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."

Comments

piracy

[Anonymous Coward]

The adoption rate should be higher, but it's not taking into account the people in China who pirate Linux.

in comparison to....

[eggoeater]

I'd like to see the growth stats for pretty much everything else in China....

I'm willing to bet that MS products grew a lot more than 27%.
My brother has to go there for business on a regular business. He says they're building the equivalent of New York City every year.

This is also why we in the US will be paying $5/gallon for gas soon... not because of our demand but because of Asia's demand.

Re:in comparison to....

[Kjella]

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.

Re:in comparison to....

[dalutong]

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.

Re:in comparison to....

[Knuckles]

In fact, everything there seems to be designed for driving.

The car culture creates a pull towards car-friendlyness. If people have cars, distances grow. Studies at the Technical University Vienna have shown that the average time we spend for transportation is pretty much constant. If you can go faster, you go farther.

Therefor in a car culture, the shops move to the outskirts where they have less costs, and get away with it because people can drive there for the cheaper prices. The shops offer bigger and bigger packages of household goods, to be chearper, and because people drive there as rarely as possible. The parking lots are huge. The local shops go bankrupt. Suddenly you can't go shopping without a car.

Other example: cars make streets deserted. If people use cars a lot in a city, it gets lonely on the streets. Instead of walking together, people drive by each other. In addition, the noise makes the residents turn away from the street. They close windows, try to be in rooms away from the street. Given time, the architecture will change and turn inwards, presenting cold walls to the outside, with only bathroom and hallway windows. The bed and living room windows face to a courtyard or similar.
These changes slowly make the streets uncomfortable and possibly dangerous, and gradually more people switch to cars. Soon there is no space for pedestrians any more, let alone a sidewalk, or anything to walk to.

heh

[popeguilty]

[obligatory joke about how Free Software == communism]

Server or Desktop

[CSHARP123]

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.