Linux Grows 27.1% in China 224
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."
No amount of careful planning will ever replace dumb luck.
piracy (Score:5, Funny)
Re:piracy (Score:2, Funny)
Slashdot's different persepctives... (Score:2)
Re:piracy? (Score:2, Informative)
As my Karma Burns: "Burn, Baby Burn, Flames are Getting Higher" - Shawdow Warrior
Re:piracy? (Score:2)
Re:piracy? (Score:1)
Re:piracy (Score:2)
A duel desktop? I demand satisfation!
EN GUARDE!
Replacing SCO..... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Replacing SCO..... (Score:2)
Do you really want the Chinese Government conducting economic warfare by proxy?
It would be a trivial excercise for them to pump a billion U.S. dollars (Thank you China for servicing the National Debt) back into the country in the form of annual licensing fees to patent trolls.
That much money could fund a small army of lawyers... who could then go about wreaking having by suing everyone in sight. And it wouldn't necessarily be an overt act of warfare, just a license check and a whisper to keep sui
$51 million in revenues by 2010? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:oh wow (Score:2)
New here?
in comparison to.... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
I'm willing to bet you didn't think this through (Score:1)
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And which would that be, the West which began industrialization in the eighteenth century or the East which began in the twentieth?
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See if I care: I *already* pay $5/gallon *now*...
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In the US, there seems to be a myth that in Europe one can rely on public transportation all the time. This is true in the big metropolitan areas, but most people sti
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
so you've never considered trading it in for something more fuel efficient then??? or getting a job closer to home, or moving closer to your existing job...
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2. most europeans have VERY different view on a term "house" than americans. for americans, moving to new are isn't something extraordinary - probably the fact that most of families at one point immigrated anyway helps somehow. and the "love for the land" might be even stronger in latvia than in most of the europe.
here, settling in one place is the goal of most people. families have houses over hundred years old, that have been built by thei
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I lived in Germany, which is head and shoulders above most countries - and even in suburban areas, I could get to a train station on bike within 0-15 minutes. Only the most rural areas had problems (which may contain quite a bit of area but the minority of population).
If you choose where you live correctly, even in a relatively rural area to get cheaper rent, you should have no problem getting around with
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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.... (Score:2)
Granted. But it's not something individual Americans can choose not to be a part of.
Anyways, the traditional reason some places have such high gas prices is because their governments have huge gas taxes. But the tax money collected doesn't just disappear; it's spent back into the country, including the people who paid it. High taxes are a pain, but then you figure in things like not having to pay out of pocket f
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
Nonsense. The majority of people could easily switch to a non auto-centric lifestyle, if they actually wanted to. Problem is they don't want to. Oh, they say we'd be better off, but they don't want to give up their car. They always have an exuse, regardless of the real necessity of their car. And then we have the folks who swear up and down that the most important right we hold as americans is that of car ownership and that
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Al Gore talked about that before the 2000 election. The overall response in the US was "Boring!" and then elected the dipshit who made it easy for big oil to gouge us while other corporations plunder everything else.
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If both a short-term $2 hike and a long-term $1 hike doesn't affect behavior, what makes you think 50 cents will?
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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.... (Score:2)
It's about getting away from the percieved increased crime of urban areas and - unfortunately for some - certain racial/ethnic groups. As those same problems/people move outwards as well (not that they are connected in any way) the people also try to move further out, generally using beuracratic or financial barriers to try and slow fol
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
The middle class began moving out of the cities as soon as soon as commuter rail service, steam and electric lines, made it feasible. 1880-1900.
Sears, Roebuck sold suburban kit homes out of a catalog from 1911 to 1933.
$700 for a summer cottage, $4400 for a substantial colonial style house, in 1927. Sears would finance construction at 6%, no money down. 300,000 were built and many survive.
Gas and rubber rationi
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The Myth of American Obsesity Re:in comparison to. (Score:3, Insightful)
Kjella, I think we have spoken before, you are Norwegian right? I recently got back from a trip to Europe, so I would like to point out a few things. One, Americans are
Re:The Myth of American Obsesity Re:in comparison (Score:2)
W/r/t the groceries, I have three stores at the 3km distance. My three are all at the 3km mark (one might be 2 and change). It takes a while just to leave the neighborhood (5 minutes of so
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First of all, I totally disagree with the premise of this post. Cars are a good thing. They allow people to travel and get a broader perspective, enjoy time with their families, communte to work, be more productive, etc. But enough of stating the obvious. It's true that they emit CO2, but were quickly solving this problem as we speak and hybrids cut the emissions down by a lot. I would not be surprised
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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.
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The result: I, like many
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One of the reasons why US cities are so bad in terms of public transport is in my other post [slashdot.org]
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
For me it's probably more like a 2 hour walk, because -- like the vast majority of Americans -- I live in the suburbs (and I'm a college student living with my parents, so I have no choice in the matter, thankyouverymuch!). The nearest bus station is something like 8 miles away.
I am not overweight at all, let alone obese, but public transportation is still not a reasonable option for me. In fact, because of the particular side
Mod parent up (Score:3, Insightful)
For more info, read "Suburban Nation" by Duany et al.
Also, as a counter example, c
Re:Mod parent up (Score:2)
Also of note is the fact that many people who live in rural areas combine a work commute with a shopping trip. The nearest grocery store to my home is 20 miles away (in the nearest town). Heck the only business within 10 miles of my home is a small country gas station.
B/c of this I do all of my grocery shopping (and most other shopping) on the way home from work. A moto
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2, Interesting)
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Well, yes and no. This is true today because they all have been brainwashed. In the 1880ies, Los Angeles had an electrified tramway network, and by the 1920ies, it had 2,000 km tramway tracks, compared to 300 in a European city like Vienna.
Today, Vienna is a tenth the size of LA, and still has nearly 300 km, plus 60 km underground and 650 km bus lines. LA has had no tramway at all from 1963 to 1990, and today has 90 km, pl
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Offtopic, but its sunday and not much action is going on here.
Yes, Americans do pay less for gas than probably anywhere else in the world, but like everything else, things are relative. Here are the differences between your gas price and ours:
1) We use more, we get volume discount.
2) We essentially own much of the oil in either owning companies like Exxon, and we do produce 40% of our own oil.
3) We drive more. Its a cultural thing. Public transportation is
affect not effect (Score:3, Funny)
i'm not thinking entirely straight this morning.
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
Yeah, if the restof the world would just stick to bicycles and donkeys, Americans could carry on driving 10 mile/gallon SUVs practically for free. It's so unfair that the rest of the world thinks they should have cars too.
Re:in comparison to.... (Score:2)
You may or may not realize this, but a large number of motor vehicles in Asia and Africa are either big trucks or passenger cars w/tiny 1~2 liter engines.
What they lack in engine size, they make up for in quantity. I'm not even sure you could find a car in the U.S. that has a motor less than 1.8 liters. Almost everywhere but America, you'll get a huge number o
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Note that these are all current-model cars; there's even a wider
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If I had my way, there'd be more tax on gas, a luxury tax on any vehicle that got less than 25 mpg, and a LOT more rules that force the oil companies to also provide alternative fuels to gas stations for hybrid fuel cars.
Yes, Asia will impact our economy by both driving up gas prices and providing goods at dirt cheap prices.
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Not to mention the distribution chain, where the vast majority of goods are shipped via truck (because even though trains are more efficient, and could be made even more so by electrifying the rails
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No, let's mention it, and you're right. Transportation costs are going up. I know the vending machines at the company where I work are getting more expensive. The dude who refills them twice a week said it's because they're passing on increased fuel costs to their customers. Of course, all of their suppliers are doing the same thing, and so on up the line.
I dunno if converting the rail system to electric would be any more efficient than the diesel-electrics we have
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Yes. Me too.
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Speak for yourself. True, Asia has a high demand, but very low demand per person, Asia has a lot more people.
China has the most stringent automobile fuel economy standard in the world. For large countries, the US is the #1 energy consumer in the world per capita. Next highest is Japan at one third the energy consumed per person as the US. The fewy countries that consume more ener
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The US population is about 300,000,000. China 1,300,000,000.
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I would have thought that was obvious. With a population of 1.3 billion, even very low comsumption per capita is a very big drain on the world's supply.
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To GP: you lacked foresight and missed the big picture.
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Re:your gas stats are completely wrong (Score:2)
I agree, gas prices are artificially high right now but crude prices will catch up.
Yes, China has a lot of cars. Yes, they use a lot of gas now.
Here's another point though: China (and India) is developing a middle class where previously there was none (2.5 billion?). This means a LOT more people needing....we'll they need the same crap I buy on a daily/weekly/yearly basis. Crude oil goes to manufacturing just as much
Hmmm interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder now if choosing the right OS is becoming a matter of national security. In any case, I really hope this news gives a nudge to the US, saying "see? The
Re:Hmmm interesting (Score:2)
Not really. If anything, this could give Microsoft more ammo to tell the government Linux is wrong.
"China uses Linux, and China is oppressive, therefore, Linux is helping oppress people. That's why we should use Windows instead."
I'm not saying that Microsoft would directly say that, but I'm betting Microsoft will at least try to use this news to their advantage.
Re:Hmmm interesting (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
And when megacorps behave badly at least there are people trying to do something about it - most of the Chinese people at my university (Cambridge, UK) don't seem to be aware / care about the terrible human rights breaches that go on back home.
I know where I'd rather live.
Re:Hmmm interesting.. i've said for YEARS... (Score:2)
Now, for China, Australia, Japan, Korea... ANY place where there IS or CAN be potential for the US to "wage battlespace war" on these people, they MUST, as a right to national sovereignty and dignity and national, corporate and
Chump change (Score:2, Insightful)
Imressive growth numbers, but a 51.1 million dollar market is puny. ( Especially, if you consider that there's 1.2 Billion people in China. ) Hopefully, it'll grow large enough to warrant the large investment needed to market over there.
You see, for a small company such as mine, I don't have the resources to park there until the market is large enough to support my operations - unlike IBM, MS, SA
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Chump change (Score:2)
I agree with the reduction in standard of living. Less fuel, food (and reduced power usage) will help out a lot.
As for the work thing, the best resource I can suggest is opening up an Indian office and hiring a few people here. Now, if the Indian gov
Re:Chump change (Score:2)
Capitalism resolves these kinds of issues with efficancy. Look at the recent popularity of hybrids in the U.S. Combine hybrids with expensive (but very light) composite materials, not to mention smaller engines, and you've got SUVs that get 40 MPG (the lexus hybrid SUV gets low 30s, IIRC).
In the intermediate term, it looks like the American solution to fuel constraints is going to be BioFuel (no,
Re:Chump change (Score:2)
Re:Chump change (Score:2)
Why is that?
Mankind's heat output in the forseeable future is neglible, including extreme possibilities like global nuclear war.
What you mean is to discontinue the use of fossil fuels. A more refined way of looking at is to insure that our energy sources are carbon neutral.
BioFuel is carbon neutral, and doesn't require us to replace our existing energy infrastructure. In the long run, nuclear (fission/fusion) and solar can provide unlimited amounts of energy.
The path of utilizing less energy is a dead e
Re:Chump change (Score:2)
*shrug* We do....
We're a small company. [yahoo.com] Very small. We manufacture "green" surfactants, organic fertilizer, energy drinks, and license/develop our proprietary remediation technology.
Our website is crapped up at the moment, and we have a very small marketing staff. Strangely, however, 80%+ of our business is overseas, either in terms of sourcing materials or actually selling product. Our primary custom
heh (Score:5, Funny)
Netcraft Confirms it! (Score:2)
Re:heh In that vein... (Score:2)
What I mean is this: in the old day, much of US production was IN the US. Little made for use HERE was manufactured outside, until we got Mego and Hasbro products cheaply made in Taiwan, or Hong Kong, or a FEW other places. Even b4 the 70's, it seems LITTLE was made outside the US to be shipped back here.
Now, with "globalization" (nothing new, it's just more perv
Re:heh (Score:2)
Server or Desktop (Score:5, Insightful)
Meaning of market revenue? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which pills are they using? (Score:4, Funny)
Revenue, schmevenue (Score:2)
Money flow... (Score:2)
Re:Money flow... (Score:2)
There is no great gain if Linux running on commodity hardware is simply replacing Unix and big iron in the back office.
Windows generates a lot of employment and export dollars for China. Don't be surprised if the government's commitment to Linux is something less than total.
Purchase Linux (Score:3, Funny)
Rinux (Score:2, Funny)
my experience (Score:2)
Chinese Resources for Linux on Mobile Computers (Score:2)
Okay 11 Mil? Really? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Okay 11 Mil? Really? (Score:2)
growth rate and not market share (Score:2)
frankly speaking, 27.1% growth is pretty small for me. in absolute terms, it may be even measly in terms of numbers compared to the adoption of other countries. given the $11.8 million, i believe it should be way bigger than that given china's size.
Re:Is this Good or Bad (Score:1)
"2005 saw a steady growth in the China Linux market, brought about mainly by the huge volume of government procurements and large-scale SCO Unix replacement by major banks and industrial projects such as Telecommunication and Internet cafes."
So I think they mean there's a lot of SCO Unix implementations being replaced by Linux. Yay.
WTF?! (Score:2)
Neither does the article say *anything* about the replacements being SCO distributions of Linux. Unless you're consciously attempting to troll (not unlikely), I would say RTFA or atleast the F'ing summary before posting. THank you.
Re:Generate? (Score:4, Insightful)
How does an operating system generate millions of dollars? Do they mean save?
Save would be in the billions. Say you have 200 million children and you wanted to give them computers. 200,000,000 times $1,000 for office, windows, email (servers and client), powerpoint, database, compilers and tools, etc. is not going to cut it.
One thing most of us don't understand is that they will not pay M$ prices, they can't. Linux probably runs $1 or less a copy. Saving, 199.9 billion. Comes with source and having a million programmers improve it is real and economical. It might take a generation but once established there will be no room for expensive western products.
Microsoft has a dilema, if they want a piece of the worlds biggest single market they have to license their entire suite for less than $20 to stand a chance. Explaining this to the western pricing models will send the market into kaos. And it still does not address the open sources issue.
It may not be just Microsoft that has issues, imagine what would happen if China produced a x86 chip that was 90% as fast as AMD or Intel but cost $10 or less.
Like most things, it is only a mater of time and North America will import database appliances and ERP systems from China for a fraction of current costs. It might take 10 years to be viewed as a issue but it is already happening. Linux in in almost every $49 wireless home AP out there.
In the end, every business that makes it will be services orientated. The OS is a commodity.
Re:Torn (Score:2)