Slashdot Mirror
Can OpenStack Avoid Fragmentation In China?
itwbennett writes "More people visit the OpenStack Web site from Beijing than any other city in the world and developers in China account for the second largest number of code commits. But beyond a high level of interest, there's another reason that the OpenStack Foundation might do well to host its next summit in Hong Kong: Avoiding fragmentation. China has a history of going its own way in technology. 'I watched it develop its own 3G technology, much to the dismay of global network and phone makers who were shut out of the market. More recently, Chinese companies have gleefully gone on their own with Android,' writes ITworld's Nancy Gohring. It seems like a long shot, but maybe by holding the next summit in Hong Kong, OpenStack can draw contributors into the fold."
The summary does not tell me what this thing, apparently popular in Beijing, actually is! You could at least link their website. :)
Anyway, looking at their website, it looks like it's a "cloud operating system", i.e. infrastructure for managing a cluster in a virtualized, "cloud-like" way. Does anyone know how it compares to other such platforms, like Eucalyptus and the confusingly-similar-in-name CloudStack?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you were are new, up and coming world power, would you want enemies of the past foisting their standards on you? Especially considering the current dimplomatic trends regarding Tech Patents, Snowden revelations, and just technology politics in general?
American Business interests have proven beyond all shadow of doubt its willingness to play hard ball (unfairly) to trap you into their business models.
Fragmenting an existing standard creates a new standard that can draw in $$$. Everything else, national security, national pride, etc., are just excused to rip public funds. US or China.
and isn't open source meant to encourage such -- can you count how many Linux distributions out there?
Chinese owned businesses are still under gov. orders. And part of that is they MUST fragment this. What they want to do, is use their overwhelming population and sales to drive down prices, but then control the standards.
IOW, doing it there will help nothing.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It seems like a long shot, but maybe by holding the next summit in Hong Kong, OpenStack can draw contributors into the fold.
Only marketing flacks think that something like holding an event in a particular place is going to impress the locals enough to abandon their current priorities and go with the group hosting the event. Every Olympic Games and World Cup in dodgy countries, every peace negotiation in a symbolic place ever has demonstrated two things: hosting the event validates what the host is doing, and the other participants just complain about travel times to reach the destination.
This idea that hosting an event in a particular place can fundamentally change - or even influence - how the locals regard something is ridiculous, has long been proven wrong, and needs to die in a fire. If anything, hosting the next Openstack meeting in Hong Kong would merely validate the idea that the Chinese are on the right track with their own implementation.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
More recently, Chinese companies have gleefully gone on their own with Android,
What are you talking about? From that article they made a few comments about how they wish to move away from Google's Android. And actually here's the exact quote that sentiment was extrapolated from:
"Our country's mobile operating system research and development is heavily reliant on Android," according to a white paper from a research division of China's tech regulator, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. "Although the Android system currently remains open source, the core technologies and technology roadmap is strictly controlled by Google."
That's a quote from some Chinese Ministry, not even a group of Chinese developers. I hear that more like "Chinese are reluctantly still installing Google's Android on most of their phones. Google's Android use still rising sharply in China with no end in sight." Can you point me to the Chinese repo for the forked source to android? Surely if it's widely distributed it must also make the source available?
'Gleefully gone their own way'? Yeah, tell you what, fork Android for China and let's compare the two code bases for support and worldwide use one year later. I suspect the glee will be entirely one-sided and it's not going to be China's Android.
My work here is dung.
no. Not due to patents. It was so that they could control the standard. IOW, they are using their economic might/consumer base to control things.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
May I introduce you to Mr. Edward Snowden who has been sharing with the world the extent to which American owned businesses are under their own government orders... and the extent to which they have been doing their government's secret agencies bidding.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden
Of course that will not work. Very few people who live and work in Beijing are going to fly down to Hong Kong to attend some stupid Summit. Hold the Summit in Beijing and you might have some impact and get some participation. Hold the summit in Hong Kong and you cut that to 1/10.
It's a 3 hour flight down and a 3 hour flight back, air tickets cost about 2 weeks worth of wages for the average IT guy. And you need a special travel document which most people in China don't have, so they'll have to apply for it. And if you don't have a Beijing ID then Chinese people need a visa to travel to Hong Kong. And the hotels in Hong Kong are $100 minimum per night. Hotels in Beijing are as cheap as $25 per night.
Who planned this?
As if the Chinese gov. was able to fork such a project as OpenStack. Lots of laughs reading this over here reading this.