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Linux to be Official OS of People's Republic of China
Posted by
Hemos
on Wed Nov 10, 1999 06:59 PM
from the politics-are-really-wierd dept.
from the politics-are-really-wierd dept.
Cy Guy writes "YAHOO UK is reporting that the People's Republic of China will be naming Linux as its "Official Operating System". The story is repeated with more details and notes that government officials are "enthusiastic about the community ethos behind the open source community." The story also links the announcement to the recent deal with Graphon Corp for Linux Server-based computing software. " I dunno how I feel about this. I think having a state bird is silly enough.
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Linux to be Official OS of People's Republic of China
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A whole new dimension of marketing. (Score:4)
"Windows is the OS of choice for the world's largest democracy.
Linux
God help us if Pakistan signs a deal with Macintosh.
-jay
Wait a minute (Score:3)
You have to admit... (Score:4)
Marissa
Hmm... (Score:3)
Is this good? Well, *scratches head*, well, yeah, kinda, I guess....
From a PR standpoint, does anyone else here see the potential for "others" (wink-nudge*cough*) to use this against our beloved penguin?
"Linux is the official OS of the communist-run monolith of China....do you *really* want to use an OS officially sactioned by the largest communist regime in the world? Use *our* OS instead....we're 'made in America.' yadda yadda"
Don't laugh.
On the other hand, this could be good for China itself. Since A. It don't cost nuthin, and B. Runs on older machines quite well, it could introduce "modern computing" into some of the more remote areas, and create a new interest in technology in places where the year is still (for all intensive purps.) 1936 or earlier.
AND, on top of that, an active involvement in an open exchange of ideas such as Linux and open source could open a lot of people's eyes to what the rest of the world is doing, rather than what Chairman whosit says is going on.
Does anyone else think it's strange that this comes soon after this LinuxOne crud? That's my seed for the conspiracy theorists.
This is not the best, IMO (Score:3)
There's a lot of people out there who think (sometimes unfairly) that communism is the Worst Possible Thing® on the planet. The last thing we need is to be pidgeonholed, as a community, as communists to the last code pig and riot grrl... particularly in this point in time where Linux is getting real momentum and the possibility of substantial numbers of people making a decent living off of linux solutions is reaching a much wider population.
While I applaud the Chinese government for making what I personally feel as The Right Choice (IMO, no government anywhere should be tied to any one company for any one service or product, no matter how big the company is), I think the timing could have been a bit better (like, say, a year from now).
I wonder if France is getting any closer to OSS OSes as standard. Wouldn't it be nice if Canada and the US did something similar.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
Linux vs. Communism (Score:3)
Endorsement? (Score:5)
If we view this as analogous to selecting a State Bird, then it's not really an endorsement - the United States of America, in selecting the bald eagle as its State Bird, is not saying, "Bald eagles are really cool - you should all go out and get one."
On the other hand, making a firm commitment to using Linux and only Linux for all govt operations is a strong endorsement, no matter how "evil" those operations might be. Sure, it's possible that some of their evil might rub off on our operating system, but I don't think ANYONE will mistake the relationship for one of causation. A good tool is a good tool. I'm sure the Hammer is the official Hand Tool for Driving Nails into Wood of China, but that doesn't say anything about Hammers except that they're most excellent.
Just some comments (hit tab, not enter, sorry) (Score:4)
It is free in a country where money is important.
It runs on old machines in a country where industry and computing are not on par with much of the rest of the world.
For the PR, Linux is ideal. There is great flexibility and power inherint in the OS and it can communicate with other systems fairly easily (i.e. Mac, Windoze, etc.).
In terms of public relations for China and good spin control, Linux is also ideal. The OS is developed by many often scattered strangers in often remote places. It is a community effort. "A People's OS for a People's Republic."
For the Linux community outside of China, on the other hand, this could be bad. In the United States and in much of the rest of the world, we still fear the "red bastards" and every thing even slightly smelling of communism is seen as taboo and evil. Linux as an OS may be tainted by communism.
Of course, die hard Linux users will never go away, but convincing other people to use Linux (read: the US Gov.) may grow more difficult. Though it is a good, stable OS, it may be killed by paranoid politicians crying "commies! commies!" ("wolf! wolf!").
And then of course, it is hard to truely feel good about making the Chinese government more effecient in its ability to oppress the masses (even with an OS from the masses).
And the Chinux mascot should be tux in red, instead of black.
Da Zdrastvui Revolutsia!!! Da Zdrastvui Lenin!!! Da Zdrastvui TUX!!!!!!!!
For one time that Nerds can do something about.. (Score:3)
Freedom is For EVERYONE (Score:5)
It's just like they have free speach.. except to speak out against the government. If you're going to lead by example, you have to do it the whole way.
At least they have some value for community. They have a long way to go to learn about treating the individual right. What a great oppertunity to learn from each other. Perhaps they will learn that the free software community is made up of highly individualistic folk, and begin to learn the values of this.
Perhaps we can learn some things about how to work together, they've got 20% of the worlds population, I believe.. it must be excrutiatingly hard to keep any kinda government together there.
Human rights... They have more blatent problems.. we mask ours in a economic system, and revisionist history. There are plenty of oppressed people in the US. And don't even begin to respond without looking into the plight of Native americans (although with casino's they might finally win the longest war of attricion there ever was!
This does not make them innoscent, they need to work to allow basic human rights. But just cause we use money to confuse our system of oppressing people, doesn't really leave us guilt free either.
Eastern Europe has been trying to become more capitalist in the last decade and the people there are suffering horribly. Perhaps it is time that we started trying to find something more moderate, and thinking creatively to solve these problems.
Working together in a common goal is a first start, but just like when working with SUN or IBM or AOL we press hard on the License issues.. when we work with the Chineese, we need to press hard on human rights. When working with them we need to take into account how each project will add or take away from that plight. Don't help put down people, but work together to help each other.
(a bit idealistic.. but if no one trys, we won't even approach our ideals.. it's too easy to cheat and be cynical.. so get over that)
Re:This raises a VERY important question (Score:4)
Actually, I'm sure that China has been thinking about the very same question, in reverse. They can't see the source to Windows, and for all they know, the NSA has put back doors into every Chinese-language version of Windows. (Those of you who think that the NSA doesn't do this kind of thing, please read this link [counterpane.com]).
That is, the Chinese know that they can't trust Windows. But the Chinese can't sneak hacks into Linux either, since they have to provide source code and it has to pass review by Linus and the other kernel hackers.
All sorts of problem with the GPL.... (Score:3)
I can just see it now... Richard Stallman and the Chinese government.... In a cold war over the GPL...
Think about the rhetoric...
Yes... In world war one you had entageling alliances... World War II was a fight between the patriotic americans and th evil germans. World War III: The GPL war.
(Wow.... I just got into my head the image of RMS with a nuke.... that was.... scary....)
Don't downplay the importance of this (Score:3)
"As long as they are going to steal software we want them to steal ours."
Then, March of this year:
We are a very global company, and we've made huge investments in some of these developing markets. Over 4 million PCs a year are sold in China. Now, we don't make so much revenue off of those PCs, because of the software piracy there. If we could raise the money we get per PC in China to be even half of what it is in the United States, that would be hundreds of millions of dollars for us. And so as piracy goes down, as that market grows, it's going to be a fantastic thing, and that's what justifies the attention we put in there, and those levels of investment.
Clearly Gates had a seat-of-the-pants plan on China... allow the piracy to continue, and then call them on it and make them pay. The monkey wrench of Linux in China could mean the loss of more revenues for MS than almost any other single event.
New mottos for Linux (Score:3)
7. Linux will now be called Maonix
6. Linux - the only software we can't pirate!
5. The only thing open about us is our souce code
4. Our operating systems are freer than our people
3. We put the Red in Red Hat
2. Our Linux is not made in prison camps
1. Use Linux - or your family will never see you again!
Open source definition (Perens) (Score:3)
There is a commented version in the book "Open Sources" on p. 82, point 6.
No discrimination against persons or groups. He gives the example of an abortion clinic and an anti-abortion organization, and I think he's totally right there. Once you start restricting organizations and people, where will you draw the line?
The very interesting book can be read online and even downloaded from oreilly.com. Or you could just buy a copy!
Good PR, Bad PR, more programmers. Linux Wins. (Score:3)
I keep seeing posts like China's involvement in Linux is bad. China runs over students with tanks. China doesn't observe human rights. Etc. etc.
What one country does is their perogative.
However. You want that country to change? You want them to "improve" and see things your way? Great. By choosing Linux as an OS, doesn't that simply bring more of other cultures into China? Doesn't this bring information to a country which so many consider to be locked down?
What better way to liberate a people than by giving them information from the world?
But politics aside, China's involvement with Linux will be a good thing. While not every Chinese citizen has a computer, they can all think. Most of them if given half a chance at education are extremely talented and are inclined to mental manipulation of information and concepts. What new advancements could be gained by such exposure of a high quality OS to an additional few hundred million to billions of minds?
The goal of Linux was to be the OS which dominates the world, yes? If so, then doesn't this represent a major milestone? The cooperation and adoption of Linux by one of the world's largest countries?
It is a good thing for Linux. The recognition of the value of an OS by a country's government will have impact with the companies and software institutions of the world as in order to do business with China, they will have to run Linux compatible software.
This is a major step up for the Linux community and a day when the Linux community see's an influx of a new band of programmers and contributers as well as new ideas and cultural mores.
It is a chance for us as a community to show our good graces and not be shown as selfish egotists who are prejudiced against brilliant minds for the faults of a few in power in their country.
Just because the leaders of a country committed acts which we consider to be heinous does not mean that the people in China supported such an act.
Remember, it was a Chinese student who was killed fighting for Chinese rights. Killed by people in power in China who feared what? The flow of information. The flow of new ideas.
What is Linux? The embodiment of new ideas, of free information.
This is a good thing for both China and Linux.
- Wing
- Reap the fires of the soul.
- Harvest the passion of life.
Why China Likes Linux (Score:3)
MS decries China piracy [cnet.com]
To quote:
Piracy has twice in the last two years brought China and the U.S. to the brink of a multibillion dollar trade war.
Re:This is not the best, IMO (Score:4)
I smell another AnonCow who hasn't been paying attention.
China is built around communist ideas, and considers itself (as does most everyone else) a communist state ie: a 'Peoples Republic'. In reality, it's barely communist in its actions... more like a despotic police state which is unsucessfully trying to hold back encroaching consumerism. Socialism, however, is alive (and well? depends on who you ask) in Canada, Norway, France and a whack of other places. Even the US has its socialist leanings (FDR's welfare state, for example). I think it was FDR. Wasn't it?
McCarthyism has *not* past. "Commie" is such an ingrained word in the psyche of baby-boomer and Gen-X american residents that it'll take another 2 generations before the intolerance has finally worn off, mostly based on the death of those individuals! If you think McCarthyism is dead, just take a read at some of the posts on this very same forum, which is supposed to have a higher average IQ than Joeseph Guntotin Merican. Ask your daddy what his opinion on 'Commies' is, and see what kind of rederick is spewed. Ask your grandaddy, assuming he didn't die in Korea or something fighting the... now, what nation was that again? I forget...
Personally, I've never found a problem with the idea of communist or socialist concepts, and thus have no need to 'get over' anything. I'm lucky enough to be a relatively young Canadian born citizen which never had to deal with a national stigma of lame congressional witch-hunts. My fear is that Linux will suffer stigma from those same intolerant individuals that made those congressional hearings a reality. (This is totally avoiding the conspiracy theorists' view that the hearings were mostly just pure anti-semitism cloaked in an 'acceptable' form for that day, of course)
Communism does seem very fair, very egalitarian, very nice in theory. Of course, what with people being greedy by nature (hard to defeat millenia of genetic imperative to cover your own ass) the implementation of tenable communist/socialist states have generally sucked hard ass. The fact that is HAS sucked in the past has cast a pall over anyone or anything associated with it, and I fear that it'll cast a pall over Linux too. I dearly hope to be proven false.
--
rickf@transpect.SPAM-B-GONE.net (remove the SPAM-B-GONE bit)
Woh Duh Monitor Way Sa Ma Lan Sah? (Score:4)
Woh = Wo~ = "Me" or "I"
Woh Duh = Wo~.de = "mine"
Monitor = "Monitor"
Way = Wai~ = "what"
Sa Ma = sem/.me = "reason"
Lan Sha = Lan~si\ = "Blue"
Literaly "My monitor, for what reason blue?"
I'm not exactly sure about the spelling of Lan~si\, also I've marked the four tones with ascii characters. rising is "/" as in "guo/", "contry". Falling is "\" as in "shi\", "is". The 3rd tone, the 'up-down' one is marked with the tildie "~", as in Mai~, "beautifull, sexy". And the 4th tone is a hyphen '-' as in "fei-", fly.
"Wo~ shi\ mei~guo/ ren/" = "I'm an american"
--
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
Linux: communist libertarian OS (Score:5)
I'd just like to point out that one of the ways I get a kick out of Linux is considering this little paradox: Linux development is communist, libertarian, and successful. It's rare enough that you see two of adjectives applied to the same concept, much less all three.
Think about it:
Linux *is* a communist-developed OS, in the Marxist sense of the word, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his means". Every Linux developer who can improve the operating system in some way does so, not in proportion to how much he's getting paid to do it or because he's being ordered by the government to do it, but because he has the ability to do it. Every Linux user who needs features that the operating system and related software can provide gets those features, not in proportion to how much they've paid or because they've been doled out some limited feature set by a bureaucracy, but because they can freely download whatever they need.
Linux is a libertarian OS, too. The development may be communist, but not Stalinist communist - the top developers like Linus and Alan are followed not because they wield any political or economic power to enforce what they say, but because they've proved themselves extraordinarily capable in the past, and so people voluntarily listen to them. You have the freedom to choose your software from a number of competing vendors, to extend and modify it yourself, or to apply other people's modifications whether or not they have official approval. What few restrictions there are come from voluntary software licenses decided by the software authors.
It's kind of cool, when you think about it. In a system where the economics of scarcity are non-existant (the marginal cost of copying software is trivial), communism actually seems to work, and works without using force or coercion on anyone who takes part in it. At a time when most totalitarian communist countries are spectacular failures, it's kind of cool to see a voluntarily communistic system work.
Who knows, maybe when nanotech is cheap and the production of a material item is a matter of feeding enough matter and electricity into your properly programmed Seed, open source economics might play a big factor in the physical economy too.
Re:You have to admit... (Score:5)
Did you know that the minimum wage in the United States is lower than the poverty line? Don't be so cavaliar about other countries problems, the United States has plenty of dirty laundry. And it's not just about our companies being just too damn competitive (that durn Microsoft).
I respond this way because I have close friends from China. It's a lot like the US. There are alot of good people, and a suspicious government.
Did you know that the New York Police Department had been cited by Amnesty International for Human Rights Violations? Did you ever hear of the US engineering the military coup of a democratically elected socialist in Chile? Or how about Mai Lai? Incidently, name the only nation to use a nuclear weapon on civilians? Yep that's right, good old clean faced US of A.
Get over the nationalist crap spoonfed into you -- if you don't trust the media to tell you a straight story regarding computer OS's, what makes you think that you'll get a clear picture of more politically sensitive stories.
Quoting Mark Twain (via Utah Phillips): "Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
The big difference (Score:4)
Re:Linux = Communist? (Score:3)
If you really wanted to compare the GPL and communist ideals / society, you could claim a few things.
1) As the GPL makes work owned by the workers, not the capitalists, the capitalists are forced to contribute back to use the code. This means the workers are in control.
2) The GPL advocates itself most effectively by claiming it is morally better than closed source (ie, BSD advocates are far less MS-bashers than GPL advocates). The overall goal of the programmer becomes ego, and thus strives for the community. This is just like striving for the 'party,' where the most cheered individuals are considered the most dedicated.
3) The GPL, like communism, does not mean freedom! In actuallity, it restricts freedom or has the potential to restrict freedom. If you don't understand this, read 1984 which shows a communist society (by all definitions, although one could argue whether the workers 'rule'), which is oppressive.
Re:Go for it! (Score:3)
I'm not saying that the situation is the same as in china but I'm simply stating that you are not as free as you would like to think. Your government is pretty successful in manipulating the publics opinion. You're free to think whatever you want, the government simply tries to influence what you want by spreading their version of the truth through the media.
As for linux becoming the official OS of a communist country, I'm not surpised. The OSS model is sort of communistic itself and since it works very well it is good publicity for communism in general. Also the chinese will probably appreciate the fact that they won't be accused of illegal copying of software if they use OSS software.