course it is free of security backdoor that may be present in software made in the US as GNU/RMS repeats it. You may worry about China use Linux as a tool to suppress free speech, but considering this is a project of 3 countries, such aspect won't be in its contents.
Though 3 countries have different causes, as the initiative of so-called Open Source development is still in the hand of the Western people and internationalization of current OSS is poor, it is no wonder those countries start their own movement.
could this set the precident for the future? think about it, IKEA primarily makes products with "some asemberly required" now is there anything out there that you can think of that might "require some building" that could topple Bill Gates off his perch?
"Sure, and being incarcerated at Guantanamo constitutes proof"
No, it is a result of proof (such as being caught red-handed fighting in a terrorist army such as Taleban or AQ).
hmm. wonder if anti-teror government agenices is worried about this
Call me a religious zealot but I think it's great for governments to encourage use & development of free software.. ;D And can you really blame them for it, when such a tiny percentage of their population can actualy afford to buy a commercial OS like Windows (most of them pirate it). And then those few Windoze boxen would naturally just be a thorn in everyone's side in terms of interoperability, etc.
:D Windows, fft!... ;o
Yay OSS!
Considering the U.S. government is prone to pulling dirty tricks via deliberate sabotage of software code, I don't blame any of these countries to want to use open-source software. At least there they can audit the code.
. html
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,62806,00
The author of a new book detailing a plan to use a Trojan horse embedded in stolen software to wage economic war against the Soviet Union fired back Thursday at charges the book's revelations are "rubbish."
Thomas C. Reed, a former secretary of the Air Force and special assistant to President Reagan, detailed the stunning story in At the Abyss: An Insider's History of the Cold War.
According to Reed, the Reagan administration faced a choice in 1981 when it "gained access to a KGB agent in their technical intelligence directorate" and discovered that Soviet theft of American technology had been "massive."
"In essence, the Pentagon had been in an arms race with itself," Reed said in a phone interview.
Rather than arrest everyone they could to try to close the operation down and halt further espionage, CIA director William Casey and National Security Council staffer Gus Weiss cooked up a better plan: They turned into hackers.
"(Soviet agents) stole stuff, and we knew what they were going to steal," Reed said. "Every microchip they stole would run fine for 10 million cycles, and then it would go into some other mode. It wouldn't break down, it would start delivering false signals and go to a different logic."
The most spectacular result of this hacking, according to Reed, was a massive explosion during the summer of 1982 in the controversial pipeline delivering Siberian natural gas to Western Europe.
Soviet spies stole software needed to operate the pipeline, not knowing that "it had a few lines of software added that constituted a Trojan horse," said Reed. "They checked it out, it looked fine, and ran just fine for a few months. But the Trojan horse was programmed to let it run for four or five months and then the pumps and compressors are told, 'Today is the day we are going to run a pressure test at some significantly increased pressure.'"
He continued: "We expected that the pipeline would spring leaks all the way from Siberia to Germany, but that wasn't what happened. Instead the welds all blew apart. It was a huge explosion. The Air Force thought it was a 3-kiloton blast."
Former KGB agent Vasily Pchelintsev, who was reportedly head of the KGB office in the area of the 1982 blast, told the English-language Moscow Times in a recent interview that Reed's account was inaccurate. "What the Americans have written is rubbish," the former agent said.
Pchelintsev said the only explosion that occurred in Siberia that year came in April, not during the summer, and was near the city of Tobolsk in the Tyumen region. A government investigation blamed the explosion -- which was not disclosed in public until after Reed's book -- on construction violations, Pchelintsev said.
The former KGB agent added that no one was killed in the explosion, the damage was repaired within one day and the pipeline in question supplied gas locally, to the city of Chelyabinsk, not to Western Europe along the Urengoi-Uzhgorod pipeline.
eTrade SUCKS
A government should aso not allow it's entire IT infrastructure to be remote controlled from a foreign nation. A state monopoly is good when it achieves something private companies can not handle, or when you talk about critical things with few/no alternatives(e.g. water supply). (Replacing)Windows comes pretty close to both descriptions.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
This decision does however have the potential to shrink the market share of a certain technologically stagnated and sloppy American OS vendor but that is only to be expected when this American OS vendor's product sucks bigtime.
Aww. Red Hat's not THAT bad...
It seems to me that M$ does best when they have serious competition. I remember that their VC compilers were always top notch when they were busy hammering away at Borland. The same thing was probably true when they were trying to break Wordperfect. The truth is that this competition will force M$ to work on their products and do good service - which is really the whole point of competition.
Not Emacs, but Mule
May I ask why you think that IT infrastructure is a sector that government should not touch? I mean, is there a real reason for believing that the private sector is superior in this area?
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Here is my suggestion for an icon for the head of IKEA, since Gates is no longer Top Borg:
click here
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Google News related stories
are you retarded? yes. here's why: a monopoly isn't about having the most users, it's about control. linux can't be a monopoly because no-one owns it or controls it in the way MS controls Windows. users have the choice, and the idea of this choice is built into the GPL such that it cannot be removed.
monopolies are capable of being very good, for example they can make things standardised and there's no waste caused by repeating what's already been done. monopolies are ONLY bad when they act in such a way to remove a user's choice, otherwise survival of the fittest still applies.
a govt should remain neutral to any particular business
And what particular business do you feel that the government involved are not being neutral towards? Any business can distribute free software, so using it seems infinitely more "neutral" than using a system that only one business can distribute.
> On another angle, why did the U.S. and Europe bother suing Microsoft?
It was Sun that sued Microsoft in Europe.
Why? No government is neutral. Look at the US in relation to free trade. The ultimate fallback - "in the National Interest". If my IT sector was largely reliant on software from a perceived unfriendly power I'd be worried.
The most obvious arguments against Microsoft as a free actor on the market is that they cause vendor lock-in. Eg how Office documents can be hard to open on non-Windows systems (you can typically get it to work, but no thanks to Microsoft for that). Similar issues exist on almost all levels with integrating Windows with with a other OSs. For some reason it's always the other actors that have to adapt to Microsoft and how they tend to change protocols to make interoperability harder. (Often also breaking compatability with their own "out dated" products.)
Guys that say no, forghet that they have the linux source and that a monopoly that rely on quality is good ;)
What you say is fondamentally flawed, because you are comparing apples and oranges.
You see Linux as a company, but Linux is not.
So a Linux (company) monopoly doesn't mean anything, whereas a Microsoft monopoly has a meaning.
To me, wen you talk about a MS monopoly versus a Linux monopoly, that is as if you were talking about a television broadcast company monopoly versus LCD type television monopoly.
Repeat after me, Linux is not a company.
Its fascinating how the Chinese and Indians take
European Technology and Inovation
then run and take the cake.
Europeans must be doing something wrong
else their greed is too large they loose track
of what they are doing
I think you confused "Monopoly" and "Monoculture". The Windows monoculture is bad because it gives control to a single company with their own interests as top priority (just as many other privately owned companies really). Linux, on the other hand, does not seek profit per se, companies making distros do by offering support and added value with their own code on top of it.
Still, no monoculture is good. I don't think it'd be good to see Linux everywhere, I'd like it if there was more than one tool to do the job.
---- Take the Space Quiz!
I'll bet you Microsofts bank account that MS will start an ad campaign about how All American MS windows is and how RED HERRING linux is.
*DrugCheese rants*
Mule is dead, at least as a seperate Emacs-based editor. It was integrated into GNU Emacs in version 20.1 back in September 1997, and into XEmacs a few months later.
"Its fascinating how the Chinese and Indians take
European Technology and Inovation
then run and take the cake."
China sometimes takes the worst from European civilization. Take socialism, perhaps the nastiest and most lethal idea that Europe has ever come up with. Red China adopted it, and has been held back by it. Taiwan (democratic China) has been relatively free of socialism, and is much more of an economic powerhouse as a result.
Like one of my work colleagues said about international ocean-going yacht races:
"Wow! Our ruling class is better than your ruling class!"
I am anarch of all I survey.
Linux is a product offered my many companies.
MS Windows is a product offered by Microsoft.
Simple enough for you?
Damn, and I was kind of hoping they were going to call it 'Chinux'...
Unfortunately the OSS conference at Hanoi quickly digressed into an argument on which country would wind up being on the bottom of the tower at the end of 7 moves.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
"Nothing wrong with that."
;O)
Sure it is, most of us still have to pay rent etc.
"Since Linux is not traditional American IT industry software"
No but MS is and that matters, if this continues you will soon have to take classes in Mandarin to read the EULA
"technologically stagnated and sloppy American OS"
I think we all agree on that Windows is all but stagnated, if so, why do Linux etc play the "catch up" race and all new improvments is measured against Windows. Honestly, if you are the least informed you know that development on the scale that MS is doing, is hard, very hard and it takes allot of time.
"given the USA's obsession with intelligence gathering nobody trusts this American OS"
This is one argument that I can buy.
With something like 1.2 billion new users, wouldn't Linux become more of a target for virus/trojan writers?
I agree with you, monopolies are bad all around. However I disagree with you saying that Linux would be the monopoly. I'd say that this is only leveling out the playing field. Where is the 50B USD cash bank account that supports Linux? There isn't one. Now with these 3 large governments and their cash helping a bit, there is some investment going into it. Combine this with IBM, SUN and whatever other companies are putting into Linux, this is only leveling out the playing field. Not creating a monopoly.
Let the games begin.
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
Linux is not a company, so it cannot have a monopoly.
Any single piece of software that happens to be installed everywhere is not neccesarily a bad thing as long as its not owned and controlled by a single company.
-- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz
An OS monopoly wouldn't be a too bad thing, really. If true OS, you'd still have the ability to choose from several product because the OS certified licenses aren't allowed to bind you to certain products iirc. Besides, if you really like a certain project but don't agree with things,, you can always fork and take matters into your own hands.
Anyways, the MS monopoly doesn't have to be horrible either. If MS decided to open up ALL win32 APIs, used PURE and UNENCRYPTED XML markup for Office documents, made all components in the OSes optional with an option to not install them in the first place and a few more things I can't think of atm, then the MS monoply would be allot less worse. Of course, this is Slashdot, people around here will always find something about MS to throw a fit at, just like some pro-MS sites will always manage to find something about Linux/OSS to throw a fit about.
Hate me!
Posting anon for obvious reasons... IKEA head denies being richest man on earth := 876 8216
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=102925&cid
I thought all the IKEA tourists were on the run...
It's funny that such anti-Linux comments pop up frequently, yet the posters don't seem to have problems with the US-Army's (and many other governmental organization's) "Microsoft-only" policy.
Linux supports oppressive country!
Free Software helps commies do a better job!
Gadget News at Gizmo.com
Nobody *had* to use AT&T. There were many other methods of communication - mail, pigeon, actually travelling and talking face to face. That didn't mean AT&T wasn't a monopoly.
Nobody *had* to buy Standard Oil. There was nothing stopping you using wood stoves and travelling on horseback. That didn't mean Standard Oil wasn't a monopoly.
Nobody *has* to use Windows. It's just damn difficult to avoid, because Microsoft have a monopoly.
Note that a monopoly isn't necessarily a bad thing. It isn't illegal to have one, it's illegal to abuse one. Microsoft have one, and that is not disputable. If you want to defend them, argue that they aren't abusing it - just bear in mind that most of the people out there who actually know what they're talking about happen to disagree with you.
Hunny Bunny: Well what else is there, day jobs?
Ringo: Not in this lifetime,
Hunny Bunny: Well what then?
Ringo: Garcon! Coffee! This place.
Waitress: Garcon means boy.
Hunny Bunny: This place, a Apple store?
Ringo: What's wrong with that? People never shop at Apple Stores, why not? Nobody ever shops at the Apple store after bitching about windows but not favouring linux. Best Buy, CompUSA, local computer shops, you get your head blown off trying to buy a Mac in one of them. Apple Stores on the other hand, you catch with their pants down. They not expecting a windows user to buy something from them, or not as expecting.
Hunny Bunny: I bet in places like this you could cut down on the ctrl-alt-delete factor.
Ringo: Correct. Just like Best Buy, these places are insured. The managers don't give a fuck, they're just trying to get ya out the door before you find out the extended warranty is a waste of money. Geniuses, forget it, they ain't takin a question about linux for Reality Field Distortion Steve. Floor Attendents, some wetbag really give a fuck whether you dislike windows, they want you to buy a mac. Customers are sittin' there thinking about the one button mouse issue, then next minute, bang, the Genius offers a logitech one. One minute they're talking about the headaches of the registry, next minute somebody's stickin a finder in their face.
Jonathanjk.com
But Google OS meter will be still showing 1% of linux users, it was showing the same for past few years. So what's a billion of users more or less. Stable figures are more important
On the other hand one could ask: "What will OSX users say now, until now they've been bashing that OSX is the most widely deployed *X, oh yeah, it has tranlucency"
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
Just like with cars, cameras, cellphone technology, etc. They won't be satisfied with playing third fiddle to the Japanese and Chinese, they'll make their own distro, just to be different. Of course, like Kia cars are built locally from Mazda/Ford specs, and like Daewoos are built from GM plans, this will be built from a common base (probably Asianux) and touted as an all-Korean project. What interests me, though, is that this is even being considered as an option. Honestly, I haven't met a single Korean in my 114 months here who has even heard of linux, let alone one who'd actually consider using it. This country is completely hooked on windows, internet explorer and ActiveX. Check out a few typical korean websites for more flash, javascript, popups and other assorted evilness than you can probably bear...
L
Well, maybe, if the documentation were as clear as Ikea's :^)
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
No, it's not that.
Microsoft are considered to have a monopoly because any new OS is caught in the chicken-and-egg problem: nobody will use the new OS because it doesn't support hardware/software, but nobody will code hardware/software support for it because - since nobody is using it - doing so doesn't gain them any customers.
Microsoft may not have acted to create that monopoly, but that isn't necessary for a monopoly to thrive. The last mile problem is still grounds for monopoly regulation of telecoms even though the telecom firms didn't invent the problem.
No.
...then (s)he must understand English regardless of your nationality.
I use Debian and I can see messages like below
"Package list wo yomikondeimasu"
"Ika no tokubetu package ga install saremasu"
"26 upgraded, 41 newly installed, sakujo: 146 ko horyuu: 12 ko"
mostly Japanese message.
But,IMHO,apt-get localization is rather irrelevant;One can't administer system if one don't have enough intelligence to understand relatively simple apt-get messages.
In these internet days , language localization for administrative tools are nonessential and unimportant...every administrator should learn some level of English.
Someday sysad may get a mail from foregin Mailer-Daemon
So is a Linux monopoly better than a Microsoft monopoly all of a sudden? Some may say yes, but no monopoly is good.
I hate to break the blindingly obvious to you but:
No one has a monopoly on Linux!
They can't! It's free software. I can sell Linux, you can sell Linux, we all can sell Linux. And we can all have our own versions too.
You're worrying about a problem that does not exist.
Some may say this is a good thing, but to me this is government intereferance in a sector they should not touch.
And why shouldn't they touch it? So they can keep sending money off to a foreign country for something that could be handled domestically?
God forbid the g'ovt step forward and support something which benfits everyone, and only gets BETTER the more people use it.
The g'ovt has no business getting people to come together and help each other find a solution to a common problem at little or no cost?
It might destroy someone's profits and as we all know, once you make a profit with your business, the gov't is supposed to do anything in their power to continue that profit, even if your business model is totally outmoded.
Life is too short to proofread.
I knew this was going to happen. It was only a matter of time before Asia's electronics industry was going to get tired of paying the Microsoft tax. Microsoft is in big trouble, as outside the US, it'll be non-existent within the decade.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
For a moment we'll assume that they are actually going to succeed in cloning a version of windows before that one is several versions obsolete and used by almost nobody. And we'll assume that they implement enough of Win32 to make it a good server OS (DirectX can wait), and implement all the server infrastructure that so many servers for NT/2k use, and that they reverse-engineer any cruft they come across that's undocumented but used by some important program, and get copies of all those API calls implemented properly, and all the other crap thy have to get done. (Again, they have to hit a moving target while they do all this.)
Assuming all that, what happens when they get a cease-and-desist letter from Microsoft owing to the fact that their entire GUI is an almost exact rip-off of Windows NT, including bundled apps like the text editor, and that they all use the same name as the stuff in Windows. What's the use of an OS that's no longer being developed owing to the fact that its core team has just been shipped off to a Gulag camp somewhere in Antarctica? It's not going to keep up with Microsoft very long under those conditions.
Since Linux is not traditional American IT industry software
What kind of logic is that?
Since Jaguar is not traditional American automotive industry carmaking...
If Microsoft were smart, the would just make a MicrosoftLinux and bundle everything they can with it. If LinuxDistros can bundle all their apps, then Microsoft could make their own distro and avoid these lawsuits and squash the competition.
Sure Microsoft is stagnated, all I have to do is compare MS Windows to OS.X on the desktop arena. Comparing the Windows Desktop enviroment to the OS.X desktop is like comparing a Muzzle loading musket to a leaver action Winchester carabine.
On the server arena the same goes for Windows Server and Linux. For one thing the Windows boxes suck up alot more manhours than Linux does both in terms of administration tasks and security. In the last 6 months exactly one machine in the pool of 22 Linux/AIX/BSD machines where I work got hacked (A Linux boxen) because of a PHP vulnerability. At one point or another during that same period all six of our Windows 2000 and 2003 servers have been hacked mostly due to Windows OS vulnerabilities and most of these Windows boxen were hacked more than once. If Microsoft is not stagnated how come I am having an easyer time keeping hackers of the *NIX systems including the one (Linux) which is designed by a world wide network of spare time coders? Well, one of the cheif reasons is the speed with which the *NIX crowd (Proprietary or OSS) fixes security holes and their concept of OS design and code quality. It seems to me that Microsoft expending a huge effort on OS development does not necessarily mean that there is no stagnation.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Unfortunately, the meeting has not invited developers nor comapnies publicly and especially to comapnies that are not located in Beijing. The organizer of the event seems to have ignored the fact that this is an OSS event.
An interesting observation from participants was the question about continuous effort and follow-up actions. Instead of hosting workshop to discuss future co-operation, visits to local companies was arranged.
During the meeting, Redfalg CEO has claimed they have build a new distribution "ASIANUX" as the foundation of all Asia Linux distributions.
The question is that do we yet need another standard given LSB has been publicly accepted and who is RF to claim such statement...
OS is communist!
The full effort is properly referred to ASIANUX and is heavily sponsored by ORACLE. Read about the initial announcement of ASIANUX at internetnews.com
They also have a story that just ran on Friday about ASIANUX hitting 1.0 Beta and signing up over 40 vendors for certification.
$man ls | grep "^ *-" | wc -l
28
How boring. 7-bit ASCII. Only 28 things to do with ls.
Add hanzi, kanji, kana, hangul and get another 100K or so 1-character switches.
In Communist China, Linux kernel programs you.
Who submitted a story and thought they needed to point out that linux was open source. Not only that, but they felt the need to explain that linux could be "copied and modified freely"
/. right?
this is still
Being virtually freely copyable, software is coming close to fitting economists' definition of a public good - something that can't be provided to one person without providing it to everyone.
Government action is the only sustainable way to fund public goods, because of the free rider problem. This announcement was only a matter of time - and it's only the beginning.
Andrew Klaassen
I am happy to see the wider use of Linux and unhappy to see some of the xenophobic reactions every time that an Asian country announces support for open source.
Some have gone as far as calling this unamerican, thereby furthering the hollow arguments put forth by C. Mundie and co. just a few years ago.
There is a lot to be happy about:
*More bug fixes and more features
*Wider and larger hardware support
*Better internationalizaton support
And for those of us that also care about free software, I think the OS will have a slow ripple effect throughout the respective societies of Korea, China and Japan.
Eventually, it will take time, students will be empowered to start their own businesses by having the right tools at their disposal; those in Civil Society will also have an easier time finding likeminded individuals and building issue communities that use the power of open source software to coordinate their activities. All of this will take time, but it is possible.
I think FLOSS, if nothing else, opens a window into altruism and the opportunity to build a more open tomorrow. Those ideas will be the seed of change over a few generations.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
More importantly, since Slashdot posted an article entitled "Microsoft Violates Human Rights In China," simply because the government there uses Windows, does this mean OSS violates human rights as well? After all, China has its own custom Linux distribution, and Red Hat removed the Taiwan flag to sell there...
Just curious what Slashdot editors' position is, since it's apparently so evil for Microsoft to be over there.
"According to the reports, the three countries will help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely."
These asian countries are developing a brand-new OS and their going to call it "Linux". What an amazing coincidence! We have a open-source OS called Linux too. I wonder if they have a guy named "Linus" over there too?
Yeee-haaa!
Lets lead chinas oppressive socialism to OSS anarkism!
The only government on the earth that fit the principle is the Hong Kong government. All other countries are pseudo-capitalism at the best.
to me this is government intereferance in a sector they should not touch.
Huh? Where are they interfering. From what I read they are talking about using the Linux operating system and developing their own version to support the tasks they plan to use it for. Does it say somewhere that they are planning on preventing private companies within the countries from using Microsoft products?
The governments have to decide to use something. And its generally a good idea to standardize on a platform within an organization, with some execeptions.
-JacobEvery time you install an Open Source Operating System, a far eastern baby gets eaten!
Apart from the Chinese limitation on the number of child processes that can be forked... this sounds like a reasonable proposal.
" Try reactos. (Score:3, Interesting)r n.html)
by Krik Johnson (764568) on Monday April 05, @08:18AM (#8767848)
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Its a free open source operating system that is a clone of Windows NT. "
NO. IT IS 4 WANNABE GUYS.
HOW CAN ANYONE "TRY" A PRODUCT THAT DOES NOT YET EXIST? THEY CAN NOT.
YOU JUST WANT PUBLICITY FOR AN IDEA. IDEAS ARE EASY. IMPLEMENTATIONS ARE HARD.
COME BACK WHEN YOU HAVE SOMETHING THAT DOES SOMETHING.
Well, Asia is where PC hardware comes from. If Asia wants to run Linux, then MS Palladium and all its hardware funkiness become stillborn. Which is good for everyone, including U.S. citizens like me. Way to go, Asian tigers!
The Patriot Act is Big Brother in the hands of Dubya.
China may not be better off in its Human Rights, but by implementing this Act, Dubya Prez has shown he is as repressive like China.
Which do you think is better? China oppression or Dubya oppression?
Heck, who needs backdoors when so many viruses come in through the Windows front door.
I must disagree. A monopoly, defined as when one organization or product controls more than half the market (it's graded...clearly something that controls 90% of the market is much worse than something that merely controls 50% of the market) is inherently dangerous. Occasionally the benefits are sufficient that one must reluctantly disregard the dangers, e.g., the municipal water supply, but the dangers are still present and prevent it from being a desireable solution.
If you consider the municipal water supply a safe choice, consider what can happen when the city decides to sell the water supply business to a private, for profit, contractor. This company is operating for profit, so any repairs or maintenance are cut to the minimum necessary level. Complaints can safely be ignored as short of switching to bottled water for washing their clothes, nobody can afford to escape them. Quality isn't a problem as if it doesn't start killing people outright the still won't lose customers.
If you think I'm exaggerating, perhaps you should look around the world for examples of this happening. Check the operations of US companies in South America and Lousianna. Naturally some of the accusations are a trifle hysterical, but consider how you would feel if your drinking water was being changed into something that appeared similar to sewage. Now ask yourself "How would I know if that was happening where I am living now?" If the deals were in progress, would you be told about them before the contracts were signed?
This is not to deny that monopolies can be good. Merely that they are excessively dangerous, even when they haven't already started to behave in an obnoxious manner. And when they do, one has few recourses.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hmm... So you mean Munich was wrong by introducing Linux to that German city?
There will be several hundred million copies of Linux in Asia.
Maybe still not more than Windows, but that will wake some driver manufacturers up, let's hope.
Better yet, we'll all be using Chinese and Japanese community-written drivers.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Just Think China Japan & South korea are some of the worlds most populated areas in the world if they set linux as the standard Linux may get back on its feet after that ordeal with the SCO (cough lusers) And hopfully surpass Microsoft's earnings in the overseas department...Just imagine a World without microsoft where there was no monoply and gates didn't exist...That would be heaven!
This doesn't really surprise me. Asia has always been ahead of us with technology, and by them making this move, it just goes to show how it's not all about their main focus on technology itself, but the good decisions they make.
And the first thing I hear about eliminating competition... I will hit someone with a detached pay phone. Look at how many distributions of the Linux operating system there are. Not only are there commercial ones, but there are community projects also. It's going to be a huge race to get to the top, running operating systems such as RedHat, Fedora, SuSE, Mandrake, Sun Java Desktop, and such. I'm sure that a lot of smaller companies will embrace this move with a few community projects on some lesser boxes also. Sure, they won't rise to fame, but it's some extra cash!
I bet all of those years ago, Linus Torvalds never expected anything like this.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
great, they're going to optimize linux to more efficiently send spam.
The government shouldn't be touching IT infrastructure because there is no reason why they should touch it. It doesn't matter if the private sector is superior, as long as the private sector is as capable of handling the situation as the government is.
"as if nothing were solid...and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo."--Rand
If the business model is outmoded, it should be taken over by a new, improved business model, not by government intervention.
"as if nothing were solid...and that would be the end of the world, not fire and brimstone, but goo."--Rand
It doesn't matter if the private sector is superior, as long as the private sector is as capable of handling the situation as the government is.
This is just dogma. Why should the government not get involved? Before you answer, consider the situation with Windows' domination of the desktop. The private company which owns Windows is a convicted monopolist and its activities have reduced choice for millions of computer users. Now tell me again why the governments of Japan, Korea and China would want to allow this situation to continue.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Not only that, but Swedish business magazine Veckans Affarer has to read up on the definition of "ownership". They have simply added up the assets of the entire IKEA corporation as if it were part of Kamprad's private fortune. They can argue all they like that Kamprad still "controls" IKEA, but that claim alone doesn't make him richer than Bill Gates, who can likewise be said to "control" Microsoft.
Those xenophobic jerks are all windows zealots, look at thier past posts, they don't even use linux.
Christmas Island is part of Australia. So no, it won't be.
Well true, but I would say that project such as Lnux has already demonstrated that false. While there is certain hardware that you can't use on Linux you can enjoy the same functionality if you just ensure to buy brands that are supported. Similarly any software from Microsoft that you run on Windows is available in some alternative for other OSes. The biggest limitation (for pure functionality) in these applications tend to be that everyone else uses propriatary Microsoft formats to save their files.