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Effects of China's Software Policy on World Economy?
guptaparesh asks: "The Chinese government is currently engaged in a comprehensive overhaul of its procurement policies and regulations. These regulations would ban non-Chinese firms from selling software to the Chinese government. Given that how much trade all the countries in the world are engaged in with China, isn't this a unfair trade move by the Chinese government?" A better question would be how this might affect the worldwide economy, particularly that of the U.S. and China. What benefits and drawbacks may China see as a result of this new policy? What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it?
They're just going to user rinux and OSS. We all know no money changes hand in that scenario.
"The Chinese government is currently engaged in a comprehensive overhaul" nuff said....
Would be to build China's own software industry.
Imagine that! An undeveloped nation using protections to build an industry at home.
Perfectly reasonable really.
My pics.
No problem for guys the size of IBM, who can simply create bizzare chimeras with guys like Lenovo to produce things that are Chinese and US companies at the same time.
I would think that this would hurt Microsoft. That fact alone make me support it. :) However; Everything over in China seems to be pirated so I fail to see how this makes a difference.
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DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
How the U.S. can counter it?
Simple, the U.S. government should refuse to buy software from Chinese companies.
(I pity anyone that mods this insightful)
The Internet is full. Go Away!!!
We could... force 'em to um... only buy Microsoft stuff. That would teach 'em!
"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
Since when did foreign companies actually sell any software in China? I thought it was all pirated :)
Didn't they start making their own Linux Distro.. maybe they are doing this to force consumers and goverment bodies to use their software instead of anything else.. Sounds like they are using a Microsoft tactic.. only instead of Embrace and Extend it is Embargo and Extend.
"Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein
It's kind of funny to see the US squirm now that the shoe is on the other foot. Suck it back guys, and reap all the goodwill you've earned. I guess you can tell I'm a bit bitter on how the US ignores NAFTA rules when it suits them, and (illegally) wrecks other countries economies to improve their own. Hell the USA can't even follow the treaties it does sign. /schadenfreude
These regulations would ban non-Chinese firms from selling software to the Chinese government.
So whats to stop US companies from opening 'chinese' companies?
air and light and time and space
It helps China.
It helps India.
But for some reason it's labeled as "evil" by the political elite in the USA.
We have outsourcing for engineers; but not for lawyers, politicians, police and the military. I wonder why?
..and if you ask me the solution is simple; don't buy a freakin' thing from China.
I wish more and more countries would do this and force the US companies to start serving the users at home instead of serving everyone else just so they can shaft everyone at home.
Last time I was in China, I visited one of their top universities (SJTU) and they were selling versions of Windows that did not appear to be legal in stores on campus. So this probably won't affect them very much since they don't buy software anyway.
What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it?
Uh, none? It isn't any of the U.S.'s business... literally!
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77 77 77 2e 6d 65 6c 76 69 6e 73 2e 63 6f 6d
How much of the US government's purchasing spend is NOT spent on "Made in the USA" merchandise? And can you name one major piece of US Government infrastructure that's provided by a foreign contractor.
Sure, Microsoft's our homeboy, but there's a lot of software made outside the US. Can you think of a single instance where we use foreign software in preference to a US supplier (regardless of feature set)? There are unquestioned national security and/or data security questions when your government buys foreign-made software.
"Once you're running someone else's code in your datacenter, it's not your datacenter anymore."
Who says something is fair? You going to go complain to some overseeing mommy because you dont like someone elses foreign policies? What a bunch of whiners.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
I didn't realize the Chinese Government had such a big slice of the software economic pie. Remember, this is just bans other countries from selling software to the Goverment, not the whole country.
The Digital Couture Collection
Ricrosoft!
with their IP enforcement policies, i'll be a billionaire in no time!
With how dependent they are right now upon Micro$oft and other non open-source applications, it would take them a fair amount of time to re-structure their whole network, defense databases, etc. In the immediate short term, this is going to severely hurt them more than anybody else in the world. So our economies will drop a little bit across the world. We can impose a world-wide trade boycott with China if something like this were to happen (if people would see this point.) Imagine how much that will hurt them. Our own economies, for once, will become more dependent upon internal labor and ingenuity, not cheap, out-sourced labor elsewhere. China will lose a large part of their place in the world market, and if even only for a short period of time, the amount of time to rebuild their economy back it it's former "glory" would put them FAR behind the rest of the world. And, odds are, we'll still have those boycotts in place on them, so they'll be not much more than a blip on our radars, worldwide. "Made in China? Oh, WOW! I never thought I'd see THIS again!"
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
In principle, this is bad. This is protectionism, and protectionism is a Bad Thing.
In practice, how bad this is depends on the details. Specifically, can a business get away with just having a Chinese subsidiary? And if that subsidiary can be in Hong Kong, many companies are already positioned to meet this requirement.
For M$ not to sell directly to the government is not a bad thing.
Now M$ must sell the software to a company and then that company will sell it to the Government.
Hopefully government officials or relatives of government officials do not own this intermediary company.
I have seen it before where governments block manufacturers selling directly to consumers or retails... they must first sell the product to distributors and the distributors sell the products to retailers. More people in the supply chain and the product are marked up 40% each time.
My Sig indicates the end of the comment I posted.
Detaching oneself from the West is the only way left open to any country that doesn't want to be constrained by the current US-led patent squatting.
China will be marching full-steam ahead into the future with this move, while the rest of us will be spending 90% of our efforts trying to keep the patent lawyers off our backs.
Repeat after me: ideas belong to no one.
Step 1. Steal/Pirate/Bootleg/Reverse Engineer commercial software.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!!!
"isn't this a (sic) unfair trade move by the Chinese government"
No. They are just creating a policy for how government buys software. They aren't disallowing any Chinese businesses or people from buying US or other software. I can't see how this affects the economy at all. The Chinese government big enough.
The global economy is a great thing until you feel it locally.
That's why they're a Most Favored Nation in US international trade. We do them a favor by opening our markets to them. They don't have to return the favor to the "US", just to our politicians, or to the corporations which bribe^Wcontribute to elect them.
--
make install -not war
It's likely that they'll allow Chinese contracting firm to resell non-Chinese stuff. On the other hand, do you think our DoD would deal direct with foreign-based company??? They go thru Boeing/Lockheed/Northrop anyway. Isn't that kind of a similar situation? So what's new here?
If the Chinese government honestly thinks it can make this new legislation stick then more power to them.
Anybody with an ounce of sound economic theory understanding will see how fruitless that sort of protectionism is.
What it really does is to set up even more opportunities for backroom deals which benefit unscrupulous individuals to the detriment of their society as a whole.
And isn't that the exact opposite of their notion of "ideal society"?
---- Go ahead, mod me down, I'll just post it again and you lose your mod points.
Damn it! I should get rid of all my IBM, M$ and Oracle stock.
There is a spark in every single flame bait point.
How about a ban by the Chinese government on Chinese firms selling non-Chinese software to all the countries in the world?
How many s/ws manifactured by US firms have true internationalization support ?
Besides the ban would be only for selling s/w to the Govt, not the 1.3+ Billion consumers.
for the last time people, I am "frodo from middle eaRTH", not "middle eaST".
unfair to the US. of course. But why would China care? It doesn't help the Chinese economy to import things from other countries.
Free MacMini
Today we already have very unbalanced trade between the US and other countries, especially those in Asia. Policies seem to favor short term profit by large companies. If we want to predict the future we should look to similar industry shifts in the past: the auto and electronics industries in Asia. If they turn out higher quality software at lower prices we'll see the industry grow there and shrink in the US.
My guess is that it'll balance out due to quality and services. With software in businesses being so wrapped up in services they will always need at least some local support. Plus I don't think there will be a problem with quality adjustments like we saw with the US auto industry.
However their large growth will affect the value of the dollar and choices by US investors. There are so many factors it's really hard to predict.
Developers: We can use your help.
What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it? We could stop buying Chinese textiles, for one.
and products need to become more closed instead of more open, to keep the friggin lawyers out of it.
a Government wanting to limit the software it depends on to the companies it has the most control over and best access to? If a country relies on a foreign written and supported software, who knows what problems arise. Unless you are in the business of making software, you better be able to trust who you're in bed with to provide it, because you are less likely to know what coded inside.
Max: "You mind if I drive?" Sam: "Not if you don't mind me clawing at the dash and screeching like a cheerleader."
Stop allowing the import of manufactured goods to the US. Or the export of food to China. Harsh? Don't mess with our economy.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Is the Chinese government or it's people coming over here to "rescue" us from the opressive Republican controlled National ID laws being passed? Why don't you activists concentrate on cleaning up the crap in your own backyard first?
I thought that was the definition of the "free trade" euphemism, where only the U.S. is allowed to be a hypocrite.
Power to the Peaceful
Look at your:
coffee mug - made in China
shoes - made in China
clothes - made in China
wall clocks - made in China
crockery - made in China
and now -- click that about box
MADE IN CHINA
fuvoo: watch something
Did anyone else also misread the headline as:
Effects of China's Software Piracy on World Economy?
"What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it?"
stop trade.
at an import fee for software products
the usual. OTOH, do you think MS is oging to not make a move against it?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Software would have a great chance of making some serious inroads with this sort of policy.
Helping with organizational effectiveness is our job.
The won't buy software, we dont by hardware.
Skip the chinese crap at Walmart too.
China's government pirates software almost as much as their private sector. After the costs of translation, the profit margin is miniscule in comparison to almost any other marker. M$ seems to have been pulling out of there for a while. The only question is will this trickle down to other areas of trade and will their military now become stronger because their radar doesn't blue screen when there are more than 2 green dots. my .02
I thought I heard the policy was such that companies wanting to sell sw to Chinese would have to conduct 50% of the development in China and that the IP rights belong to Chinese.
It's not quite the same as excluding foreign companies from supplying the Chinese Government, but pretty close nevertheless.
Multinationals might be able to get around it, if they establish development centers in China and are creative with IP rights.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
A friend of mine regularly chimes in that we have nothing to worry about from China because "...there is no way a nation that still has cases of Bubonic Plague and can't put electricity or roads across its entire landmass could possibly challenge US Superiority in what we do best..."
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
A "Not Invented Here" syndrome for software is very good for national security, as the Soviet Union learned the hard way
Look at why German cities move to Linux. Its not because it was the cheaper solution. Microsoft outbit the Linux vendors but the governments still chose to go with the home grown solution.
One can debate about if that a wise investment seeing as how it means taxes will go up for the locals more so then if they had gone with the Microsoft solution. Yes they are reinvesting in the country but if the cost is a lot more to do that reinvestment then free market logic suggests going with the cheaper solution might be better as the people would have more money to make private investment.
Given the China is a member of the WTO, I'm wondering if this is legal. Of course, countries can ignore their treaty obligations *cough* US *cough* but that could bring down retaliation.
Other countries could (legally) place tariffs on Chinese goods and services, probably goods and services that are more important than I.T. for China.
Then again, maybe they could just ban outsourcing to China, although that wouldn't mean more I.T. jobs for the rest of us: it would just mean more outsourcing to other countries like India or the Phillipines.
Why doesn't Slashdot ever get slashdotted?
cunts
China keeps giving themselvs huge rubs on the back and anyone who tries to move in on it gets a kick in the groin.
This is exactly the same as every other country (look who gets all the contracts in Iraq for example), the only "real" difference is we all know "china is evil" and America/Europe/Whatever you like near the Atlantic is "good" and "helping the industry".
So China's doing nothing different from anyone else. If anything being "shut in" may even help Linux if Microsoft piss off the wrong government member.
I like muppets.
that the Chinese tend to screw them over by charging 4-5 time or more the same price they charge other Chinese ppl.
In the name of reciprocity, I think we should do the same with them, that is, charge them more for what we sell to each other.
Of course, we'd let them know that once they drop the practice, we'll be happy to do the same thing.
...your "pity" comment is rather insightful. Now if I just had mod points...
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
What does this mean for open standards?
People should not fear what they do not understand; people should fear because they do not understand.
RTFM: China's new rule would require that 50% of the development work have been done *in China*.
So yeah, if the US Govt took the same position they couldn't buy SW even from a "US" firm if that company outsourced more than half the work to China.
China is right to ban foreign companies from introducing/sell software in their nation.
It's critical for each nation, to develop their own software technologies.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
It's not just an unfair trade barrier.
"She cut off her toe. She thought she was going to get a million dollars. It's not fair!"
"Fair? FAIR? WHO'S THE NIHILIST????"
that this will affect only the companies that sell software to the Chinese government - which still leaves the entire Chinese market free. I'm sure it will not affect companies much - remember that there are certain states in the US that do not allow any foreign company to sell software or software services to them - to prevent outsourcing. That hasn't affected the global economy and nor will this.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
http://www.wto.int/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/tif_e /org6_e.htm
china is a member.
10 gazillion lines of a useful software product.
10 gazillion + 1 lines of "{bool a; a=true}".
Big companies will be able to meet most of the other requirements, such as concurrent copyright registration and cd-manufacture, without too big a burden.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Ask the US government what they have done first. They recently set up quota to limit the import of clothing and such. While the Chinese government is "thinking", the US government is actually *doing*.
It is well-known that the Bush administration favors protectionism.
Poor Chineese, they're gonna loose out on microsoft's new tab browsing....
Given that how much trade all the countries in the world are engaged in with China, isn't this a unfair trade move by the Chinese government?
Yeah, it's not fair. But they have their reasons, which of course include a bit of justifiable paranoia and a desire to bootstrap a domestic software industry. There are a lot of smart people in China (just like in India), and they can't all work injecting molding plastic for the US toy market.
In the end, though, it's the private sector that is going to matter in the Chinese software market. This may create domestic competitors to international companies, but the short and long term impact is nil. In the short term there won't be a credible Chinese alternative to, say Oracle or Peoplesoft. In the long term China will be able to create it's own informatics industry.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
.... Walmart is opening stores there. Thus, it's only a matter of time.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
There is a perfectly logical reason a government should only buy from it's companies of it's nationality. In fact, all governemnts should do this, including the US.
By requiring that the companies you do business with be in your own jurisdiction, you are essentially keeping the money "in house" and keeping the jobs "in house" as well. The state of Indiana recently (last eyar or so) had a bill for this (not sure if it got passed or not). What it essentially does is increase the jobs and keep all money in state. For a federal governent to do it, it keeps the money in the country.
Makes perfect sense for a variety of reasons to do this.
Fly me to the moon Let me sing among those stars Let me see what spring is like On jupiter and mars
First off, like several people have already said, they don't buy software from us much anyway, so I don't see it being that much of a problem.
Secondly, We don't use any other country's software for our government purposes (except open source stuff were applicable) so why shouldn't some other government do the same? No problems from me there
Third, I've long since said the U.S. needs to get the HELL out of other people's business and worry about things at home more. We spend far too much time trying to be big daddy to every country in the world, then turn around and forgive their debts or send soldiers over to "clean house". Of course our kind of clean might not be what their kind of clean is. But we force our opinions and beliefs on them anyway.
And last, if it bothers you that much...just don't buy anything made in China. I'm sure you'll see your purchasing options drop considerably, but it's a small price to pay, right?
This proves that China, like many other 3rd world countries refuse to play by the rules. My vote would be to revoke their MFTP(Most favored trade partner) status, and possibly saction them. This is one in a dozen abuses of free trade.
Why I do not understand about free trade supporters is the following. How come we should play by the rules, but other countries can cheat.
Well, I can understand the argument that the economic policy might be considered unfair, but I think that China might be trying to extensively control the software that their government uses for legitimate reasons, mostly having to do with security. Our government essentially did the same thing for years before the proliferation of Microsoft. By developing all of their software internally, our government essentially closed the market on software it used. This was okay for us, because we hired American workers to develop this software, so it had virtually no negative economic impact on the US.
Let's put this simply: US software companies don't want to get shut out of a potentially huge market that has a legitimate reason for staying closed. If US software comanies want to compete for Chinese government contracts, there's going to have to be huge negotitations with the US giving up a lot to get a share of the Chinese market.
The USA cannot play the big bully in this case like it did with embargoing small African countries when they refused to pay the 20x price for the patented AIDS treating drugs. The USA eventually lifted the embargo, after massive protests.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
My first reaction was to cry "Protecionism!". After thinking about it a little, I see another angle. The Chinese government is taking a prudent step to protect itself from software it doesn't control.
If Microsoft, or Mandriva, or some Canadian firm sold the Chinese some warez and attached a spyware applet, stealing vital Chinese national secrets, what could they do about it?
If it's a Chinese firm, I'll leave to your imagination the kinds of things they could do.
Another twist is that if a Chinese company wants to grab some FOSS and sell it (as part of a contract or whatever) to the Chinese government, while the software might not be Chinese in origin the company would be.
Protectionism hurts everyone, but mostly the country that puts up the barriers. The Chinese might not believe that, but IMO it doesn't matter in this case because economics is not the motivation.
sigs, as if you care.
Now that Iraq's a beacon of democracy, we needed a new member for the Axis of Evil anyway.
According to this Congressman's claim, the Chinese government will not be allowed to use SW unless at least 50% of its development was done in China.
That seems to shut out Linux and much other OSS just as much as Microsoft, et.al.
They would be running legit copies of any software anyways.
This is about supply to the Chinese government, not all the people of China. Whether or not you think it's unfair (I do, but have no problem with that - life isn't fair...) it's a pretty small thing. Especially when you consider they were probably pirating all their software anyway...
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
China will grind to a halt if they had to develop all their own sw.
I like the trade rules that were adopted by the hero in one of the Tom Clancy novels:
USA adopts/mirrors exactly what your trade restrictions are.
This would get the point across quickly.
There are tons of restrictions on using software from foreign countries in the US government. You just don't see it that often as there aren't that many major players who aren't inside the USA. The issue really comes home with firewall software as the DoD can't by regulation use Checkpoint since its an Israeli company, as one example.
I should think that the open-source community would be in favor of this. It only hurts Microsoft as they 'sell' their product. Linux and other open-source software would not be effected, as it is not sold, but free.
Surely we can leverage the /. effect to influence government purchases. Somebody find the WSDL for the Chinese procurement department and post it as a story. Few people would notice the difference from a real story.
...is to start a $yourcountry-Chinese joint venture to become a local company. With x>1 billion Chinese people, it shouldn't be a problem to find a proper sock puppet.
Well, first of all, "unfair trade" was probably invented in the US. Secondly, what's so bad about a country taking an initiative, especially when the alternative is most likely Windows? What will the US do? Probably impose some trade sanctions, if they have the balls to pick on their "new friend".
They own a large part of OUR debt... Who do you think is paying for the war in Iraq? us?
The U.S. might take all sorts of steps. We've seen how volatile a U.S. politician's "wisdom" can be. But what steps ought the U.S. take to counter it?
None. Leave the nationalism to China.
If aspiration is a virtue, achievement cannot be a vice.
Nice to see some common sense used in China. It just would be stupid not to support local economy.
I'm wondering if this applies just to desktop PC software, or any kind of software. For example, what about Cisco IOS? Do goverment networks have to run Chinese-manufacture routers only?
Come to think of it, software can exist in cars, aeroplanes and basically... whatever! Do the Chinese plan to enforce this everywhere? No more Mercedes for their officials? :-)
To err is human, but to forgive is beyond the scope of the Operating System...
Why is that unfair? The US government would never use Chinese or Russian software. They'd be too afraid of secret back doors.
And with the growing hostility coming from the US and Japan, the Chinese government probably feels it's not a good idea to be dependent on us for something so crucial.
However protectionism, while occasionally helping one industry, has never had a positive effect on an economy.
Maybe I played a little too much Command and Conquer: Generals back in the day, but reading this made me think of nothing but another hundred million Chinese teenage boys living out of Internet Cafes cranking out dollar signs (renminbi? Sounds like something out of Babylon 5).
Let them hack away.
Unless guptaparesh is a high level official in either China or the US, with the ability to make policy, the better question would be: why the hell is this an Ask Slashdot question?
n/t
They can and will, but the Honorable Tom Davis says:
In a lawless land, the law is not much of a problem. The first one is easy to get around by selling to a vendor. The second one stops you cold, until you remember that China is as corrupt as all hell. Those with power will continue to do exactly as they please.
They could and should, of course, do completely without US commercial software. There are more than enough free software alternatives which can be "developed" by recompile in China. A totalitarian state ironically can have much better control of their IT if they are the root user of their own free software. No government, including the US government, should tolerate a third party owning their IT infrastructure the way US commercial software vendors demand.
How will this change the world economy? Not at all! The whole "engagement" deal Bill Clinton came up with was a pipe dream. China's leaders have made themselves rich of US and European trade by making slaves of their own people. Leaders who screw their own people like that will surely screw everyone else if they can. There are no surprises here, except to those dumb and immoral enough to do business with and invest in communist China.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Why should the US do ANYTHING to counter what China is doing? Are you americans so myopic that you think protectionism ONLY works, and is ok, JUST for you americans? Good god. The world existed before 1776, and will exist once the americans implode. And the sooner the better for the rest of the world.
Microsoft will just use/create/buy a chinese company as a front to sell their products through.
Shouldn't the U.S. (which is the side Slashdot is slanted on, face it) revise its prtoectionist policies with it's closest neighbour and biggest trade partner, Canada, FIRST, and therefore lead by example BEFORE criticizing China?
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
for one, china (along with most of the countries there) has mostly pirated software. you just go down the street and 'WEE! ITS A FIELD DAY! VISUAL STUDIO .NET FOR $10!!! YAY!'. having something like this really wont change anything. but more importantly, when stuff like this happens, there are always loopholes around everything. as some people pointed out, nothing will stop US companies from opening up over there. alright cool, now its a chinese company. besides, isnt the US doing shit like that all the time? and who will this hurt? microsoft? ibm? little companies sell their product online a lot anyways. and also, it says 'to the chinese government.. does that mean joe shmo can buy it anyways? just not the government?
:).
i dont really think much will change from this. if they dont want our software, they will have to make their own. never know. they make something that will slap windows around
toNt0r
And you're clueless.
Years ago Microsoft has given the Chinese government access to the complete source code of Windows operating systems.
And the Chinese are not the only government who has access to the Windows source code.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-990526.html
I'm pretty sure this is nothing new. China has always had policies that are in the best interest of China. A non-Chinese company wants to do business in China? They better have huge loads of cash to pay China and adhere to their very one sided policies. For example, most if not all profits made in China must stay in China.
Somehow I doubt it. Also, my guess is it'd be pretty hard to read. They don't need to make English-named variables and function names, right?
The revolution will NOT be televised.
John Snow (the U.S. Treasury Secretary) fired a warning shot [iht.com] at China's currency fixing policies. Intellectual properties concerns, and trade issues like the one cited in TFA are also commonly voiced from the adminstration.
But with the trade deficit with China and budget deficit being funded by China, China is the one who holds the best cards in the coming tradewar that recent headlines hint at.
If China stops buying US bonds, or floods the market with what they already own, the US economy is screwed.
I think it is kinda funny that John Snow is making demands to China after getting so many loans from the Bank of China.
If I am going to bring legal action against someone, I am not going to go borrow money from them first - especially if I can't pay it back.
Unfortunately, the Bush Administration are the latter type of Republicans. (I'm not saying the Democrats are any better - they just have different friends and different special interests. The last good Republican President we had was Bill Clinton, and before him, well, we didn't elect Goldwater
So the Bush Administration may do something protectionist as retaliation, damaging more American businesses, or they may just give a bunch of speeches and not actually do anything. If we're lucky it'll be the latter.
Meanwhile, China's government have been pretty crazy, trying to pretend that they're preserving the benefits of Communist central planning and limited amounts of political repression while becoming corrupt capitalists in practice - but they're mostly Not Stupid about where the money's coming from. So yes, big foreign businesses will be able to set up Chinese subsidiaries or joint ventures to sell to the government as long as somebody's nephew or brother-in-law gets to run them. And small foreign businesses will be able to sell to Chinese wholesalers, or maybe sell their products as OEM to Chinese companies that will add value by localization.
Microsoft and Oracle probably already have Chinese "partners", or else they'll set them up, and there are Linux distributions developed in China, and possibly other Linux commercial distributors can get Chinese companies to do documentation and packaging for them.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I work for a U.S. government contractor. One of the rules that we have to comply with is that all of our software must be produced in the united states. We can't use open source code because some of it could be written outside of the US. We can't buy licenses for software libraries that could be produced overseas. It's to protect us from potentially malicious code.
This articles prevents the Chinese Government from buying software from outside of the country. There's still another 1.3 billion consumers there that don't directly work for the government. I don't see this to be a very big problem for US companies trying to sell products there.
At least immediately, I'm seeing an ad for "Ethiopian Guys & Girls" under the Google ads banner.
Is Google telling us the key -- to export U.S. software to China via Ethiopia?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
There are plenty of things the US government will only purchase from US companies. If a country has no trade tarrifs or subsidies, their markets are open. You wouldn't advocate forcing corporations to purchase from foreign firms, why should governments be forced to? If the Chinese government doesn't want to purchase things from other countries, that is their right. If they start saying that no one can purchase things from other countries, then you can start invoking trade laws.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Bill Gates will just buy China and turn it into his summer home.
It sounds like a big case of paranoia. The reality is nobody ever stays number one for long. The more time you spend trying to defend your number one possition the more people will dislike you for it. In the end you maybe number 1 but with no friends who gives a dam!?.
Got a question about UNIX ask it here : Unix/xBSD Forum
Okay, this may come as a shock to many of you but China is a COM-MUN-IST nation. The fact that anyone would expect fairness is asinine. It is, however, understandable that a country would want to protect its data. I think it's in every country's best interest to adopt open source software for public data. That makes more sense in the long wrong. China is just taking an authoritarian approach, that's all. Again...this makes sense for them because they are a, say it with me, COM-MU-NIST nation! This effects me very little.
Would it only be *their* business?
They largely steal all the software they use anyway, so what's the difference. I thought the current estimates were that China's use of software is 90+% pirated.
If China doesn't want to buy our software, what the hell difference does it make? It's their sovereign country, and we're in no position to judge what they do on their own soil.
It's the same with Canadian lumber. If the Americans don't want to buy it at our prices--so what? It's their country. We can't and have NO RIGHT to *force* them to buy at a certain price. That's just Crapola with a Capital C.
From TFA:
"must manufcature all of their product in China, register their copyrights in China first, and do at least 50% of the development in China"
The plague is endemic in prarie dogs and squirrels in places like Colorado and California. A few times a year people may get it via a pet or direct outdoor recreation. It almost never passes between people these days.
The rules require American software companies that wish to sell to the Chinese government to manufacture all of their products in China and to register their copyrights first in China. The proposed regulation would also require that at least 50 percent of the development be done in China.
So does this mean that China will not use Linux/BSD either? How can you determine that 50% of development is done in any one place with an open source project? The copyrights for almost all code in Linux and BSD were not registered "first in China".
Either the Chinese government will use domestic versions of Linux and BSD, or it will use completely new operating systems developed by Chinese companies.
If it's the former, it could be a very good thing for open source.
[rant]
I don't blame them. We in Corporate America(tm) don't ever get to explore alternatives without huge uphill battles with non-techincal Executives who just believe every Marketing line their sold by software vendors who don't know anything but how to tow the Microsoft line. This extends to our government where officials are basically bought and sold so often, when some country decides to express a little sovrigenty like, i don't know, having their own nation's people run their own nation's Information Systems.. OMGWTF! it's UNFAIR TRADE!!
Hurray for China for trying to escape the stranglehold that American software companies [read: Microsoft] have gotten American governments in and are reaching out to the world to try to strangle them too. It's disgusting to me to think our own American governments are slave to a private company for it's Information Systems needs.. That whole cities and states can be brought to a STANDSTILL as soon as some private firm decides they're "out of compliance".. It should be illegal for governments to run privately owned software which has no public accountability! But alas no. Even the very mention of taking away precious Microsoft Word from Secretaries and middle-managers nationwide brings apoplectic revolt! If the software industry in America had it's way, it'd be illegal for people to write software that WASN'T owned by SOME company or another.. The ignorance is unbearable sometimes!
And now they parade Chinese decisions to resist Microsoft Monopoly power as "Unfair Trade"? and Anti-economic? Go China, get away while you can.. Run your own government how YOU see fit.. Because God knows Americans are happy having their government run by Companies and religious zealots who believe everybody who doesn't think the same as them is unpatriotic and wrong and the devil, and so on..
[/rant]
US$0.02++
I know I would NOT buy software made in China with Engrish Translation. Besides anything that I buy at Walmart and it is made in Chine breaks so fast. I bought some towels and they are already ripped on the corners. China has quantity, but it doesn't have the quality of American or Japanese products
China has five times the overall population as the US. Both have middle classes of about 200 million. Its a minority in China, but majority in USA.
90 per cent of all software used in China is pirated (see today's IDC survey) and the Chinese government will enforce anti-piracy measures against its own population more efficently if local business is being hurt. Sooner or later they'll have to open their markets and when they do you'll be going into a amrket used to paying for code.
Ah, why is this disconcerting to anyone? It is of course the policy of our own nation. Ours is slighty more flexible as there is no National Policy which forbids the use of foreign developed software in all agencies of government. But there is in every agency of government a set of loosely defined but strictly enforced rules which boil down to "American Software Only." Actually the policies are much broader, "If an American company does it always use the American company before a foreign company. Regardless of quality."
This is a good thing. It keeps local economies growing and keeps local companies competitive. And while not strictly captialist ( an economic policy abandoned after WW2 in this country ), it is the reason our country is the world technology leader.
So why then do we care if other countries follow the same policy? Perhaps we don't like seeing our shoes other peoples feet?
-- force and mind are opposites; morality ends where a gun begins ayn rand
I guess that the US' quote on textil imports is not considered unfair, but national security's interests to use national software may become unfair.
The government is not prohibiting the trade on software to non-government companies, but to gob. organizations.
This pertains particularly to discussions within the U.S. about the direction of our economy.
As more and more manufacturing jobs, and lower end service jobs (New York City parking tickets processed in India?!) have moved abroad, the continued argument, particularly from those fostering and benefiting from the outsourcing, has been that the U.S. will become *the* place for high tech, high value jobs. We'll "lead the world" in this regard, or some such.
What was obvious to some is now becoming apparent in the general media. There's nothing special about these "high end" jobs that requires they be done here. Nothing other than our legal system and established tradition of rights and responsibilities particularly with regard to contract law.
As other societies advance, there's no reason for them to hire our services, at our significantly higher cost, when they have native talent or talent accessible in other countries that is equally well educated and equally capable.
Other societies have been busy building up that talent, and they are attempting to address the legal concerns. We're getting closer to the tipping point, where the U.S. becomes largely obsolete.
Largely obsolete, except for a lot of warships, planes, and nuclear warheads. Beware: That way lies overt fascism.
this is informative.
Your CPU is not doing anything else, at least do something.
How should we counter it? Do nothing! No, really. Think about this. What it means is that China is limiting the population of people who can supply stuff to their government. When supply goes down, the price goes up. China is punishing themselves. We don't need to do anything. The absolutely dumbest thing we could do is "retaliate" by deciding to limit our own supply (e.g. establishing a reciprical trade rule).
Key to financial independence: Spend less than you earn. Save and invest the difference. Do it for a long time.
I find it sad that the Chinese complain about American protectionism, then pull a stunt like this.
We really ought to consider pulling most-favoured nation status.
Surprised this didn't happen earlier. The reasons are pretty obvious:
1.) US Govn't invades countries it doesn't like, makes up/morphs reasons later.
2.) US Govn't hates all things communist. Hates, hates, hates.
3.) Separatist sentiment in Taiwan rising
4.) Microsoft is a US company, with a govn't relationship so cozy that its allowed to violate US antitrust and trade laws.
It's hard to make the argument to other countries that Microsoft wouldn't collaborate with the US government to get inside the information systems of another country, if the all-critical cause of fighting terrorism was invoked. After, its common knowledge that Microsoft hides parts of its API to competitors to make money, however unethical that is. Who's to say it wouldn't hide things in its OS to fight terrorists? That, combined with how the US government has demonstrated that its more than willing to sacrifice its own democratic principals to fight terrorism makes using windows a not-so-good prospect for most non-US governments. I can't believe more governments haven't done this already.
If you were China, would you want Windows running your government's computer systems?
A trade deficit is not necessarily a bad thing. It means we are exchanging green sheets of paper that cost virtually nothing to manufacture but are apparently worth a lot to people who are willing to exchange them for tangible goods. Not a shabby deal, eh?
Why complain about these things when America already does something similar? Perhaps Americans would like to demonstrate a huge open market by letting more foreign companys bid for defence contracts. I don't think the likes of Boeing or Lockheed Martin will do well with real competition though, will they?
for a Chinese pirater to sell pirated copies of MS products to the Chinese government?
Fly Fish? Participate in our forum
...would ban Chinese firms from selling anything to any, but in particular the American government.
They did want to see it, so they can reverse engineer and exploit it, and use it against us, as they have been ever since gates' dumb-ass sold out his country, and his proprietary moral integrity. I still think we should have let MacArthur do his job 50 years ago, this wouldn't even be an issue now, along w/ N.Korea. =/
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
The Slashdot title of this article is: " Effects of China's Software Policy on World Economy?". So why is that under "United States" topic (and flag)? Since when the "World Economy" == "United States"? Or is another dumb view of the US-centric view of world as one which is composed by "US" and "the other countries of the world"?
So what difference does it make.... they never "buy" any software anyway.
1. Closing off government software contracts to foreign firms isn't protectionism. It's common sense if you have any real concern about information security.
2. This is a few hundred million dollars worth of contracts at best. It will have virtually no impact on the world software industry.
3. China has a frozen currency. They are not interested in fair trade. "China has long maintained a fixed exchange rate between the yuan and the dollar, providing an indirect subsidy to help maintain its high-growth economy. Such currency control gives Chinese exports a 15 percent to 40 percent price advantage on global markets. That antimarket policy also discourages exports of American goods and services to China." --CSM. Of course this strategy is not without trade-offs, China runs the risk of sudden and severe inflation by pegging its currency artificially.
4. All of you anti-American, anti-capitalist, pseudo-intellectual nitwits are stunningly ignorant, yet refreshingly smug. Trying to decide whether your ignorance is the result of selective learning, indoctrination, or just sheer lack of cranial capacity could be an amusing pastime for one with a much stronger stomach than mine.
Thank you for your attention. You may fire at will.
My take on the matter is that the Chinese is taking preventive measure to minimize any leverage any FOREIGN country may have on it. This has its origin in a deep distrust of the west (xenophobic?) that humiliated and exploited China in the late 19th and early 20th century.
I can see why the Chinese (or any nation) would want to do this, especially for closed source software. If I were the Chinese, I'd make the policy to allow software from open sourced products, though.
The logic in that is very straightforward. If some other nation is selling you closed source software, there's no guarantee that the government hasn't gotten their hands in there to make sure that all the computers in the world run "their way" in the event that something ever goes down the tubes....
At least with OSS, they would be able to verify that everything was locked down tight.
A community-oriented lyrics site
In these situations (and software is obviously such a situation), only one company, one country, wins the race. And the winner doesn't necessarily match up with the country that had the classical comparative advantage. It matches up with the country that, at a given point in time, happened to be producing more than the other.
If in fact a country does have the classical comparative advantage, then it can improve their welfare (indeed, world welfare) if they close their borders, allowing that industry to grow. Once the industry has grown, capitalizing on the increasing returns to scale, you can open up your markets and take down the producers in the other country.
So there's an argument for doing it. But, it should be noted that even though Krugman pioneered justifications for protectionism, he remains an ardent supporter of free trade. There are a number of reasons for that, but in this context, the biggest problem is that a country doesn't know, and can't know, if in fact it has a classical comparative advantage in this product. In other words, it doesn't know that there will ever be a time when it can successfully open its borders. In this case, the country (and the world) are worse off.
Further, the act of closing your borders, even if good in the long run, still has costs in the short run. Not only do you need to be sure that you can ultimately take over the market, but you need to be sure that the long run gains are sufficiently high to warrant the short run costs. In the end, protectionist policies simply aren't worth the risk.
Oh, BTW, one country's trade policies, even a country like China, doesn't have that much to do with the trade deficit. If China stopped exporting to us entirely, the trade deficit might drop initially, but it would come back up as we increase imports from other countries. Ultimately, the trade deficit is driven by our national savings rate.
"My girlfriend's got sodium laureth sulfate hair."
> These regulations would ban non-Chinese firms
> from selling software to the Chinese government.
So some Chinese middleman presses the CDs.
> Given that how much trade all the countries in
> the world are engaged in with China...
Which is a lot less then the hype would lead you to believe.
> A better question would be how this might affect
> the worldwide economy, particularly that of the
> U.S. and China.
The amount of money involved is negligible on the scale or world trade (or even US-China trade).
> What benefits and drawbacks may China see as a
> result of this new policy?
Larger bribes with officials empowered to grant exceptions.
> What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to
> counter it?
A WTO complaint.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
As I work for a Canadian Company that produces software and some of our customers are US Government agencies.
First, this is not a trade issue and the US will do nothing in response because no treaties or rules have been broken. This is a piece of government policy. If you go to China, you can bring Microsoft, you just can't sell it to the government. This ONLY effects the Chinese government.
Second, I have a feeling this has a lot more to do with security then building up their industry. If they are building their own code, they are a lot less likely to get stuff with backdoors build in. This isn't just paranoia either. During the first gulf war the US wiped out the Iraqi air defense network with viruses they stuffed into printers bought in the US.
That said, I have this is going to be a mixed blessing for a while. Building your own code base from scratch is really not going to be easy. Mix in the absolutely terrible accountability and management issues of the Chinese government and you are talking about a disaster waiting to happen. It isn't that China doesn't have good coders. They have good and bad coders like the US, it is more that the government is unlikely to be able to tell the difference.
Finally, if the US is going to raise a stink about trading policies, it will be over currency. Hell, just glance at the days bussiness headlines if you want an Economics 101 from the bickering back and forth.
Let's think about this for a minute.
So, China stops buying software from american-owned companies. Microsoft, Adobe, Norton, etc are now off-limits to the average chinese consumer. What's going to take the place of all that software? Well, China DOES have a little project called Red Flag Linux... If they stick to the principles of the GPL (i can't see why they wouldn't), then all linux users everwhere will benefit eventually. No more Photoshop? No problem, the Gimp is getting pretty close to that level of usability. A few million new users/developers wouldn't hurt that project either. Oracle wouldn't be loosing existing customers, they'd be loosing POTENTIAL FUTURE customers. I see that as a big difference, but software industry lobbyists often gloss it over. This is similar to arguments made by the RIAA about how much money they "loose" due to piracy every year.
So, to summarize my little conspiracy theory: Chinese lockout of Foreign software is not so much money lost to Microsoft and pals, as it is development resources added to the Free Software movement. (Yeah yeah, commies bad, cowboys good... get over the cold war already. sheesh.)
There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.
You must be new here, on slashdot everything is Bush's/the Republican's fault. You obviously must not be drinking the Slashbot Group Think Kool-Aid(TM)!
You have to bash Bush/Republicans if you want to be seen as "informative" and "insightful." I is sooo easy to to, just make any crap about them up and it will get instantly modded to 5+.
But don't speak the truth, present any facts, or say you are a Republican/Bush supporter, that will get you modded down flamebait/troll. If you do something like that, you must be 100% wrong for going aginst the Slashbot group think.
I need to practice reading...
Most of the software you're using is probably produced in India and tested in China. Office? Parts of it are produced in India. Windows? Same thing. Just about any piece of software now has foreign-developed components in it.
So I suggest your agency to dust off their abacuses.
DOD to Pres: "Sir, the NSA reports that our satellites went offline at the same moment we stopped ordering Chinese in favor of Pizza! You don't think it has anything to do with our proprietary software all being written in China, do you?"
99.95% of people in China are too poor to afford US-priced licensed software, and software companies are unwilling to bring the price down.
It's not like I support piracy (heck, I make my living writing software), but let's face it, you aren't gonna plunk down one year's salary for a copy of Windows either.
Will the Chinese companies not have to buy the US software from a US company before selling it to the Chinese government?
It wasn't that long ago that a purchase, by the Chinese government, of a jet by Boeing included bugs. I recall the chinese stripping down the jet and rebuilding it...bug free.
I would suggest that the Chinese Government would be remiss in buying from other 'non friendly' governments.
The precedent was set as to how the US government could be trusted in such matters. Unless I am to believe that Boeing put the bugs in for their own reasons, which I surely don't.
Actually, I favor protectionism as a means to achieve universal protection of the *entire* economy. Including labor and environment, as well as finance, capital, and the rest. Everyone has the right to do what they want. China's government even has the right to violate trade laws; they obviously have the right to violate their positions in negotiations of "bilateral open markets". But they should suffer the consequences. If they're going to require Chinese ownership of software sold to their government (a huge sector of their economy, theoretically 100% of a "communist" economy), they should 1> not get foreign expertise to boost that software's quality, and 2> not get to sell their software to foreign governments (like the US), and 3> not get the proceeds of exporting temporary labor to foreign governments' software projects.
That last consequence can be achieved only under complicated management of trade by foreign governments. Which is entirely the point of the kinds of trade agreements between the US and China. So, naturally, what I'm saying is a complaint with the US government, for allowing this unfair economics at the expense of American interests. Which is my right, my duty, as an American. Thanks for the chance to make that point explicitly.
--
make install -not war
to china: Please stop exporting those cheap-ass happy meal toys! I hate them and my kids 'gotta have them. Then start buying american software.
From: a father/software engineer
m@t
It makes a hell of a differents, because the chineese will no longer (if they decide to use linux) use non free formats and generations of chineese will not grow up accostumed to MS software, but to linux.
That is completely false. Linux does not prevent you from creating new proprietary formats. If the government develops software for use by government personel there is no requirement to let the public have the source. Note that if the software is only to be run on school computers then it has not been distributed to the schoolchildren. *If* they want to the Chinese government could use Linux and lock things up.
I don't know how related this is to the subject at hand, but I think it is important to point out that Intellectual Property restrictions, while harmfull in the USA, are extremely dangerous in China. The USA should be doing everything possible NOT to pressure China to impose copyright and patent monopolies.
For example, as US society has entered the information age, the *AA has responded in an extreme backlash. But even at it's worse, it is likely to go no further than a few jail terms and load of lawsuits.
China will have it's backlash too, but they do not have the political infrastructure or culture of freedom in place to effectively resist it. The consequences will likely be murderous or worse if they have a strong IP system in place while it happens.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I thought the Chinese were going to supply the hardware and India was going to supply the software as per the two countries' complete global dominance of IT agreement.
Or is this out of concern for Chinese security? I know that India and China aren't on the best terms, but there has to be SOME low level software that could be supplied by foreigners for government use (word processors come to mind).
technology, and by extension [hahaha], the world economy to their own benefit.
why is anyone surprised?
sum.zero
Linux is being developed by a plethora of developers, very few of them being chinese but doubt if they reside in Mainland. This regulation would mean that Linux should also be counted out. Way to go now a third OS that would be competing for our mindshare. But you need learn chinese to understand the source code !!
then to counter this i suggest everyone go to Wal-Mart and purchase as many Chinese mfg. items as you can afford...
Cheap electronics, toys, etc...etc...
Great decision, very clever. US should do nothing.
This may come as a shock to the editors, but the rest of the world makes software too!
Next, start a propaganda campaign about China. They harbor al Quaida. Print a deck of cards. For the sake of fun, instead of the WMD line, tell the American people that one billion Chinese are standing on chairs preparing to jump off and jolt the Earth out of it's orbit and into the sun. Remember, it only has to be good enough to fool an American.
Third, shock and awe time. The crucial, agonizing problem of somebody, somewhere in the world not wanting the pretty blue sky and clouds on their machine will be rendered moot when all the computers in the country are burned husks, along with half the population.
China is finally getting around to doing in software what they have always done in industries deemed "strategic" - they force world-leading companies to share technology with Chinese partners and eventually compete against the foreigners. It works because Western businesses feel like they need exposure to China's purported "billion-person market" at any cost. Look at Boeing. Look at Cisco.
Now it's true that the economic impact in China is negligible because they don't buy software from the West at all - they steal it. And TFA quotes the USTA pathetically whining about how China is closing themselves out of the world's best software. WAKE UP, you fucking morons in the US Dept of Commerce: China wants the "best software in the world" to be made in China, not Palo Alto, not Redmond, not Bangalore, not anywhere else.
This is the first shot in a trade war aimed right at one of the few industries left where the US can honestly be said to have a technological edge.
While I agree with you, this is exactly what Bush did with the Iraq recontruction money, state that it could only go back to the countries that had contributed it. I don't recall that being really popular around here.
Ignoring the whole NSAKey fracas from a few years back ...
... exactly why do you think Microsoft has given China--or anyone else, for the matter--the "complete" source code to Windows? My understanding is that no one outside of Microsoft has the capability to build the software ...
Good choice, that was debunked.
Because some University professors and students have access to the Windows source, because they have built Windows themselves. A friend doing OS research once worked on a project that was granted access. They had to sign NDAs but there were no restrictions on their ability to publish and the license was transferable should the project move to a different University.
Before you start tossing around statements like "And you have the nerve to call the grandparent "clueless?" perhaps you should get a clue yourself. Beyond the example above, the government could simply (a) use what they can build rather than a commercial distribution or (b) tell MS something is missing and that the terms of their contract have not been fulfilled.
We've fed a beast, just like we fed the RIAA and MPAA, Now look at them, they have a political presence over all of us. We fed china, now they're big and strong, and in only a few more years, they wont need us, they'll be bigger than us.
Our country is being sucked dry, daily. Our economy is continuing to shrink, we're almost equal with canada, we're falling apart from the inside. Why else do you think the politicians are more concerned with world affairs? simple, it's to make the US look bigger than it really is, when in reality, it's becoming a shell.
This is no big deal. We have plenty of America-only requirements in U.S. government contracts. Not all of them, just many.
If you want to get all upset about chinese trade policy, you should get upset about the yuan being pegged to the dollar.
This inflicts far more damage than the chinese government insisting all government purchases should be home-grown software.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
"Free trade" is not free - it is costing us our jobs and our standard of living.
Its costing us jobs for sure but not standard of living. Infact the Ammerican middle class who can afford more stuff than the upper class in most other countries is because we can buy at a cheaper price than what we earn.
For example, if all textile was manifactured in the US, textile would cost 10 times more. Instead of looking at moving to a leftist economy where everyone has work but no one can affor anything, we should concentrate on keeping up with the technology and creating jobs in emerging fields like nanotechnology and biotechnology where we have a distinct advantage.
If China is using Red Flag Linux, and the software written is GPL, then I say so what. We can benefit from all the GPL software written as much as the Chinese. The only ones to complain would be those that dont want to participate in FOSS.
FOSS benefits only at the pleasure of the Chinese government, they don't have to share anything they write for themselves. The GPL would only require that they share *if* they distribute their software to someone outside of the government. While supporting Red Flag Linux is in their best interest they *may* decide that it is not in their best interest to share their applications, utilities, and other pieces of software.
Straight up protectionism is what this is and if we could get away with it we would.
Hereby it is declared Alabama and Mississippi are 3rd World States exempt from child labor laws and will require all happy meal toys, barbie clothes and disposable consumer electronics be assembled in public schools in exchange for 'rithmatic and book lernin.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
either. Look at what happened to the IBM-Lenovo deal.
I hadn't really thought about the communism angle, a good point although the Chinese are experimenting with private ownership now.
Also, good point about the protection of the entire economy with the explicit mention of the environment and labor. In fact, some activists have advocated using GATT, NAFTA and similar treaties in the opposite way that the corporations intended them to be used, i.e suing countries that don't have tough environmental and labor laws for unfair trade practices.
Agreed that they should suffer the consequences as well. They don't have to play ball with us, but tit for tat applies and we don't have to play ball with them either.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Or what would stop, say, IBM from releasing vast quantities of open-source software and then implementing and servicing it in China?
Since the US doesn't allow export of strong encryption, people should't use any! right guys? Seriously, why China gouvenement would buy American software anyway, they want control, and they have all the control they want with existing open source solution that they can enhanced themself, with nobody looking over their shoulder. I would'nt like anyway my gouvenement to buy American software if open source alternative exist, my taxes are not suppose to pay american share holders!
American companies should stop exporting technology and manufacturing jobs to Asia altogether. The greed of our corporation ruling class is quite evident in selling us out to them. Shame on them...
I don't agree the poster's word that the ban on using non-Chinese companies software in government sector is unfair.
Considering United States and various countries in the world has regulations and guidelines that protect the government operation being hold on hand of foreign conpanies, the Chinese ban is just a form of national security assurance.
There are way more cases where US interfered with big company trades such as computer or communication companies based on it's own protectionism. Is that fair in your sense?
Given that how much trade all the countries in the world are engaged in with China, isn't this a unfair trade move by the Chinese government?
This is CHINA we're talking about! You know, run people over with tanks China? Somehow I don't think they probably don't care if this is considered unfair!
It's been a long time.
China has a right to do whatever the fuck it wants in it's own country. I don't see how it's the business of America or anyone else to attempt to dictate otherwise. It's not like America plays fair, so what do you expect?
if that doesnt take the cake.
.
Without China we would be living in squalor,with
1950's technology , junk automobiles and no modern conveniences. Thanks to cheap labor the entire US
is living in relative luxury.
US Workers cost too much like retirement pensions and such
Thats why now we are hiring Mexicans and buying Chinese!
Viva USA
they must be REALLY pissed we don't want their textile industry to kill all competition. will this be the birth of "The Peoples Linux" or maybe "Red Star Linux"?
and now banning software imports?
What are those commie bastards thinking?
I say we seize a coastal concession and
maybe send a marine detachment into the Forbidden
City.
It'd be like old times.
Doesn't Microsoft just lease you the software? You don't really buy as in own the software.
when they moved all production to China, "we have to break into the 2 Billion people's market! So dont worry if you have to starve a little while walmart is filled with made in china stuff! Eventually we will sell to them too and there will be boatloads of money to go around!"
yeah right. anyone with a brain would have thought why would the chinese buy american stuff when they can make it all themselves ?
and *now* what do you say, MBA legions? You still selling your stuff to China (except any BS, that is?)
This move is a power play by China. When they do saber rattling they make money. This threat to outside software companies gives them leverage to buy at a cheaper rate. I bet they are getting ready to upgrade to longlosthorn and are doing this to get a better price. They have learned how to manipulate markets to make money for the people that run China's communist party. They did something similar a couple elections back in Taiwan. Before the election they made a big show of moving troops across the strait from Taiwan. This caused the stock market in Taiwan companies to plummit. After the price fell these ardent communists, yea right, bought up these depressed Taiwan stocks. After the election they pulled the troops back and the stock went back up. They then sold the stocks and made a killing. You watch, there will be some sort of deal made between China and big software companies. And I bet it will take the form of the sale of Chinese Software to be resold under one of the big software companies.
Goodness it's refreshing to see a new bully on the block. Especially when it's giving the old bully a black eye....
Creating a foreign subsidiary isn't going to get around those requirements.
Excuse me the Chinese don't recognize copyrights or patents. Every piece of software they use is pirated.
A better question would be how this might affect the worldwide economy, particularly that of the U.S. and China.
So you want to know either how it affects several hundred countries or just 2 (two)? One is worldwide economy, the other is not. Please make up your mind.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Wait - I didn't expect agreement. Isn't this K5, the room for arguments? I must be some kind of git ;).
--
make install -not war
At least that is what I found out when trying to order a computer game from Amazon. US laws forbid that Amazon shipped the CD's with the game to Europe.
China is preparing to become the world's largest economy, and the Chinese government is creating a demand for software made in China. Companies and products will be created to fulfill that demand, and once that occurs, will non-governmental buyers support foreign software, or will they support software that's developed in their country and works with the software used by the government?
Needless to say, it WILL have an affect.
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
It is called a trade war. You don't buy from me, well I will turn around and not buy from you.
Mind both sides loose in a trade war, but China has already started it. The US is no longer in a winning situation - we make software, and they are refusing to buy our software, so we can't buy from them in turn anyway.
You know what, tell the Chinese that will ban imports of -everything- they make. Just tell them to pound sand and tell Walmart to buy its crap from somewhere else.
This is my sig.
It is not correct to compare US agriculture subsidies to currency manipulation that undervalues ALL of China's goods up to 40%.
First off, the economic effect is orders of magnitude different. The fact that the US supplies subsidies to one small sector of their own economy does not excuse the massive subsidies China dishes out that effects their entire economy. There are plenty of economic sectors in the US that receive no subsidy.
Second off, there is a compelling national defense interest to having enough domestic food production for your entire population. Should the US be cut off from food suppliers during war time, they want to be able to have food to eat.
Certainly, China could attempt to use national security as an excuse for this action. And I could grant that as reasonable when dealing with military and high-level government systems. However, there are plenty of low-level systems that require no great deal of security. One could reasonably argue that any platform could be put in place on these systems.
It is also not correct to compare China's current actions to US actions in Iraq's contract biddings. Unlike China, the US did not limit those bids to domestic companies only. Companies from outside the country were eligible to bid, granted that they had a policy favorable to the US.
Tyranny isn't the worst enemy of a democracy. Cynicism is.
I dont think anyone should be allowed to sell software. You're welcome to buy it if you want, but this whole selling thing is for suckers.
Myren
While I loathe the Chinese Government (and yet, love the Chinese people - how does that happen), this is a sensible move for them. They've had problems in the past with malicious code being put in software they've procured, most infamously anti-government slogans and messages popping up in MS Word thanks to deviant coders in Taiwan working as contractors for Microsoft.
You can't shoot someone for crimes against the State when they're in a different State.
Why do we care if a country ran by a bunch of homicidal murderers changes their software purchasing policy?
This will set China's progress back 20 years !
The last software I used that was written in China, sucked SO BAD that I could do nothing but throw the CD in the trash. It was worthless !
Maybe they should stick to Happy Meal toys...
china is just an arsehole country. over run, under developed. they can have their stupid software market, i'm not going to try compete with someone working for 50c a day.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
will they support software that's developed in their country and works with the software used by the government?
:-)
I'm guessing that they'll choose the best tool for the job, regardless of the origin. Patriotism rarely mixes with business sense
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
Since so many software companies are outsourcing their programming shops to places like China anyway, why would this affect their sales?
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
If you want to do business with the Chinese government, just create a little Chinese subsidiary, develop whereever you want, and sell to the Chinese government through yourself. If you need something boxed up or printed, just pay someone in China to do it. Doesn't sound hard, plus you can write off lots of trips to China as business expenses.
Simpler yet, get together with 100 friends, and start a single "Chinese" company to act as front-end for all of you.
Shame on the Chinese government for doing something that may protect their citizens and harm US business! Is it the US's god given right to have "free markets" wherever they go? Next, Tom Davis will suggest that this constitutes an act of agression and the US will fire up that high priced military.
Hypocrisy + Money Hungry-ness = US government
Start buying more software from Taiwanese companies.
What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it?
Why, they would liberate the chinese people of course!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Since when do the Chinese... uh... buy software? Or any intellectual property, for that matter?
isn't this a unfair trade move by the Chinese government?
Like U.S. is willing to use software made by Chinese firms for its goverment systems.
I do not wish to offend, but I think there may be a logic error there. One could deliver the source without the back doors to the University professors and come up with a functionally equivalent O/S but without the back doors. If you built something from that source that would be safe, but it's hard to conclude that the commercial release doesn't have back doors from that point -- you would have a version in the field without back doors, and a commercial version that did have them.
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
US, take a hint and stay the fuck out.
'nuff said.
Red Flag Linux is doing very well under this system. It's powerful, fast, efficient, secure and stable, as only Linux systems are. I see no problems with China using home-developed products like this. It keeps foreign governments spy-agencies out (and for you spy agents reading this, that means you) and allows China to adapt the software for their own needs without being beholden to some foreign country or company. I've heard stories about some companies showing off little bits of their source code to try and convince people. Firstly, let me see *ALL* of the code, not just *SOME*, and 2. let me compile it for myself and run it (right here) so that I can see for myself that the software is as described (and for example, not DOS 6.1 from 20 years ago). Home grown software is good for China. China here is the customer, and the customer is always right. Nuff said!
nuke the chinese suns of beaches I say. down the china, down the US, down the india, sierra leone rulees!! (wherever that is)
Hello??? Egypt? Pyramids? Slaves?
...when you're writing a game...tweak the difficulty of "Easy" to something [your mother] can cope with. -- onion2k
I do not wish to offend, but I think there may be a logic error there ...
... but it's hard to conclude that the commercial release doesn't have back doors from that point ...
...
No, re-read: "(a) use what they can build rather than a commercial distribution"
No, compare the binaries, MD5 the binaries,
And the US is going to create the best Chinese language-enabled tools?
Any sect, cult, or religion will legislate its creed into law if it acquires the political power to do so.
that one copy of 3.1 (duplicated about 1 billion times);
freedos
all they need.....
Is there really anything wrong with a government electing to support its own economy and keep the tax money it collects and spends within its borders? Yes there is (and this principle applies to any product or service, not just software, and any country, not just China). If a foreign product or service would have been a better value than the domestically-produced product or service, they aren't spending taxpayer dollars as wisely as they could have. Such a policy benefits a small group (in this case, Chinese software developers) at the expense of the other 99.8% of Chinese citizens. The net effect is negative for their economy.
That that is is that that that that is not is not.
This I agree with you on mostly - it's not lawless, but definitely knowing the right palm to grease or being a member of the right family or party will get you a long, long ways in the mainland.
I don't know about this. To me, it seems like trade often opens a lot of borders and helps spread wealth and education. The employees at the semiconductor plants I worked in in China were in better shape financially and better educated than their counterparts on the rice farms. To me, this seems like a (very slow) path to freedom, rather than a downgrade. Yes, the Japanese and European companies that owned the fabs were there because they could employ people and purchase land for pennies on the dollar vs. anywhere else, but it doesn't have to be entirely one-sided. An educated employee that can read is a big bonus on even a basic high-tech factory line, and an educated populace is more likely to desire democracy.
Hong Kong and Beijing are two of the most 'free' cities largely because of the amount of trade going through them. I don't admire the mainland Chinese government, but I'm not sure ostracizing them from the world community would make them be more reasonable.
Best I can tell, the Chinese government realizes these dangers to some degree - hence the customs checkpoints between mainland and Hong Kong being still active. But those checkpoints don't stop the spread of ideas very well...
I write code.
MOD PARENT UP
Most intelligent comment I've read all day.
"What steps might the U.S. take to attempt to counter it?"
Or maybe - dump Bill Gates? (A "Senior Asshole".)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
The iraq war had nothing to do with anything other than who controlled the oil and the petrodollar scam. The planet is rife with tinpot torturing dictators. Look at what is going on right now in Uzbekistan for instance, yet they are one of our "allies on the war on terror".
And it's still the same fatcats trading the oil now as before, none of that has changed much. And I didn't vote for Kerry either....I *never* vote D or R, haven't for years and years now, third party or independent only. No way would I support some criminal gang.
Folks, I've read a lot of comments related specifically to the 'fear of backdoors' arguement. I'm not sure that China actually believes any of that considering that neither the US nor any other nuclear government run their silos with MS Windows products... Actually, the more important and relevant point to the article is pointing to the fact that wars aren't necessarily fought on battlefields anymore but in board rooms. Economic dominance is purported to be battlefield that the next major war is fought on nationally. I'm not so sure that there is anything the US can do other than try and get back to it's 'roots' within what's left of the current economy. China has been buying up large amounts of metal (not just raw materials, but scrap metal) within the US. US manufacturing plants have already made major moves to Chinese/oriental soil. Jobs are outsourced to foreign nations. Meanwhile, back on the home front (US) we're being told that we're a 'service oriented economy' (though for the life of me, I can't remember ever asking the Chinese if they wanted fries with their order of the US economy...) We haven't built a single new oil refinery, and our refineries aren't exactly up to date (do a simple google search and look at what middle eastern refineries are capable of). We're using up our natural resource, while China sits back and watches, and encourages us to continue. The reality as I see it, is that we cannot sustain the current environment, and that the US is headed for a major fall. I've heard the same dooms-day folks say the same thing, and always thought -- whatever. But you have to admit, there is only a finite amount of oil on this rock. There are only a finite amount of resources. There is only a finite amount of land... We're eating ours up like there's no tomorrow, while China is sitting on some of the most undeveloped land left on this planet. Might be time to take more of a hardline approach to China.
The US is not "flooding the world" with food anymore. As of this year, we are now a net food *importer*. What we are flooding the world with is "IP" laws and patents of dubious nature, from software and movies to GM seeds, because we just don't produce as much tangibles as we used to. Brazil in particular is poised to overtake us in raw ag production. The ag subsidies in the US are a scam, primarily go to the same big corporate farmers who are more or less sharecroppers for the banks and the big agcos. Joe family farmer gets about squat, the average age is over 60 for them, and there really isn't much money in it anymore, and the death tax-"estate" taxes- keeps breaking up the farms.
Small nation/third world ag is in trouble because they are trying to use ag products as a hard currency revenue generator, at the expense of national sustainability. And the big agco transnational (based in the US but not loyal) boys keep bribing off those various governments to get them hooked on expensive patented seeds. Some nations are resisting, most are falling for it though.
I'm in ag myself, keep up on this stuff more or less.
Other nations don't have any inherent right to sell the Chinese software. And if, as is likely true, companies like Microsoft routinely build in back doors for the NSA and CIA, a country like China SHOULDN'T accept that software. They would have to be extremely gullible to even consider it!
Let us not forget the huge natural gas explosion caused in Russia by booby-trapped American software. We knew they were shopping for it, and we supplied it to them, with minor modifications. This caused the worst natural-gas disaster in history and the fact that the Russians couldn't trust their software after the fact killed most of their technical efforts, likely leading to the end of the cold war.
Surely, this is vexing to the Chinese and they are absolutely correct to take steps to prevent it from happening again.
They're also working on their own microprocessor industry, it's not just software. And, good for them! There's nothing wrong with ensuring your independence from foreign interests.
Farewell! It's been a fine buncha years!
As bad as the US has become, I think we'd have a lot more to fear from China. (Assuming the US doesn't get any worse.)
It just got worse.
ROTFLMFAO!!!
Yes, I can see that happening. Lemme see. Our armed forces, all of them is approx.. what? 5-10 million? China's is what? 300-400 million (If I remember correctly, you HAVE to serve for some time, regardless of being male or female.)
Yea, we'd be SCREWED. No wonder we want to try to develop weapons in outer space.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Shouldn't we worry more about the fact that steel is 40% higher than it used to be? Steel drives a lot more of our economy than software does and alot more companies, ie car , computer manufacturing, canning, anything that is not plastic or paper companies are in rocky situations because of this. Software is the least of our countries worries.
I would say the vast majority of national govts have purchasing rules stating that they must buy locally produced goods unless there's no option but to buy foreign.
I know all the NSW govt depts & statuary authorities I've worked at had tendering & purchasing regulations giving preferance to locally made products & suppliers over foreign ones.
Lets close all the WalMarts. That will cut Chinese imports to the US in half!
Estate taxes sure do. Locally to me it just broke up a family farm that has been here since the 1800s. I know that because we bought some stuff from the sale, a lot of corn from that dudes last crop and a loader to be precise. The single son (who still wants to farm) couldn't pay the estate taxes so they had to sell it off. It's going to be a *golf course*. Happens all the time really. Between rising property taxes, lowering prices, increased costs of production,the monopolization of the packers and suppliers, etc, well....it's slip sliding away. Sure, a family farm might be worth millions,on paper, add in land costs, machinery, etc, it adds up quick, it still mostly supports a family and maybe a few hired hands. But for news and political talking points purposes those are "millionaires". Phooie. No they aren't. Your average white collar yupster in suburbia makes more loot take-home going to some busywork electron shuffling job where they "leverage" all day long in the "enterprise".
fffftt the estate tax kills family farms and small mom and pop businesses. And by family farm I mean a bona fide actual productive full time farm, not a real small part time hobby farm, and not a corporate farm part of some big chain. Those ends, no, there's ways around it, fall under the cap, or your normal enron like action, but in the middle, the "heartland" type area, it nails 'em hard.
And it's another discussion, but frankly, in a funny buck fiat IOU "money" system like we have now, taxes in general are for political control more than anything else, they really aren't needed for too many things. But..another time on that...
And my reference is from an article (if you follow it around) that was citing official figures late last year, it was a random google selection I made from the first page of hits, there were a lot of references on the switch last year, and the trends going back several years are obvious, the gap narrows steadily, even at your ref which only goes back to 2001. It looks like a dead heat almost exactly now, whereas one or two decades ago, yes, we exported a hell of a lot more than we imported. It's following all our other traditional exports, gone, poofed. How many USA made TVs are exported, just for a random non-ag example, compared to a couple decades ago? Oh ya, so few we don't make them here any longer. Ag is the same, diesel is the same cost, machinery is roughly the same, land and labor are cheaper about any place else on the planet. This is a 2+2 deal now, it's inevitable *unless* it's protected in some fashion or the buck devalues severely. And I mean *severely*.
With the exception of the large transnational agcos, farming in the US is going down the tubes. If the high petroleum prices stay up, along with increased pressure on the natgas supplies for power generation (which impacts fertiliser costs), more feel good legislation, more save the spotted flying three eyed newt, higher property taxes to fund even more bloated local governments, and etc. I expect yet another wave of farm bankruptcies. That and FTAA will about do it. YMMV of course, but that's it near as I can see it.
China is smart, that's all. They take what aids them from the globalisation hype, and block anything that would hurt them.
They're the only country that had balls enough to tell the WTO in no uncertain terms to fuck off. I'm quite sure these political moves are a major part of their constant two-digit growth rate.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
So the Bush Administration may do something protectionist as retaliation
As if the US needs to wait for the "retaliatory" part to implement protectionist policy!
Just witness the recent re-implementation of textile quota and the steel tariffs a few years ago. Shoot first and talk later is the usual US practice.
Oliver.
No mandate that FOSS originate in China! No mandate that NGO or citizens must buy home grown software.
Only the requirement that, 'outside' software firms, selling to the Chinese government, must meet the 51% Chinese citizen ownership rule that is already a defacto requirement for almost any company wishing to set up manufacturing in China. On the face of it, China's rules are still less restrictive for software than for say noodles, dildo's or 'possum farmers.
1.3 billion people and about 21 percent of the global population.
A dream is good. A plan is better.
There is one factual error in your statement. The man who the US (and really, most of the world) backed had the majority support. The man who was backed by Russia was in the minority.
The only time the Russian canditate showed a majority was in an extremely fraudulent election. The people stood up en masse, and demanded a re-vote, and justice was done.
Don't make me quote sources.
I hope you were kidding. Have you ever seen what cluster munitions do to infantry? Hint: "pink mist". China wants to get into a trans-Pacific war? OK, so you were going to get those 400M troops over here HOW again? By sea? Against Nimitz battlegroups, Seawolf subs, B-52s loaded down with Tomahawk TASMs, Harpoons, and any number of other antiship toys? Come over by air? Mmm, you let me know how old MiGs do againt F-22 Raptors. Don't forget to put some aerial refueling tankers in the sky: they blow up nicely, too. Gimme a break. Crapton of people != effectiveness. Hell, I'd be impressed if they could even MOBILIZE 100M people, much less get them out of their borders expeditiously.
So to continue the fantasyland scenario, the missiles get swatted down by Phalynx systems in the offshore battlegroups. If China were unlucky, one would go off, and they'd have started a nuclear war. Gee, I sure hope the remaining 95% of the ships don't carry nuclear munitions: oh wait, they do! I guess we can kiss the military infrastructure goodbye. Maybe if we're really nice they'll leave the Forbidden Palace standing.
Chinese Ambassador: "I, for one, welcome our new US-backed Taiwanese overlords!"
Yes, the US can't enforce peace in Iraq. But have no doubt that the US could level the country in about 48 hours, not even using nukes. There's a reason asymmetric warfare is the new threat: toe-to-toe just doesn't work.
Again, if you were mocking the OP, I apologise.
"All I do is eat and poop!" -- Bean
> Let's return to that America where colored people --
Where the fuck did you get that from my post? Or is that the sort of knee jerk response you throw without even thinking because you have found that most people are conditioned to get defensive and often curl up in the fetal position when anyone hurls the race card at them?
Never said America hadn't made some positive advances in the last century. But on balance we are going down the shitter. Who cares who has the vote or sits where on the bus if there ain't going to BE a bus anymore and nobody gets to vote? When we are ALL equally poor, illiterate and powerless I guess you will be celebrating... right up till our new masters put your 'revolutionary' ass up against the wall.
> Let's return to that America where we overthrew governments, even
> democratic ones, because the Dole Fruit company didn't like their policy
> or because they were nationalizing the oil we'd stolen fair and square.
What the heck are you blithering about? Find ONE real representive government that we overthrew? Marxist one man, one vote, one time cesspits, third world dictators, assorted tyrants, yes and we should be mostly proud of it.
> Now we get grief even for overthrowing tyrants if we kill a few tens
> of thousands and create near-civil war in the process
Oh, you are one of those. Sorry pal, if you can't believe it wasn't worth invading Iraq FROM THE IRAQI POINT OF VIEW you are simply an ignorant ass not worthy of further discussion. History has already pretty much ruled on that question.
Democrat delenda est
I'm well aware of what Harpoon missiles do, after all, My father's partially responsible for it's radar guidance system design when working for Texas Instruments.
Anyways, yes, I WAS mocking the OP.
BTW China's still got more nukes than we do. And if all our forces are over THERE, what's going to stop those nukes from reaching HERE?
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Can a Chinese company sell non-Chinese software if it's a Chinese subsidiary or partner of a non-Chinese company?
Could a Chinese company resell non-Chinese software?
Could a Chinese company sell pirated non-Chinese software?
Or do they just want all Chinese-developed software?
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA