Chinese Gov't Pushing Linux In Rural China With Subsidies

nerdyH writes "The Chinese government's 'Go Rural' program offers subsidies up to 13 percent for rural residents who purchase approved nettops or netbooks. The systems come with a version of Red Flag Linux built on the Moblin stack. Along with Internet access, the software is said to provide apps for crop and livestock management, farm production marketing, remote office access/automation, and even online tour and hotel booking systems. Of course, Windows dominates the China market, and if traditional patterns hold, about 30 percent of these subsidized systems could ultimately wind up re-installed with Windows."

Comments

Arrr Matey! Here there be Market Share?!

[Shadowruni]

Seriously, where do people get these numbers? My thing about this is this. We know many small companies don't pay for their software HERE in the states (one of my biggest challenges as a small biz IT consultant/freelancer). We also know that Chinese piracy is considered an art form in some places. Taken together, the market share statement makes little sense. How can you know what the share is, if you've no legit data? One other thing, to someone who NEVER USED a computer and just want web, email, and simple things like YouTube or word processing(most people don't use even a tenth the total capabilities of Word or Excel). They will see nothing special about Windows, Linux, Solaris, FreeBSD as they all can do that with no real issue. Let me preface this with, I'm writing this on my Ubuntu powered notebook, that's authed against my 2008 AD that also auths my kid's Gallery running on another Linux server. Most people will cry, "But those other OSes have hardware issues please help us", and I'll whisper, "No." .... and then remember that these machines came with Linux and thus should already work fine since it's 2009 and not 1999.

Re:Arrr Matey! Here there be Market Share?!

[cjfs]

How can you know what the share is, if you've no legit data?

It's simple math. So you've got 1.3 billion people in China, we sold 244 copies, so that's a 99.9999812% piracy rate. It's obvious.

Re:Arrr Matey! Here there be Market Share?!

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"If you're going to be a software counterfeiter, then please copy and illegally use Microsoft products. The above plea isn't from a posting on a hacker forum. Rather, it's how Microsoft business group president Jeff Raikes feels about software counterfeiters. "If they're going to pirate somebody, we want it to be us rather than somebody else," Raikes said.

From here.

Ballmer might also have said something to that effect, though I didn't see it. The logic is pretty obvious. Pirates cost MS little or nothing(directly, that is, "lost sales" claims can give you just about any number you want) and the tendency to keep using whatever you are already using is quite strong with complex IT systems. Far better to simply have to tighten the licensing screws later, rather than try to push wholesale migration from somebody else' platform later.

Re:How many of the Windows PCs in China are legal?

[tftp]

someone can buy one of these and "repurpose" it to a non-legal copy of Windows, ending up with a 13% + (the price of Windows on the same machine) savings.

It's something that only a geek would do; and even if a geek does this, it doesn't matter. There aren't too many geeks in rural China, and it could be that there is more software available for Red Flag Linux in those remote areas than for Windows. Why? Because warez, even on CDs, need to be delivered and sold, and they need to be localized, and they need to be pre-cracked, and everything should work so that a rice farmer can just plug it in and use. But how many warez are like that? But RFL software can be distributed by the government, legally of course, and there is already so much of it that you need some advice on what to use (which one out of hundred text editors, for example?) IMO, a farmer would be better off getting a cheaper computer *and* a supported OS + applications. There is even no viable reason for a farmer to need Windows. You or me may need Windows to run some specific apps; but what apps a farmer needs? A Web browser, mostly. If there is no Internet link then he needs OpenOffice and a printer. His children need some programming language (which Linux distributions are not short of.) And perhaps a few thousand ebooks in the local language. Windows doesn't come with most of that, except the browser (and the browser is IE, to make things worse.)

Re:How many of the Windows PCs in China are legal?

[Jurily]

What percentage of the Windows PCs in China are running a licensed copy of Windows?

If Hungary can be used as a base of estimate, I'd say somewhere between 0 and 1.

We just don't give a shit about your licencing issues. I'm not even sure fair use doesn't cover it for personal use, and I have certainly never seen anyone who didn't run a business and cared. And for the people who do, it's just a drop in the bucket in case of an audit (tax evasion is a national sport here: the alternative is bankruptcy).

Re:13 percent?

[tftp]

I'm not quite sure what value to assign to an oppressive government's software either

Assign a lot of value and you won't be wrong. Apple's iPhone is a shining example of a computer that doesn't allow execution of anything that is not approved by authorities. China, with all its oppression, is not there yet. Now look at Apple's profits.

Re:So Simple Chinese Farmers Can Use it

[Anonymous Coward]

As an American living in China, I believe that people in rural China, as well as the elderly, could really surprise many westerners. For example, it is very common for the elderly here to trade stocks as a hobby, and community English classes are often full of retired people who are eager to learn, and who race to raise their hands when it is time for questions. Many people here really value knowledge and love to learn, and they are very often not the youngest, most educated, or most privileged.
 
I often wish that English and Chinese were not among the most difficult languages to learn, because it would be a much more interesting world if Chinese culture was more open to us.

Re:13 percent?

[noundi]

That is the problem with geeks. They see the iPhone, they step back, and they compare it's features to that of a netbook, notebook, or a full-blown desktop computer and start bitching about what they can't do with the device.

Oh fuck off. We saw the iPhone and said, ok so will it support MMS? No? 3G? No? Application market not dictated by a single entity? No? What about battery, can I change my own battery at least? No? I have a shitty symbian phone that is worth about as much as the lint in my pocket, which supports multitask, what about the iPhone? No??? Then what the fuck am I paying for? Touchscreen? No sir, the iPhone is ignored by the geeks for the same reason that Fiat is ignored by the car enthusiasts. It is simply a poor product.

Re:How many of the Windows PCs in China are legal?

[dwater]

> It's something that only a geek would do

In my experience, there are plenty of geeks in PRC, rural or otherwise. People would just take it to their nearest one who is likely making a nice profit from providing the service.

Re:So Simple Chinese Farmers Can Use it

[TheRaven64]

Learning to speak English well is difficult. Most native speakers can't do it, and writing it is even harder. The spelling, grammar, and punctuation rules are inherited not just from several different languages, but from at least three distinct language families. The advantage English has is that the language contains a lot of redundancy (which advocates of the Saphir-Wharf hypothesis believe encourages flexibly thought, but I digress) which means that it is very easy to speak English badly, but comprehensibly.

Compare it to another popular world language, like Spanish (or Portuguese) and you'll see something that is a lot easier to learn. A few years ago I came across a study in relative difficulty of learning languages. It ranked all of the world's major languages on a difficulty scale, measuring things like regularity and similarity to other languages. This gave every language two scores, one an absolute difficulty and one a difficulty for people already familiar with some other language. English consistently ranked as one of the most difficult (although it wasn't the most difficult), both in absolute terms and relative to other languages. I can't find a reference to the study at the moment, but if someone else can then please post it.

Re:13 percent?

[imakemusic]

That's because you haven't bought the iMsterile iPhone signal amplifier yet.

Re:13 percent?

[oldhack]

That is the problem with geeks...

Sup, dawg. We heard you have problems with geeks.

GET THE FUCK OFF OUR LAWN.

Re:13 percent?

[Hurricane78]

You are so wrong, you make people feel like you're right again.

You are the only one, assuming your assumptions. Everybody else compares the iPhone to simple run-off-the-mill smartphones from Nokia, Samsung, etc. And it simply can't hold a candle to any of them. That's a cold hard fact. Maybe you have only seen, what companies like Verizon offer you. But that is not, what you can actually buy in countries with working markets. Look at Germany. Look at Japan, dammit! Our phones are technical MONSTERS with functions that the iPhone can't even begin to dream of. PLUS total freedom. Hell, Nokia's N900 smartphone even offers you Linux with full root access right from the factory! No unlocking, to tricks, nothing. And on top of all the normal features.

The simplest way to know that you have never used a recent smartphone: You think the iPhone is in any one aspect better than other smartphones.

Apple is trying to play catch-up. That's all. The rest is pure and raw hype and a whole load of monopolism from US phone companies.