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Intel Helping Asia to Use Linux
sameerdesai writes "Seattletimes is carying this story on Intel helping major countries like China and India to help build Linux machines as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. It definitely looks like both Microsoft and Intel are using the big potential market in Asia to establish a foothold. Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents. What do fellow slashdotters think on trends of OS and hardware in Asia will be?"
Mod parent up!
i'd say that linux has a huge advantage over m$ - cost, especially in china. there aren't many people who can afford a legal windows copy - not to menation that actually finding a legal copy can be a difficult issue in itself :) also, i assume that chinese users are in a very early state of their computer use habits, so there isn't this decade-old religiousness on hardware/OS preferences like in europe and the US, which is an advantage especially for alternative/niche companies. there was a nice article on the reg recently on it in asia, here.
If it's just the kernel then why hasn't any action been brought? simply because the kernel team have no money to syphon off, companies like SCO would rather sue their competitors to hamper their business.
Also, from my understanding, the second a patent is used in court that patent may be revoked. In all probability Linux violates 150 issued patents. But we all know how ridiculous patents are so it's probably 150 -bad- patents that shouldn't have been issued in the first place.
Comapnies holding the patents can't go after the kernel team because the community would chip in to help, as I doubt the kernel team could withstand a challenge on their own. With Linux being so important to Open Source, I can see many companies helping out, and possibly using their own patents to counter-sue.
Forgive the shameless plug, but we are trying to address this very issue at OpenAsia.org. Some cursory points:
1. The Chinese market and Indian markets are huge-- beyond your wildest dreams huge. Imagine the combined market of the US and EU in EACH country, but the economic maturity (read potential) of 1955 in the US.
2. Desktops are old skool, and the Chinese are leapfrogging directly to cell phones and notebooks. Think embedded (see interview with Rasterman on our site)
3. The posts here about keyboard compatability are non-sequiter: Chinese have Chinese-language keyboards if they want them; most Indians can speak some English (some are fluent), and Indian scripts are not so hard to do with specific keyboards
4. Linux is racing RACING in these markets-- espeically in India. Linux provides cheap, sturdy platforms for "free", while openning up the world of adaptative platforms and apps without having to go through the Americans.
5. Microsoft has its foothold, but that market is self limiting because of price, piracy, and functionality.
6. Red Hat, SuSE and the other "major" distros are equally limited via piracy (they cannot get money out of China or India). However, Red Hat's marketshare is growing rapidly in China.
7. We welcome any comments and stories based on these topics. (Forgive the membership requirement for posting comments-- we do not sell or transfer registration info.)
davejenkins.com |
I'm an indian and the rampant piracy is the main reason why open source hasn't caught up much. But in governments and corporations linux is slowly gaining momentum.India's biggest insurance company LIC moved it's entire infrastructure onto linux.LIC moved 25,000 desktops and 1000 servers to linux.(But the conversion was from Unix) Even in most organisations linux use is limited o proxy servers,mail servers and file servers. The biggest concern is support.With Redhat and IBM in the arena now the situation is much better.
But consumer adoption remains a distant dream. The only way linux can win over the consumer is local language computing.Though Hindi is the official language of India ,individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic borders, are free to decide their own regional languages for internal administration and education, so there are 22 official languages spoken throughout the country
Some of the LUG's are very active in local language computing.Gnome has been translated into
Hindi,Bengali and Malayalam.
Over 40% of the computers sold in india are assembled by some neighbourhood vendor.(Brand PC's are more expensive hence not very popular among the pric conscious and in India price is the single most important factor in buying ANYTHING).Allmost all the vendors install pirated copies of windows.If MS ever decides to go after these vendors they will be digging their own grave.
TechSutra
Good point. Being now In China I can also confirm that Windows piracy definately, directly hurts adoption of Linux on Home users desktops... I was pretty disapointed when I moved to China because I was expecting to see mainstream use of Linux all around which is totally false and far from the actual reality.
;)
Yes, I guess it is true that Chinese government adopted Linux and I did see it running on metro terminals for example.. But that's about it, most people here don't even have a clue as to what Linux is. There's A LOT of computer shops around here and I have NEVER seen any linux or OSS software ANYWHERE for general consumer/home user market. Everything is proprietary, pirated software.
I also work in a school now and the chinese IT managers there, although they are quite competent at administrating windows boxes, when I asked them why they don't run Linux, most of them looked at me totally clueless! They don't even have any knowledge whatsoever of stuff like Apache, PHP or MySQL!! There are also a LOT of computer related/programming magazines here and ALL I see is Windows/C#/ASP/.NET etc... NOTHING Linux/OSS related! The thing is, in China, anywhere, you can buy a copy of Windows (or anything, even something expensive like Photoshop or Maya!) for about 0.60$...
So I think It's just cheaper for chinese people to buy the Windows pirated CD (0.60$) than to bother getting a broadband connection (about 15$ a month) to download a couple of Linux CDs...
Sad and disapointing, I know... Perhaps if they could just sell "pirated" distros! Ironic you might say, but maybe some kind of "piracy" could actually have a positive effect towards general adoption of Linux! No? I think part of the problem might be that Chinese people in general, especially young people, just are tired of the old communist system and they don't see any value in "free things" anymore.. I think it's actually a bit of the same problem in capitalist countries... People tend not to believe something "cheap" or "free" can actually be good!
Anyone, that was my 0.60$
From the article linked to:
"Microsoft is up to its usual FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," said Dan Ravicher, author of the study Microsoft cites, who is an attorney and executive director of PUBPAT (the Public Patent Foundation).
"Open source faces no more, if not less, legal risk than proprietary software. The market needs to understand that the study Microsoft is citing actually proves the opposite of what they claim it does."
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
This is more than true. In China, India, and SE Asia, Windows costs just as much as Linux: Software is priced per CD, and one CD costs about $1 - 3, depending on the country.
So why do people use Windows if the cost the same? Because all Software, from Adobe to the latest games, is also priced per CD, and readily available for Windows. I pay $2 per CD for any Windows app here, no matter what it is. Mac is possible to get, but difficult and older. Linux apps, i have never seen. I think the only reason they sell Linux (RedHat etc) at all is for servers.
Obviously, people who sell you hardware can't just include a pirated copy of Windows, so they will pre-install either some DOS version or, increasingly, Linux - but just so people can install their own Windows. All big laptop manufacturers sell their low-cost models here with Linux or DOS pre-installed.
Microsoft doesn't do anything against that as in reality it's the only thing that keeps them on the market. If everybody here had to pay western prices for Software and OS, then no-one would be able to afford it and it would disappear from the market in a day. Everybody would use Linux, and asian software companies would be cranking out Linux clones of Win-software.
Piracy is the only thing that keeps M$ in the game.