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China Bans Government Purchases of Windows 8
itwbennett (1594911) writes "Last week, China's Central Government Procurement Center posted a notice on new requirements for government tender, that included, among other things, the mysterious request that Windows 8 be excluded from the bidding process on computer purchases. The agency could not be reached Tuesday, but China's state-controlled Xinhua News Agency said that the government was forbidding the use of Windows 8 after Microsoft recently ended official support for Windows XP."
seems like the rest of the entire world would ban everything that comes from the USA, or even just passed through the USA, things like routers, computers & software, TVs, Stereos, portable radios, cellphones, anything electronic, the NSA's spying methods have basically gutted any confidence & trust the rest of the world would have in the USA
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
It doesn't sound like they are actually forbidding the use of Windows 8. They are just forbidding the purchase of windows 8. I guess as long as pirated copies are used, then everything is fine?
-- -- Warning. Do not stare directly at the sun.
Microsoft was still selling XP until October 2010 and ending support less than 4 years later so this is about par for an average OS.
However, XP is far from average and still runs on about half of the computers in China, most ATMs worldwide and, of course, most developing country computers, granny computers as well as on many corporate computers which are in the dinosaur category.
Everyone knows they need to get rid of XP but "change is hard".
China seems concerned about loss of support for XP (i.e. can't rely on Microsoft) and US spying in Win 8 (can't rely on Microsoft).
They would be better off going with their own home grown Linux distro but "change is hard" and they have an incredible installed base problem.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
On the flip side, forcing everyone to use Windows 8 would be a violation of fundamental human decency.
I don't think Microsoft was ever interested in cooperating with the NSA, but eventually they were compelled to heel. It wasn't a love affair, it was a shotgun wedding.
Regardless of why they got married, they still had an ugly kid.
John
Yes, they give access to source code, but no instructions on how to build a binary that's 1:1 identical to the released version. This source code, for what it's worth, isn't proof that the release version is spyware-free.
cpghost at Cordula's Web.
I think it's not funny any more. Windows 8 and later do not seem to be operating systems at all, that description seems to have stopped with XP. An OS manages the hardware resources and provides an operating environment for application software to run.
Windows 8 has made it very cumbersome to use the hardware, focusing largely on touch, which is wasted on a desktop. And many legacy application software simply refuse to run on Windows 8 or later. Even simple web based applications are a pain to navigate and use in Windows 8.
So China or elsewhere, people need a decent desktop operating system, and Microsoft seems to have exited that business.
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Open source should naturally appeal to them, since they are nominally commies anyway.
When it comes to commodities they're not even remotely communist anymore, they literally don't care where you get your groceries and clothes and household items, unless those businesses or their owners try to have a political agenda. There's plenty of private enterprises and they don't care if the maker of the toothpaste factory cashes in big and the workers don't. What they do care about is control of public information, strategic industries and technology, infrastructure, natural resources and of course their own hierarchy and when that is at stake they will steamroll the individuals but my impression is that for most of the people most of the time it doesn't affect them very directly. The way most people don't see revolutionary changes if the US goes from Democrats to Republicans and back, the talk changes but daily life goes on.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Compile clang with g++, and gcc with clang. Or Visual C++. The trick only works when there's only one available compiler.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes