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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?"
Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents...
...And also submitting stories to slashdot under the name "sameerdesai".
Seriously, think about the last time the governemtns of India or China actually cared about patents that were registered outside their respective countries. Moreover, since Linux provides a very cheap alternative to Microsoft's products, I doubt if they will care about all the noise that MS makes. On the other hand, Microsoft is using what some may call 'underhand' tactics to sway the governments. Donations to government programmes is one of them. And as someone posted above, Linux SUPPOSEDLY violates 228 patents. MS has been trying to play down Linux for quite some time now and now they're saying it violates 228 patents. Yeah, I believe that.
Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents.
Not only that, it's an outright lie. There are 220 something patents that apply to IP within Linux.
Many of those patents are already owned by Linux companies.
Saying Linux violates all those 228 patents is like saying MS Windows violates a thousands patents belonging to Microsoft. It's word play with an agenda.
Intel: Hello we would like to show you our processors and this lovely software called Linux and OpenOffice.
Oriental Bod: Very nice. The chips are a bugger to copy, we will just have to buy them. How much for the software?
Intel: Free.
Microsoft: You will be sued and die!
Oriental Bod: How much for your OS and office package Microsoft?
Microsoft: Same price as an average family home in your country, per box. Plus maintenance, anti-virus, defragemntation, remote support, admin tools and server costs. Plus downtime for virus attacks, patching, reboots on software install and the inevitable hacker attack. But if you read this document, the TCO is lower than the free software. Oh, I nearly forgot, we made Intel look bad because our OS's were so unreliable people thought the processors were bad too.
Intel: Mention AMD and you will be sued and die!
Oriental Bod: Hmm, so AMD and Open Source is cheaper in every conceivable way than Windows and
Intel. And as it's open I can manufacture my own devices and release the drivers without having to go through Microsoft scrutiny, thereby making my time to domestic market much faster?
Intel: Except you will be better using our chips rather than AMD's.
Oriental Bod: But your 64bit chip is the same as their 64bit chip and the geeks in Open Source land have been playing with it for longer. We like AMD!
Microsoft: But Linux violates nearly 229 patents!
Oriental Bod: We violate hundreds of human rights but no-one seems to give a damn about that either! We will be working on our Human Rights record for years to come, your licensing is insignificant to us. Bring on the AMD and OO!
Umm..
Linux supports eastern languages much better then Windows does.
Have you ever heard of TurboLinux? DragonLinux? RedFlag Linux?
TurboLinux is what China uses for most of it's infrastructure.
Linux has been working well for Asians for a long long time, and it supports various languages and such much better then Windows does in many cases.
RedFlag Linux is what it developed SPECIFICLY for a desktop operating system for it's citizens.
Think about it.
This is SOFTWARE DEVELOPED BY ASIANS FOR ASIANS.
By CHINA FOR CHINA.
You think Intel is going to any of the fucking work of translating it? Hell NO! They are going to simply open source their drivers and provide support and such for making their hardware very suitable for the operating system that Chinese/Korea/Japan/India/etc are already developing FOR THEMSELVES.
This is Open Source software, baby. This is how it works, this is why it works, and this is why it works better then closed source software in many cases.
As for the keyboards, you have to understand that the keyboards that we in the west are using are obsolete by 15 years by now. There are much more sophisticated solutions that have been developed and put into production for many years now.
Goes to show how Western + Closed source-centric your thinking is in this case.
I was a little disappointed when I moved from Thailand to Korea. The Linux presense here is almost nil. In Thailand, however, you can't walk into a shopping center without seeing a computer pre-built with Linux on it, and it's mentioned in every mailer for the major hypermarkets as coming free with their computers.
There, the book store shelves are stocked full of books about how to use Linux ON THE DESKTOP. On the other hand, I have found a single book on RH9.0 in my five months in S. Korea.
Summarized as: the Linux presense is spotty...
Put identity in the browser.
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
The reason for MS to help pirating its own software is the price. While a typical Chinese family in Shanghai earns RMB4000, or US$500, a month. A copy of MS WinXP Home OEM(supposedly cheaper than non-OEM, the reason why OEM is for retail is beyond me) is labeled RMB 880http://www.federal.com.cn/shop/game/productintr oduce.asp?productno=10ABBMIC343, or about US$100. That's about one fifth of the family's income. And MS Office 2003 Standard Chinese Simplified costs RMB3000http://www.federal.com.cn/shop/soft/product introduce.asp?productno=10CBEMIC382, or US$370. These prices are from an online retailer. They used to be much higher when people earns much less in the mid-90s. Paying a month's earning for only the basic operating system sounds just insane. But this was, and largely still the case in China if you want to stay with MS leagally. And there is no alternative to MS, since MS has virtually destroyed everyone who dare to challenge them by every means possible, including promoting pirates.
I know Microsoft's practices are the same globaly, but it is extremely effective in locking in users of developing countries like China. Unlike the west, there was virtually no base of unix users. To most people, computer = PC = Windows. The shortage of unix gurus makes Linux extremely hard to approach in the early days.
Now the situation has changed somehow, but language barrier still exists. Good linux documentation and forums are almost all in English or more obscure languages to a common Chinese. One has to be fluent in English to master Linux. There're not many people can do so, even among the youth. Translation helps, but not much, partly because of the quality. The community-driven model itself demands users and developers to communicate in common language, and the core developers are, inevitably, mostly English speaking or prefer to communicate in English.
Having said that, I still believe Linux is the way to go for Chinese, not for some national security reasons, but the freedom and openness.
People who dislike China tend to mention Tiananmen Square a lot, but they always forget the Tank Man is also a Chinese.
Firstly, those would be American patents I'm pretty sure. Which, since their going to be using the product in their country doesn't really apply.
Secondly, China and India have a long standing and storied history of ignoring patents all together.
So, ultimately Microsoft is just tooting its own horn.
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.