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Linux Business

Japanese Linux Initiatives 84

Posted by michael from the nihongo-hanashimasen dept.
where_is_my_mind writes: "IBM, NEC, Fujitsu and Hitachi agreed to join forces to speed up development of Linux apps. Check it here." Another submitter sent in a Japanese story which said they were specifically working on building banking applications.
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Japanese Linux Initiatives More

Japanese Linux Initiatives

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  • When will a version of Windows be based on Unicode from top to bottom, including all of those nooks and crannies that Microsoft likes to disavow?

    To the end user, "KDE" is the distribution.
  • ...if you're lucky.

    OTOH, myself and various other WinDOS users have had all manner of troubles with every version of windows all the way up to NT5.

    Just because something was problematic on one combination of machine & Linux distro does not magically make Linux generally unsuitable for the desktop.

    There are plenty of WinDOS horror stories to counter every Linux horror that comes along. Ease of use in WinDOS is more hype than reality.

    Redmond has not yet replicated the Macintosh.
  • ...was me. The Nikkei article can be found here [nikkei.co.jp] (if you can read Japanese). It says, in a nutshell, that the four companies will be using Linux as a base for "core banking functions" such as financial calculations. The 4 companies have committed 500 engineers to the project, and they plan for it to be ready for customers by 2003. One thing stated in the print version of the article is that they intend to speed up Linux-based transaction processing.

  • Japan. (Score:3)

    by Squeeze Truck ( 2971 ) <xmsho@yahoo.com> on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @05:13PM (#188472) Homepage
    Without question.

    Linux is the #1 developed-on OS here. There are about 15 Linux magazines ib print, and most big bookstores have a Linux section.

    Not only that, many hardware components in stores have "works with linux" or "works with Turbolinux" stickers on them (if they're compliant, of course, which most are).

    Linux is not a "revolution" here. It's taken very seriously. When I take out my Linux laptop at work, the American engineers chuckle. The Japanese engineers ask me what distribution I run and wether I have the latest version of Nautilus.
  • [...]iin dayo.

    I've been wondering what this means. In the cartoons at least, it always seems to be added to the end of statements as emphasis, especially when the speaker is angry (or so my completely unscientific observation seems to be...I don't speak Japanese at all, other than a widely scattered and mostly useless handful of words and phrases. I just happened to notice this "ending" to phrases in subtitled anime one day...)

    So...what's it mean?


    ---
  • I was just speaking to some people from Hitatchi Japan about this yesterday at Linux World Tokyo.
    (Specifically, I was looking at some of their Middleware offerings.)
    It was closed-source development using Linux as the platform, though everything was named "Open - ".
    It's interesting because this is an area that is lacking in the Linux server area. When a company is spec-ing out a system, such as a trade processing system with an application server, web server and database, if some of the better alternatives are Linux-based, it opens the door to a lot of new Linux development and a lot of new jobs for Linux developers.

    Cheers,
    Jim in Tokyo

    PS - Had a quick lunch with Hemos and Taco at the conference - great guys.
    MMDC.NET [mmdc.net]

  • Re:Possible offtopic question... (Score:4)

    by KH ( 28388 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @11:41AM (#188476)
    Since I haven't lived in Japan for a long time, things may be different. But...

    I cannot say if Japan is where Linux is thriving most. Many Japanese kids who think they are into computers dream of being employed by Microsoft.

    Microsoft is so big, and Bill Gates is (was?) the richest man on the planet, therefore, it must be good, kind of logic. Japan has had a tradition to view Big Company == Good. But it's more or less present in most cultures.

    On the other hand, the Japanese have been much into technologies. Just take a look at all the gadgets a Japanese kids have. This is because anything new is viewed as good. Many think that they have to get that ``new'' stuff at any cost. Here New == Good.

    Japan at some point was where Mac had the biggest market share (~20%?). When I went to Akihabara in the summer of '97, there were huge piles of boxes of OS-2 Warp!

    Already in '93 or so, a magazine called Unix Magazine had a CD-ROM each month loaded with Slackware and FreeBSD. (Ironically, when Windows NT was getting mature, the magazine became a WinNT magazine, without changing its name. I do not know the current state of affairs.)

    As with most other countries, information from the US flows to Japan in a skewed manner. When someone reports that Linux is big in the US, then most Japanese think that everybody in the US must be using Linux. They assume that the Linux is the future. In order not to be left in the dust of the US, they think, we have to do everything to catch up. This mentality also is in the works, I assume.

    Thus, it is not that the Japanese are objectively evaluating the alternatives. But it seems to me that Linux's seemingly thriving in Japan is a combination and/or balance of all the cultural tendencies mentioned above.

    Off course the all the above are my personal view.

  • IBM gets an OS that scales from tiny embedded systems to large mainframes. They get an OS that works with IBM hardware and software, and with competitors' hardware and software. They get an OS where it is nearly impossible to get locked into and subject to the whims of a single vendor. If Linux gives IBM any advantage in the interconnections required for effective business-to-business-to-business ..., the returns make the billion dollars look like chump change.
    I don't know but I suspect that IBM is already making money from Linux, internally as a consumer, big time.

  • Oh yes! (Score:2)

    by plaa ( 29967 )
    Finally a chance to slashdot Slashdot!

    And another use for the fish [altavista.com]! Do they have carma caps there too?
  • Er, if you look in their Older Articles section you'll see it started in May 25... Good guess though.
  • If anyone cares, you can check out the translation of the site using Babelfish by going to: http://babel.altavista.com/urltrurl?lp=ja_en&url=h ttp%3A%2F%2Fslashdot.ne.jp%2F

    Not mind blowing, but would be interesting to keep an eye on... ;-)

    (Oh, and the About says it started May 28th - even though the older articles section goes back to the 25th... tsktsk)
  • It's probably broken Japanese for "I don't speak Japanese."

    You don't use "hanasu" (to speak) to describe familiarity with a language. You use "dekiru" (to be able). You should say, "Nihongo ga dekimasen," or, "I am not capable in Japanese." (lit. "[In] Japanese, [I] am not-able.")

    If they'd actually used the proper particle, "Nihongo de hanashimasen," would mean, "I am not speaking Japanese (right now)."
  • Yes and no. The most common formal way to ask someone in Japanese if they can speak it is, "Nihongo ga dekimasu ka?"

    Yes, this is a slightly shorted version of "Nihongo o hanasu koto ga dekimasu ka?" but one would never say, "Nihongo o hanashimasu ka?" or, "Nihongo o hanashimasen," because the context is somewhat ambiguous. In more informal speech, "Nihongo o hanasu?" isn't too bad since it's a colloqualism, but "Nihongo hanasimasen" is just broken grammar.

    Also, "ga" is used to refer to the objects of verbs such as "dekiru" and "aru" not too infrequently. "Ano hito ha, mondai ga arimasu ne.." (That guy has problems.)
  • Use Windows 2000.. it comes with Japanese IME and support for every language you can think of. Mmmmm unicode.. when will a Linux distribution be based on it from the kernel level?
  • MS Media Player will destroy itself of its own accord, if the transition 6.4 -> 7 is anything to go by
  • IANAJ, but I think you're on crack. 'ga' -always- indicates that the word before it is the subject of the verb. In this case, dekimasen (which doesn't have an english equivalent) is best read as the potential negative of 'suru', hence, a more literal translation of "Nihongo ga dekimasen" would be "Japanese cannot be done [by me]".

    The guy was probably referring to "Nihongo o hanashimasen" (it's easy to see who the two "o"s can combine in speech), where 'o' indicates that the preceding word is the direct object of the verb, or "[I] do not speak Japanese".

    Note: read that previous translation literally (eg. "When talking to the Chinese, I don't speak Japanese"). English usually says "I don't speak ___" idiomatically to mean "I can't speak ___", for which the 'formula' sentence would be: Nihongo o hanasu koto ga dekimasen (which is the same sentence as "____ ga dekimasen" mentioned earlier, with the adjectival phrase "Nihongo o hanasu koto" as the subject), or (rough lit.) "The thing 'to speak Japanese' cannot be done [by me]". This differs from your first sentence in that it explicitly mentions speaking, although one might say simply "Nihongo ga dekimasen" if it were already clear from context which aspect of the Japanese language you couldn't do.
  • It looks to me like "ii da yo" with a bit of nasalisation (note that your tongue is in the same place for "n" as it is for "d").

    "ii" is an adjective meaning "good", "da" means "is" here (Japanese has three different verbs (iru, aru, da) for what we use "to be" for in English), and "yo" is a particle indicating stress on the idea expressed (again, hard to translate). This use of 'da' seems idiomatic (from common use of 'da yo' in other sentences) because you wouldn't actually use it there in strictly correct grammar.

    (Now, a real Japanese speaker is probably going to feed me my post, but this is my grokkage from the textbooks :)
  • Pokemon Linux? Noooooooooooo......
    then again, it'd be a good way to get kids into it.
  • No, that's still the subject. aru is "to be", and your sentence could be literally translated as "Regarding that man: problems are."
  • Say what? I gave all three verbs in the plain form. You then said this was wrong, and gave two in the plain form and one in the polite form.

    You should either be saying "Yes, that's right", or "No, the three are imasu, arimasu and desu".
  • check out linuxfab.cx here [linuxfab.cx] (hehe linux for fobs...)

  • It's not the real thing .... (Score:3)

    by taniwha ( 70410 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @10:59AM (#188491) Homepage Journal
    No "Cowboy Neal" in the poll ....
  • The article says that IBM is prepared to dump a billion dollars into Linux development this next year... but I have to ask, how do they expect to make a return on this? Are they just doing this to get an OS to power the big servers that they're selling? I mean, a billion dollars is a lot of money to recover from an investment; I'm curious as to what their plan is.
  • It's like most wars, except this just happens to be an economic one. It's all about money. Who has it, and who wants it bad enough to take it. Any one who says war isn't based on profit (in land, material ownership, or cold hard cash) is deluding themselves.
    For the rest of the world, Microsoft is probably not only seen as a monopoly, but a US-based monopoly. Every time they buy a MS product, that money goes to the US. Sure, there's always some local technical support, and the programmers who spend their time getting items regionalized, but the majority of that investment goes into the US. All it takes is a good, long look at how much currency is leaving the country in the form of software licenses and the top men start seeing savings.
    Why should company X, Y, or Z send all that cash to the US when they can take another product and modify it to their needs. This doesn't come cheap, since they'll have to hire the programmers, managers, and whatnot required to bring the software product to market (internal or otherwise). Since Linux exists and is stable, the difficult part of creating a stable OS with the basic internet protocols is done, all they have to pay for is the program itself and whatever modifications are required to the kernel.
    Observed what's happening in Argentina. Now that the government has realized just how much it would cost to keep their machines running Windows, they've decided to switch to Linux and spend all that money to hire native programmers. I'm guessing that as we see illegal software stamped out in more 3rd world countries, these countries will move to Linux-based systems. The more prosperous countries can afford to pay the software licenses without too many problems. Still, as more and more cash goes out of their country and into the US, they'll probably think of some way (tariffs, et al) to encourage the use of alternative OSs (Linux, *BSD).
    Microsoft will probably have the US government as a big customer for a while. The 'It`s a US company' argument doesn't work, and Washington state congressmen will probably push Microsoft-friendly laws through Congress.

    There's my $0.02 for what it's worth.

  • Huh. (Score:2)

    by mattr ( 78516 )
    Huh, seems it opened May 28.

    Is this going to be a massive translation?

    It's not like there aren't any places for techies to talk online..
  • jserver is part of it, but it is not the whole
    ball of wax. RedHat Japanese comes with a bunch
    of liscensed software which you pay for in the
    purchase price, including an IME by Omron. You
    also get a lot of things in Japanese plus fonts,
    etc. It is pretty involved, there is a liscense
    server, kanji databases, fonts, AI grammar engines, links to emacs, Japanese docs, partial
    localization into Japanese of interfaces for
    programs like Gimp, etc.


    I'm running Suse (English) on this machine, but a box of RedHat Linux 6.2J on my desk says on it "Available only in Japanese", and it says it includes Just System's ATOK12. This is the best kanji front end processor around, so you want it. It also comes
    with HancomWord which is a word processor that can handle chinese, japanese, hangul (korean), and english.


    A free but apparently less powerful version is
    available of the Omron IME (Wnn6) as well.


    I think some of these are probably conflicting so you can't run all at once, but I just used this on a machine I bought in Japan which had it preinstalled. It is neat because you can type
    kanji into emacs and even vi. You need a properly equipped terminal program for that. I can type hiragana into emacs and display kanji even now in plain vanilla emacs as installed with SuSE (a couple of versions ago). But you may run into differences between emacs and XEmacs setup, available fonts, and so on.


    Laser5 Linux has a lot of Japanese centric things
    in its distro as well.


    There is also something called PJE (which I have had a huge amount of trouble installing in the past) which supposedly is a full Japanese localized suite of tools and support files. It probably would install automatically on a RedHat kind of box but would be far inferior to what you get with RedHat Linux Japanese. Check out www.rehat.com/jp/ and maybe you can get a manifest and build and environment of your own out of the free components, based on noncommercial Wnn.(v4 I believe). But it is probably worth trying to get the ATOK12 package since it will not let you make as many errors in kanji. For example the kanji engine SuSE has hooked up to emacs in suse 6.1 is completely clueless and so you get a ton of characters to sift through all the time.

  • I think you meant engrish.com [engrish.com].

    HTH.
  • VA Linux Japan quietly started "Slashdot Japan!

    I can't read your crazy moon language!

    love,
    -carl
  • "Also feeding into the effort to get Linux to work on larger systems is continuing work on software IBM released in January that lets programs run several tasks simultaneously under a process called 'multithreading.'"
  • A little reformatting of the "Geeko" should make it look sufficiently like Godzilla.

  • Srashdot? Rinux?

    My head hurts...

  • You know, I hear all the time how this and that business teamed in effort to bring more Linux apps, but I somehow fail to see the apps comming from these efforts. Do you remember the famous Gnome foundation, it was a lot of hype and did it actually help Gnome? Not much. Maybe it will, but... my point is that when you see some Linux apps, there is usually single developer behind them or team of 4-5 excited programmers doing it on their spare time. Somehow it seems to me that multi-million corporations should be able to do more than I could see so far.
  • RedHat 7.1 (standard English version) now includes good Japanese support. If at install time you select Japanese as one of your languages, and then also install XEmacs (use select indivudual packages in the installation), you can use WNN to write in Japanese in XEmacs (for email etc.) without doing anything else! (In XEmacs do Ctrl-\ then type japanese-egg-wnn) This is a vast improvement on previous installations where I always had to recompile XEmacs with Mule support and then install WNN separately to get it to work.
  • "Amanda" is pronounced "A man, duh!".

    --

  • There IS an "l" sound. What's written "r" sounds like an "l". This is because the system of using english characters to represent Japanese was created by some Dutch guy, I believe. So "Linux" is pronouced "linakkusu" in Japanese.

  • how would you translate:

    nihongo de hanasemasen

    perhaps: I cannot speak in japanese right at the moment...

  • i cant wait to see if they put up a good community devolopment page. Its would be very cool to help with something as higlevel and specified as a banking app

    This is also a time that the open source will be put to the test. will questionable bastards steal mass ammounts of code? I think i will steal the code call it by my own name, make a pretty box, featuring prominently a label showing exactly who I stole it from. It's called a Garage MBA.
    ______

  • What countries and cultures is Linux thriving most in?

    There's probably enough discussion to be had on this topic to fill a full "article". So write it up and submit it.

    TheFrood

  • Under the licensing terms of Linux, it's very easy to share improvements to the Unix-like operating system but legally impossible to make it into a proprietary product such as the competing Microsoft Windows. This arrangement has underlain the growing cooperative effort among numerous companies to collectively improve Linux.

    Linux works for whoever wants to work with it. I think this article dances around the idea that big business doesn't care for the MS tax any more than the home user when a viable alternative is avaliable. If many businesses come together to improve Linux, then they can provide their own solutions on their own terms without having to always deal with a third party (namely MS). This is what it's all about, innovation that benefits everyone and not just the vendor.

    Big business is in it to make money sure enough, but if operating systems isn't their cash cow, why not use something free to all?

  • ooooh impressive.
  • is a media player that can compete with Microsoft's Media Player.
  • Animated Tentacle Pr0n generator v 2.0

    And a slew of imitators...

    And you thought there were too many WINDOW MANAGERS...
  • How is this a troll? Tentacle pr0n has been a part of Japanese culture for ages. Given the Slashdotian interest in warped pr0n like that, it seems like a perfect match of interests. I wish I had a dollar for every time there was some Elfin-half-human-half wombat three quarters naked anime bondage tentacle pr0n chick on some slash-geek page.
  • Guess it would be pretty easy to get a FP there.

    :D

  • Fry's Linux Technology Center has 200 programmers working full-time to improve Linux, and he estimates 10 times that number are working within the company on Linux when other activities such as sales or server design are included.

    Fry's has a Linux Technology Center?!


    More importantly, They have 200 linux developers yet only 30 total customer service rep's spread amongst all their locations? :)
  • Fry's Linux Technology Center has 200 programmers working full-time to improve Linux, and he estimates 10 times that number are working within the company on Linux when other activities such as sales or server design are included.

    Fry's has a Linux Technology Center?!
    --

  • Tux to appear in his very own Anime (Score:5)

    by tenzig_112 ( 213387 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @11:15AM (#188516) Homepage

    Tux will spend half a season as a character on the ever-popular Pokemon before spinning off into his own show. Special Powers: Stability, Scalability.

    As Ash shouts out "I chose you, Tux," the tiny penguin grows to the size of a house and attacks his opponent with the grace of a ballet dancer.

    The promotional poster for the show features the penguin chomping down on some sushi with the caption, "I always did like raw fish."

    In other news Greorge Comes to Play at Gray's House [ridiculopathy.com]


  • Wow...you mean Slashdot slashdotted Slashdot? Cool!!

  • First and foremost, Microsoft is NOT company with banking software. Fujitsu and Hitachi Data Systems are well known for many years of manufacturing Minicomputer and Mainframe hardware, as well as providing package software. Comparing Linux OS Banking systems to any offering from Microsoft is apples and orangatans. Not that you couldn't build a banking system from Microsoft tools. I'd be happy to crack^H^H^H^H^Hintereact with your very secure financial system, just before my premature retirement in Rio. ;-)

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Repeat of the 70's? (Score:4)

    by ackthpt ( 218170 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @11:03AM (#188519) Homepage Journal
    Ok, so Linux struggles a bit, particularly with the current downturn in the markets and some projects losing funding.

    It would be another great irony if Japan does for Linux what it did for the automobile industry. Imagine a sleak, efficient little OS, well supported out of Japan, competing on equal footing with bloated and proprietary WinXP. Wouldn't surprise me in the least.

    --
    All your .sig are belong to us!

  • Possible offtopic question... (Score:4)

    by wrinkledshirt ( 228541 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @10:46AM (#188520) Homepage
    What countries and cultures is Linux thriving most in? It seems like there are some societies who would be more predisposed to liking and accepting Linux. Because Microsoft is such a huge company in North America, it's hard to avoid the debate of the benefits of free software vs. proprietary (this is the stage where they fight you (and then you win ;)), whereas other countries and cultures might have a more objective view of the benefits and costs of one over the other.

    Just curious. I'd actually be interested in hearing pro-Microsoft sentiment coming from other countries -- if for no other reason than novelty.

  • Patience, Grasshopper. It takes time to do these things. I'm willing to bet the majority of the announcements of which you speak came out in the last 6 months to 1 year. Rome was not built in a day.

    LEXX

  • Speaking of Japanese Linux Initiatives (Score:4)

    by iomud ( 241310 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2001 @10:52AM (#188522) Homepage Journal
    VA Linux Japan [valinux.co.jp] quietly started "Slashdot Japan [slashdot.ne.jp]!
  • The article says that IBM is prepared to dump a billion dollars into Linux development this next year... but I have to ask, how do they expect to make a return on this?

    IBM sells hardware and Wintel is really making life hard for them. IBM used to be the "all in one solution" but that spot is now Microsofts and Microsoft does not play nicely with others. IBM is hoping Linux will take off big because it will give IBM a lot of opportunities to sell hardware and thier bussiness solutions software. If Microsoft continues to creep into everything, SQL server will replace DB2; Outlook will replace Lotus Notes; IBM servers will be replaced with NT servers. IBM makes some of the best bussiness solutions you can buy but they are affraid of the day when people say "but it is not compatible with Windows". At one time, Word Perfect was the best word processor, Lotus 123 was the best spread sheet, Quatro Pro was the best personal database, Borland made the best developement software, Corel Draw was everywhere and Netscape was the number one browser. Microsoft squeezed them all out with predetory bussiness tactics and this makes IBMers sleep badly at night. In the past, Microsoft products were not trusted with any serious "Bussiness Logic" but in the last few years, that has changed and IBM is concerned! That is why IBM has joined the "grass roots" movement of Linux. With Linux, IBM is hoping to thwart MS's progress to monopolizing the "low end" server market. If that happens, the writing will be on the walls for IBM's survival.
  • When was Quattro Pro (correct spelling) a database? AFAIK (and I own a copy!) it is a spreadsheet, originally designed to compete with Lotus 1-2-3. The database was Paradox.

    You are right! Thank you for the correction.
  • I am very anxiously awaiting Japanese development for Linux. The reason? Japanese IME under Windows is my last hold-out for using Windows right now. Since I need to use Japanese language stuff and Windows offers the IME, I use Win98ja. If Linux had that level of useability available now, I'd reload my laptop with Linux right away.

    I am not really up on the progress of Japanese IME support under Linux and chances are that documentation surrounding that information is not in English. So if anyone reading this message can comment about the current state of things, I'd be very interested in knowing about that.

    In the Latest RedHat, I have noticed that when I indicate Japanese as a supported language on my install that a daemon called "jserver" is run and as near as I can tell, it is a server for IME information but as yet, I don't have a clue how to access it... clues anyone?

  • Here is a really traditional century-old company with an ultra-heavy bureaucratic infrastructure and yet, they are truely supporting and embracing free software. Interresting to notice that one can still teach an old dog some new tricks, but one cannot remove the gates around Bill's newfound "read my sources, but don't touch" openness. Quote of the day: When customers complain that the Linux development process doesn't have formal enough timetables, "We tell them you'll have to get used to it,"

  • Maybe not used to much trafic. Appears to be Slashdotted now.
  • Team Rocket tried to use their XP Pokemon against Ash's Tux Pokemon but failed midserably. They have decided to give up trying to get his Pikachu and are instead searching for the fabled BSDemon Pokemon. Little do they know that Tux Pokemon and BSDemon Pokemon actually combine to evolve into MEGAStation. MEGAStation could see the inate evilness of Team Rocket and disposed of them, at least for another episode.

    Ash decides to let MEGAStation go free to wander the earth, making it a safer place for all.
  • Instead of analyzing the memory state at the advent of a crash, has anyone worked on a functional kernel debugger for Linux? It would seem to me much more useful to see the memory state relative to the offending code.

    Not that this has anything to do with coding Linux in Japan. I'm sure they can come up with some interesting new ideas, some new programming languages are spawning there (e.g. Ruby).

    Dancin Santa
  • Thanks, I'll check it out when it's not slashdotted.

    Dancin Santa
  • Urusai naa!..

    Nihonjin ga kakanakatta kara iin dayo.

    Odoroiteru Santa
  • iin dayo

    Literally it means "it's okay". But you were correct in your assumption that it is used to indicate anger or intolerance of someone else's opinion.

    "I think he shouldn't have used that Japanese phrase."

    "Shut up. iin dayo"

    Japanese is full of little phrases where emphasis on certain words really changes the meaning or spirit of the phrase.

    Dancin Santa
  • I think that IBM wants to go back the old business model where the hardware is the main product rather than the software. This could do nothing but help them sell more servers.
  • Why do you treat open source projects like close sourced ones? If we all sat around and shouted "if only..." about Linux then nothing would happen. So, ditch win98ja and make your name by contributing to making Linux useful for more people.

    BTW, Have you tried http://tlug.linux.or.jp/index.html?
  • At one time, Word Perfect was the best word processor, Lotus 123 was the best spread sheet, Quatro Pro was the best personal database

    When was Quattro Pro (correct spelling) a database? AFAIK (and I own a copy!) it is a spreadsheet, originally designed to compete with Lotus 1-2-3. The database was Paradox.

  • This really has to have the folks in redmond a little concerned, all of their biggest competitors seem to have found a common ground on which to build a serious threat to Windows (especially in the server and embedded spaces). Personally, I think that this can only be a good thing, and with all of it flying the GPL flag, and under the direction of the kernel group, a UNIX style fork can be avoided. No company can make it theirs exclusively. It's also kinda cool to hear IBM say they will spend 1 billion on linux development, that's almost a Microsoft R&D budget.
  • IBM has a press release to proclaim they are sharing information about an open source product.

    hmm...
  • how 'bout
    Nihongo Dekinai
    among friends?
  • We've heard of plenty other ventures from big corps shouting "we're going to invest in Linux big time". Nothing usually pans out. At least nothing that the community can really respect or enjoy. However, this case could be different. Consider how Sony reacted to the petition to get Linux ported to the PSX2. They didn't say, "oh, we'll that's something we may consider." They just went ahead and did it after a big show of support from the crowd. Even if they're not making "fun" applications (banking software :), this could be a honest, guine, injection of life that open source software could greatly benefit from. The only downside I see is more corporate involvement. *shrug*
  • I don't trust a company that makes these puppies [oursextoys.com]. Though I imagine the uptime will be amazing if they could run linux on it.

    --
  • On the other hand, the Japanese have been much into technologies. Just take a look at all the gadgets a Japanese kids have. This is because anything new is viewed as good. Many think that they have to get that ``new'' stuff at any cost. Here New == Good.

    It's a shame that isn't the case here in the US of A. The whole New == Good attitude pretty much fits my mind quite nicely (when it comes to gadgetry anyway). The typical American wants some damn thing with a 3 year warranty and crumb catchers...and because of that we're basically stuck with electronics that are 3-6 (or more!) years behind the times. It's pathetic.

    I want more cool gadgets sooner, and I don't want to have to travel to Hong Kong or Taiwan every year to stock up on the latest and greatest Japanese technology.

    --

  • From what I know, Linux is actually rather big in third world countries, on account of the cost, probably, the argument `paying an experienced systems administrator for a whole year costs more than your Microsoft License' doesn't quite hold true there. Avg. yearly wage in Asia would be around USD 500 (less, probably)- that's less than the cost of one MS license. So you spend that money on hiring someone to learn linux, and in the future you'll have an experienced sysadmin in linux and subsequent OS-updates are fre.

    Then there's the small matter of universities in these countries being underfunded, so a free OS on which to teach their students is a great thing, resulting in college graduates having more knowledge of free Linux than MS

    Those of you who use SuSe (but it might be true for other distro's as well, i don't know) might rememember that the installation languages you can choose from include, besides English and German, an unlikely language such as Indonesian ... there's got to be a reason for that.

  • be it for media or otherwise. it took me hours to set up a relatively common SBLive under SuSe. Now I'm an idiot, I like doing that. Most people don't. WinMediaPlayer works out of the box (usually). They win. 3D-cards work out of the box as soon as you pop in the driver cd-rom. All games (well, most) will thencefort operate within the blink of an eye. If linux can't provide this ease of use, forget it as a desktop OS.

    Which isn't necessarily bad.
  • There are plenty of WinDOS horror stories to counter every Linux horror that comes along.

    That's something a lot of Linux advocates have been saying for a long time, and it simply isn't true. Most hardware works like a snap under Windows. It simply does. Hardly surprising, because Windows is the predominant platform, so it makes sense that a manufacturer will at least make sure Windows-users can get their device to work. Of course there always are exceptions, and, yes, when you have a problem with Windows, it's much harder to fix than when you have a similar problem with Linux. That is to say - if you know what you're doing and you're an experienced UNIX-sysadmin, Linux-problems can be solved, usually. Not so with Windows. There, it either works (most of the time) or it doesn't and you have to reinstall Windows after throwing the offending piece of hardware out.
  • please do not Slashdot Japan.

    thanks,
    japan
  • Think I'd mod this post up

    My mom always asks me (since I'm the supposid computer "expert") why China seems to pirate so much software. [I think she read that somewhere] It seems obvious to me since generally I imagine that Windows would be extremely expensive to the average Chinese person who probably makes (quite a bit) less than the average American. Well that's going out on a limb since I truely can't say for sure, but I know when I was in Korea that I don't think I saw a single lagit CD that wasn't burned somewhere (maybe I don't shop at the right places either, I don't know). It seems to me that countries such as this would be the perfect breeding ground for Linux - where getting the hardware probably isn't so much of a problem, but getting an OS and software is due to the cost. I imagine if Microsoft really was going after people in these countries it would strengthen the position of Linux.
  • Um... so reading this article the most visible app I could see that they were talking about was something that could analyze core dumps, I certainly hope this isn't the new killer app for linux. I mean what Linux needs over anything else is a good office suite of some sort, and it didn't seem like anything of that sort was coming off in this deal. If IBM wants to help Linux along why don't they print off a bunch of propaganda about how Sun Microsystems sucks because Star Office is Sooooo slow. Maybe give Sun a kick in the ass to get Star Office moving in the right direction.

    I mean I like Star Office and all, I just have a hard time using it because I tend to fall asleep waiting for it to load.
  • I am from Bulgaria and I know that a lot of people in my country are at least starting to seriously consider Linux (possibly other Free OSs). Of course, there is a strong geek culture there too (I am currently in the US) but the main reason why people would want to run Linux is that "free as in beer" part. As almost everywhere in the world, all the ordinary user sees is Microsoft's OSs. Computers were sold with pre-installed Windows. However, most of these copies of Windows were illegal and people would only pay for the hardware. This was mainly due to the economic situation (average monthly salary is ~$100USD) -- no one was able to buy the software legally. As a result, people got used to the idea of "free" software. Things used to be like that for a while. Although the computer shops were breaking the law, no one would go after them since this required a lot of time and money and there were many more urgent priorities on a national level. The situation changed since Microsoft took to what they do best: started going after the companies. Yes, the government may not have enough money but Microsoft surely do. I have friends who own a computer shop and they stopped installing Windows on the computers they sold. It is still very easy to find a "free" copy of Windows but in the mean time small companies that need to use software for their work have turned to look for another alternatives. And that is how they are learning about Linux. Granted, it is for purely economic reasons but I guess at some point people will start to see the other positive aspects of Open Source/Free Software. I guess Microsoft did us a great favor after all.
  • I wonder if it was just a loose tranlastion and they ment ERP software. I know that IBM has a partnership with SAP now (SAP's preferred database is now DB2), and with SAP making it's own sapdb code open source [slashdot.org], as well as offering Linux demos of their software [sap.com]. Makes me wonder if IBM (et al) are going to make a run at Oracle and M$ for ERP dominance using some sort of new Red Hat [slashdot.org] platform.
    -------
    All words in this post are just words. Any resemblance to actual phrases was unintentional.
  • Just curious. I'd actually be interested in hearing pro-Microsoft sentiment coming from other countries -- if for no other reason than novelty.

    I don't know about you but in some third world countries, ethiopia, cambodia, china, etc. People have to actually work *year(s)* just to be able to afford a copy of Winnt. I'm sure these countries are definately not pro-microsoft.
    ----
  • "Nihongo hanashimasen" would be more accurately translated as "I don't talk Japanese". "I don't speak Japanese" should be "Nihongo shaberemasen".

    On the other hand "Nihongo hanashimasen" would be more convincing as the some what off phrasing would coincide with the actual intent. "Me no English" is more convincing that "I don't speak or comprehend a word of English", isn't it?
  • I've got one of these bad boys sitting under my TV. I can't wait to get Linux running on it so I can add it to my Network. Better than any web TV!

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