Microsoft-Novell Takes Open-Source to China

Bibek Paudel writes "In a move to tap the growing market of free and open source-softwares in developing economies, Microsoft and Novell have announced they were expanding their alliance into the Chinese market. Microsoft and Novell believe big enterprises in China are willing to pay to have the US firms keep hybrid systems updated and running and for assurances that there is permission to use patented software involved. The companies are marketing 'supported Linux' in which they take a fee to maintain software systems blending the open-source programs with Microsoft products such as Vista, Office, Excel and Outlook.The longtime US computer software rivals unveiled their alliance in late 2006, saying their engineers were 'building a bridge' between Microsoft's proprietary software and Novell programs based on the Linux operating system. Sunday was the first time the firms publicly targeted a specific country with their effort."

Comments

Is this equivalent to MS giving up on China?

[damn_registrars]

Considering how rampant software piracy has been reported to be in China, is this perhaps a sign that Microsoft is looking for a way to make a buck on that market, even if they can't sell much software per capita?

Re:Is this equivalent to MS giving up on China?

[truthsearch]

In recent years Microsoft has been trying to cut piracy in China. For example, they've been working with the government to close down factories that produce illegal copies of boxed software. But Microsoft quite blatantly ignored the problem for many years. One theory is Microsoft was letting China get hooked on its software for free, and now that so much of their business depends on it they squeeze them for cash. I think this is just the natural next step to make sure the Chinese keep using their software and have the larger corporations there pay for it.

Re:China doesn't appreciate anything "free"

[New_Age_Reform_Act]

WARNING: DO NOT CLICK the link in parent post. Contains malware and popups.

Re:Why China?

[zappepcs]

That building momentum step you mention is one HUGE assumption. You have heard of Redflag Linux? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux

I'd say that MS/Novel have their work cut out for them. As soon as they start telling people in China that OSS and GNU/Linux are good products they will instantly have competition from at least two localized Linux distributions. I am not too certain that Chinese (who obviously won't or don't pay for software licenses at a MS pleasing rate) are not going to be too thrilled to pay for support of something that is not giving them exceptional value to start with, in comparison to other products freely available.

Re:Hmmm

[vertinox]

Hell, after Stallman dies, I can almost guarantee that they'll buy out the entire GNU foundation or buy seats on the leadership of the GNU and steer it back into the fold.

I'm sure Stallman would have a clause in his will that would forbid that. He would also probaly require the lawyer to refer to his last will and testament as the "GNUwill" and that his casket contain no proprietary parts. Also GPLv3 will be appended to the text on his gravestone which has to be constantly retroactively updated much to the displeasure of the person who carved it in stone for him.

Corporations have been key to Linux development.

[SEMW]

I'm not sure if "being supported by giant corporations" was such a good idea for the so called "linux movement". The percentage of code contributions to the Linux kernel from individuals and volunteers working in their spare time is now down to 13.9%, and still falling. The vast majority of work is now done by companies (mostly Red Hat, Novell, and IBM). To quote directly from that Linux Foundation's April 2008 Kernel Development Report, "Even if one assumes that all of the 'unknown' [and untracable] contributors were working on their own time, over 70% of all kernel development is demonstrably done by developers who are being paid for their work" (source).

Or take distros. Look at the well-put-together and widely used distributions, and they all have one thing in common: whilst being community efforts, they are usually sponsored by or affiliated with a corporation. Ubuntu - Canonical; Fedora - Red Hat; Madriva - Mandrakesoft, etc. The only major exception I can think of is Debian.

The fact is that without the support of corporations, following from the efforts of people like Bruce Perens to persuade companies of the benefits of following an open-source business model, Linux would be vastly behind where it is today.