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Linux Grows 27.1% in China
prostoalex writes "Boosted by government purchases and SCO UNIX replacements, Linux grew by 27.1% in China in 2005 and generated $11.8 mln for the companies involved."
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This article do not have much information. Is the server software or the desktop software that is gaining hold there? Linux has always grown in server market. IMHO, Growth in Desktop market will be a great deal as that helps the growth of the Linux much faster than server growth.
It's different. Most places in America, you can't live normally without driving. Sad, perhaps, but true.
For two reasons. One because you're probably the most obese people on earth, which doesn't get any better by you sitting in cars and at desks all day. Getting to the public transportation is tiresome because you don't get the exercise of using public transportation. The 10 minute walk to/from public transportation actually makes a difference.
Secondly, you don't have much of public transportation because noone would use it. Why should you, your car gets you where you want at almost no cost at all, and I admit the convienience of going exactly when you want it to go, to exactly whereever you're going is an advantage. In order to run it at any profitability, there must be people willing to use it regularly, not as a last ditch emergency when the car breaks down. If you expect public transportation to act as a taxi service on demand, it's not going to happen.
If you tell me it can't be done, bullshit. Our population density is *half* of yours, we pay about $6/gallon already. Sure, the people in the outskirts need a car but you don't even have proper public transportation where you could. In fact, everything there seems to be designed for driving. Let me take a small detail, last time I was there we bought some stuff in a grocery, and the plastic bags were completely unsuited for carrying. They were barely usable enough to get them out to your car in the parking lot. So if you're stuck in a corner, I'd say that's because you're painting yourself in there. Other countries cope, if you can't you need to blame something else than geography.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How does an operating system generate millions of dollars? Do they mean save?
Save would be in the billions. Say you have 200 million children and you wanted to give them computers. 200,000,000 times $1,000 for office, windows, email (servers and client), powerpoint, database, compilers and tools, etc. is not going to cut it.
One thing most of us don't understand is that they will not pay M$ prices, they can't. Linux probably runs $1 or less a copy. Saving, 199.9 billion. Comes with source and having a million programmers improve it is real and economical. It might take a generation but once established there will be no room for expensive western products.
Microsoft has a dilema, if they want a piece of the worlds biggest single market they have to license their entire suite for less than $20 to stand a chance. Explaining this to the western pricing models will send the market into kaos. And it still does not address the open sources issue.
It may not be just Microsoft that has issues, imagine what would happen if China produced a x86 chip that was 90% as fast as AMD or Intel but cost $10 or less.
Like most things, it is only a mater of time and North America will import database appliances and ERP systems from China for a fraction of current costs. It might take 10 years to be viewed as a issue but it is already happening. Linux in in almost every $49 wireless home AP out there.
In the end, every business that makes it will be services orientated. The OS is a commodity.
You forget one more point -- Americans have left the cities for the suburbs (and now the "ex"urbs) over the past 50 years. American's are big on property and personal space. I grew up in China and got very used to always been within a couple of feet of someone. When I came to America in '99 I was chastised regularly for walking or standing too close to someone.
I also noticed the envy people had with large yards -- something you can only get far away from cities (for affordable prices.) I think some of this is the "keeping up with the jones'" effect -- everyone in america feels they are middle class, and so no one accepts that they can't afford a house with a yard. so they find a place where they can.
That and people here like bargains. They are happy to drive 20+ minutes to go to the discount shops.
And T.V. I can't remember what the exact numbers are, but the average household has the T.V. on for something like 8 hours. But when you live in the sub/ex-urbs... what else is there to do? You can play in parks, I guess. But you can't really walk anywhere else.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
The parent poster is 100% right. It's sad how few people understand this. With the way the majority of contemporary American cities are built, it's essentially impossible to introduce efficient mass transit, simply because there are very few places that have sufficient population density to be attractive stops for mass transit. City planning has to be changed first, then people can use more mass transit and use their car less.
For more info, read "Suburban Nation" by Duany et al.
Also, as a counter example, consider San Francisco, which still has a traditional city layout, and functioning mass transit.