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Iran: Even If Windows Is Free, Linux Is Preferred 106

Posted by timothy from the non-abdication dept.
gpwiki.org writes "Iran, a country which does not abide by international copyright law, is reportedly moving toward Linux. 'All the software in Iran is copied. There is no copyright law, so everybody uses Microsoft software freely,' said the secretary of Iran's High Informatics Council. 'But we cannot continue like this much longer.' The article suggests that a desire to enter the WTO, and Windows security issues are prime motivating factors. 'Microsoft is a national security concern.'"
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Iran: Even If Windows Is Free, Linux Is Preferred More

Iran: Even If Windows Is Free, Linux Is Preferred

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  • Security concern? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:03PM (#10304753)
    Yep, here too.

  • Iran (Score:5, Funny)

    by brilinux ( 255400 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:07PM (#10304776) Journal
    I-ran away from Windows to Linux too.
    Sorry, I have been waiting to make an "Iran" pun for a while. Carry on.

  • Just as I thought... (Score:5, Funny)

    by BladeMelbourne ( 518866 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:08PM (#10304779)
    It's just as I have been saying all along... smart people wouldn't use Windows, even if it were free...

    • Re:Just as I thought... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:29PM (#10304935)
      Just wait for the Iranian antitrust trials. Bring on the death squad!
    • There is still IMHO no games in linux. Every game comes out for linux years later. I have never seen a game released the same day for linux and windows. Of course this probably doesn't concern Iran much since I can't imagine much of a Quake or wolfenstein community there.

      • Re:It's about GAMES (Score:3, Informative)

        by Surye ( 580125 )
        http://unrealtournament.com/

        UT2K4 and UT2K3. Linux install packaged.
        Enemy Territory. released for both at the same time.

        These are so popular, it makes me wonder is you've even looked. Please keep such uneducated, uninformed remarks to a minimum. You'd hate for someone to call it FUD.
        • That's one. Now, how many other games have been released for windows but not for other platforms?
          And it's not just the games. F/OSS is fine and dandy, but people would rather just continue to use what they have become accustomed to. So, ironically, when Linux has more proprietary software available for it, more people will be likely to try it.

          • Re:It's about GAMES (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Surye ( 580125 )
            So, ironically, when Linux has more proprietary software available for it, more people will be likely to try it.

            I agreed up to this point. It's the fact that Firefox is no proprietary, and that people use it crossplatform more now that there will be comfort later. Same thing on a much smaller scale with things like OpenOffice.org. Proprietary software in Linux will not create ANY form of comfort, especially in the area's the rest of your post focuses on, which is comfort through past experience.

        • Re:It's about GAMES (Score:2, Informative)

          by tolan-b ( 230077 )
          Uh no, that's 3.

          Doom3 Linux client is expected shortly too. Quake 3 linux client came out shortly after the windows version.

          Yes there are certainly less mainstream games on Linux, but some of the biggest name ones to come out.

      • Re:It's about GAMES (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Again with the gamers. You know, computing is not all about gaming. It's about other things like: networking, development, word processing, databases, and system administration. Linux holds its own in those departments.
        • In a home with a family it is. Yes the computer may be used for homework or doing taxes and balancing the families books, but it has to do everything the family wants, and Linux fails miserably when it comes to games. It therefore doesn't do everything the family needs.
      • UT2003 and 2004 -- Linux client shipped at the same time.

        QIII -- Linux demo was out BEFORE the Win32 demo. Commercial version shipped simultaneously

        Wolfenstien -- simultaneous ship.

        NWN -- ok, this sucked. We were promised a simultaneous release, but didn't get the game till a year later.

        Doom 3 -- released last month for Win32, coming out for Linux next month. Not perfect, but not bad either.

        Yeah, Linux is not the #1 platform for games. But it has some good ones, and a lot of potential. If your #1 prior

      • Re:It's about GAMES (Score:2, Insightful)

        by jonadab ( 583620 )
        > There is still IMHO no games in linux.

        If that mattered very much, we'd all be using Amiga or DOS, not Windows.
        Windows was a *horrible* platform for games, and game developers avoided it
        for _years_ (in some cases releasing games for DOS and requiring Windows 95
        users to reboot in command-prompt mode), but eventually they had to embrace
        Win32 because it was so widespread, and they needed to sell the games to
        people who didn't know how to use DOS.

        Amiga, in contrast, was *great* for games; game developers *
      • Well, for the price of a single copy of WinXP [newegg.com] you can go buy a brand new GameCube [ebgames.com], a used Playstation2 [ebgames.com], or a used XBox [gamestop.com]. And that's comparing to the cheapest copy of XP available, an OEM Home edition. If you want a retail Pro edition [newegg.com] or a non upgrade or OEM home copy, you'd be able to add an extra controller and a game or two to that console system.

        I used to be an anti-console kinda guy, and played all my games on PC, but I switched to Linux and got a GameCube, which I have liked quite a bit. Also, from wha

    • Smart people will use whatever tool gets the job done the best and most efficient way, regardless of what anyone's personal opinion is. We all know what happens to businesses that let personal opinion dictate the choices they make.

      If your job is to set up a web server, the tools you choose will be totally different than if your job is to playtest games.

  • The WTO move is the prime incentive (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dancin_Santa ( 265275 ) <DancinSanta@gmail.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:14PM (#10304823) Journal
    Joining the WTO would require Iran to abide by internationally agreed upon IP regulations (Bourne Convention) and the impact of suddenly enforcing copyright law against its citizens would be very heavy.

    Even limiting enforcement to the government computer systems would result in significant layouts of cash to Microsoft (and other software makers). Iran is simply not in a position to make that kind of investment.

    Likewise, it is difficult to see how Microsoft could do business with the rogue nation. It is under trade sanctions by the U.S. meaning that no American company can do business there without governmental approval. Microsoft itself may not want to involve itself in the possible arming of an "enemy of the state".

    But in the end, it is laughable that the Iranian government would choose Linux over anything else. Though open source, Linux is primarily developed in the U.S. by American programmers working for American companies. Even Linus, Norwegian by heritage, now lives in comfortable quarters in Silicon Valley. Just because the code base is open does not mean that it is invulnerable to back doors. The official does seem to mention this, but the rah-rah tone of the article drowns this out. The Linux codebase, composed of hundreds of different, separate modules, is virtually incomprehensible in the whole and a full audit of the source code is essentially impossible as the code itself continues to change and 'improve'.

    China had the right idea: develop your own operating system. While this may lead to a problem of lack of software, it can also be considered an economic boon as the market itself will be created by the demands of the government.
    • to abide by internationally agreed upon IP regulations (Bourne Convention)
      I might be wrong, but I think you mean the Berne Convention [wikipedia.org]. The Bourne Convention was where countries agreed to use
      $ export EDITOR=vi
      instead of
      % setenv EDITOR vi

    • Re:The WTO move is the prime incentive (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Curtman ( 556920 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:42PM (#10304996)
      Though open source, Linux is primarily developed in the U.S. by American programmers working for American companies

      Are you insane? Are you suggesting that Iran would want to support one of the most vindictive and ruthless corporations in the world, and one of the largest sources of income for the US government who is currently on a rampage in their part of the world? Are you sharing whatever is being smoked over there?
      • No, he isn't suggesting that Iran wants to support American companies. Quite the contrary, actually. Iran doesn't want to use Microsoft Windows because it is an "evil American" company - regardless of whether or not Iranians are paying for it. So, they would rather go with another OS. The irony is, as he was pointing out, that even though Iran will not be supporting an American company, per se, the fact is that many, many of the developers in the world who contribute to Linux are Americans. So, Iran
        • I wonder if there has ever been a comprehensive study on where open source contributors live. I don't mean to turn this into a GNU -vs- Linux discussion, I think for the most part that is arguing semantics and unproductive. However "Linux" itself comprises a very very small percentage of the binary code in a typical "Linux" distro. I doubt you could conclude that the majority of contributors are Americans, although that may very well be true, I just don't have any data to conclude one way or the other.
          • I, myself, do not particularly care where Linux developers live. Notice, though, that I stated "many, many..." whereas the post states "most". I, too, did not have any statistics so I was not so bold or assuming to say "most". But, who cares? Indeed, arguing about where Linux users live is unproductive. One thing to note, however, is that Iranian officials cited "security concerns" with using Windows. **This is merely speculation**, but I am guessing that in a way it would be more beneficial to the Un
            • Indeed, arguing about where Linux users live is unproductive
              Who's arguing about it? I just don't think that Iranians or anyone else is going to abandon a technology just because a few Americans worked on it. That would be foolish.

              **This is merely speculation** ... a Microsoft-U.S. government cooperation could insert some code into future updates, service packs, and versions of Windows that would allow the government or whoever to monitor systems and gather intelligence data

              I also highly doubt t
              • Touché on all points, my friend, however...

                I just don't think that Iranians or anyone else is going to abandon a technology just because a few Americans worked on it

                "... pragmatic considerations - not least because of the irony that Iran's information technology (IT) backbone is based on software from its arch-enemy, the United States." The fact that they do not want an OS because it is American is clear. Granted, it is not the only reason, and they do in fact some very practical reasons for the
                  • America has a problem Canada's lax laws regarding pot, and Canada has a problem with drugs coming in from the U.S. It seems that the issue works both ways, and our two countries seem to be working together

                  The silliness goes much further than that. The report from the US government about our proposed legislation harshly critisizes us for being too lenient on people who grow marijuana. The truely strange thing about it, is the bill itself doubles the penalties for growing marijuana, and softens the pe

                  • It almost seems they didn't even read the thing.

                    *gasp!* Say it isn't so! :-P
                    U.S. legislatures sometimes (dare I say frequently?) vote or comment on bills within the United States that they have not read, so I find it to be of no surprise that they would not take to time to read a bill for/from any other country. reference: the U.S. Patriot Act. http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFree/SafeandFree.cfm?ID =12126&c=207 [aclu.org]

                    As for pot, I do not use the stuff; it's not my bag (pun intended). One argument, I suppo
                    • I don't know where your going with this, or where to begin with my disagreement with what you just said.
                      • The idea that people would actually keep it in their own homes is not realistic, though

                      Are you saying its unrealistic to pass laws that people will break? Why are drugs even illegal in the first place then? Marijuana has been illegal since the Marihuana Tax Act [druglibrary.org] of 1937. Do you think the current strategy is working any better today than it has in the previous 70 years? It seems to me, quite red

                    • I believe that any attempt to discriminate against people based on their political, religious, or other beliefs as far as Linux/Opensource/Free Software goes is completely wrong, and shouldn't be tolerated.

                      Who is discriminating? Once again, you failed to see the point. Allow me to refresh your memory...

                      All I am saying is that... many business professionals [would not] stop and give Linux a serious consideration because of the perception is that Iran is a nation of terrorists.

                      To put it another way, c
                    • Ooops ... I accidentally submitted the previous post (when I meant to preview) before making all necessary changes. Please bear with the obvious spelling errors and such. Thanks.
                      • Who is discriminating? Once again, you failed to see the point. Allow me to refresh your memory...
                      • All I am saying is that... many business professionals [would not] stop and give Linux a serious consideration because of the perception is that Iran is a nation of terrorists.

                      That is discrimination. Why would you think Iran is a nation of terrorists? Because you saw it on TV? Do you think that maybe when Arabs see Americans on TV calling them terrorists that they might think some pretty strange things

                    • That is discrimination... Why would you think Iran is a nation of terrorists?

                      You are still not getting the point. Perhaps I need to break it down to you further still...

                      Shortly after 9/11, I had a discussion with my wife in which we discussed that one of the things that we were afraid was going to happen was that people were going to start harassing peaceful Arabs living within our country in addition to harassing other American citizens who were of Arab decent simply because the terrorists were Arabs.
                    • Another thing that I was pointing out was that I also find it ironic that since one of Iran's considerations (although maybe not primary) was that Windows is a product of their arch-enemy, the Americans, they are switching to an OS to which is also contributed largely by Americans and was modeled after UNIX which was developed here in the country of their arch-enemy. Iranians don't want to use an American OS, and Americans don't consider anything that Iran does to be of any economic significance. The disc
                    • Perhaps I need to break it down to you further still.

                      Not at all. What you should be doing is getting on with your life. I have no idea why you've taken it upon yourself to convince me of a logical fallacy, but you will never succeed. So you should probably just walk away from this discussion, having already dragged it as far off topic as humanly possible.

                      You see, my friend

                      I'm not your friend. I've never met you, and the things I've seen you write here, I disagree with intensely. I gather you
                    • ... you won't even come right out and admit you're a bigoted racist. ... I gather you're the kind of person who believes whatever he sees on the 6 o'clock news ... you are incapable of diferentiating between the attacks on 9/11, and the war in Iraq.

                      I must have really touched a nerve with you for you to resort to being personal. Perhaps this is personal to you. I have not resorted to personal attacks, and I would appreciate the same courtesy in return.

                      First sort out who "they" are, and if in fact Amer
                    • >>Do we agree that racism and prejudice is wrong? Yes.

                      No, I don't think we do. If you said to me that we shouldn't be proud of Africa using Linux, because many business people think that black people are uneducated and poor, then I would also call you a racist. You just happen to think that way about Iranians being terrorists.

                    • ...we shouldn't be proud of Africa using Linux...

                      Ahhh... I see from where you are coming; I understand.

                      "We" as in the Linux community should be happy that others regardless of who they are (race, national origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, etc.) have chosen to migrate to Linux and to be a part of our community. I see your point, now, and I agree with you. Saying that the Linux community should not be proud of Iran's adoption of Linux is not what I was trying to say. My apologies for not makin
                    • What I was saying is that to a lot of people here in the U.S. whom I would like to see take a serious look at Linux will not consider Iran's adoption as being significant because of thier own views of Iran.

                      What's funny is that every time you make a statement about not being a racist, you qualify it by saying that we should cater to the racists. Go back and read this thread from the beginning. It would be humorous if it wasn't so disgusting. What you said was:
                      • Recent world events being what they are,
                    • Recent world events being what they are, I do not consider Iran's desire to adopt Linux to be much of anything about which that I would particularly care to cheer

                      OK I can see that, but I further clarified what I meant...

                      I am saying, though, is that considering world events, citing Iran as an ally to Linux would not be much of a boost (if anything, a negative) as to promoting Linux.

                      The key word here was promoting. Further clarification meant identifying my audience:

                      They are mostly business professio
                    • A friend of mine, and a Sailor in the U.S. Navy,

                      Perhaps you should put out your own line of children's books. Call it 'The Little Bunny Joins The KKK', or something. It could be just packed full of little stories that on the surface seem quite benign, but you could more easily defend your bigoted ideals, because nobody would be looking for them there.

                      I find your sensitivity toward seeking out racism or "the evils of society" to distract your ability fully to comprehend on an objective basis

                      Do yo
                    • You and the people who think the way you do disgust me

                      Again, case in point.

                      As a caucasian, I'm very ashamed of the attitude that so many people around me hold, and seem to take pride in.

                      I do not feel ashamed of the actions of others because my self-esteem comes from within and is not derived from the actions or beliefs of others.

                      I think you're having a problem with reality.

                      An introspectional look at yourself may suit you well.

                      My last post was my last discussion (as this is my last post in the thr
                      • my self-esteem comes from within and is not derived from the actions or beliefs of others

                      Based on your previous rants, I figured it came from watching war history movies, and going to gun shows.

                      • My last post was my last discussion

                      No it wasn't. Because you're still here.

                      • Perhaps you are one who cannot go away without having the last word. If that's the case, then have at it ... it's yours

                      Awesome. Thanks.

    • Re:The WTO move is the prime incentive (Score:5, Informative)

      by saden1 ( 581102 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @11:13PM (#10305191)
      I'm sorry but I think the Iranians have capable developers that can full and quickly grasp all the subsystems of Linux. With state funding it is not hard to get top notch developers working on their own flavor of Linux. It doesn't take a genius to manage code change either. It's a simple get latest, inspect the changes made and incorporate the change into your codebase. I would also like to point out that a large percentage of engineers in the IT field are foreign born. You underestimate the competence of the world outside your own. Might also want to note that Iran [imo.math.ca] is one the better nations in terms of mathematics even with its limited resources.

    • Re:The WTO move is the prime incentive (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Even Linus, Norwegian by heritage, now lives in comfortable quarters in Silicon Valley.

      Finnish
    • I think the prime incentive is that they are terrified that they are going to be next after Iraq and want to be seen to be joining the 'free world' of copyright enforcement, patenting, etc, in order to delay the inevitable US invasion of their country (whether economic or military).

    • Re:The WTO move is the prime incentive (Score:4, Funny)

      by kraut ( 2788 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @09:33AM (#10308168)
      I think Linus would object to being called Norwegian. Fins are funny like that ... ;)
    • Linus is Swedish, not Norwegian by heritage, and was born in Finland. Why would Iran care about the US government's trade policy anyway, when it can simply download Linux for free from any number of websites?

  • Pure Choice (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Monday September 20, 2004 @10:23PM (#10304891) Homepage
    This is almost an expirament. New users are offered a choice between two operating systems: Linux and Windows. Both are free (from their point of view). Both let you surf the internet.

    Why? Well, what keeps so many people on MS software? It's that they have old programs that they have to use. They have to access old data. They have to interface with their office that uses MS software. People are "tied down" so it's harder to move. But very few people over there are tied down the way many people here are.

    Second is security. People know Linux is relativly secure. People know about all the viruses, spyware, security holes, and other stuff on Windows. If you had no predisposition (like previous expiriance with Windows or software that needed Windows), then which would you choose?

    And of course, there is the political. As the article mentions, some people run Linux because it's not MS, which comes from the US. Some people run it out of anti-US sentiment. And they are probably some that run Linux because not because of anti-US sentiment (in the death to all Amercians sense) but because of non-US sentiment (doesn't come from the US, might be a Iranian distro which would keep money/jobs there). Same reason some EU countries are looking a SuSe or other distros, or China is trying to make their own OS (or was it Linux distrobution).

    This (and especially Iraq) will be interesting to watch, to see how new users with no/few predispositions (how many people in the US think ALL computers just run Windows, and there is nothing else?) will buy and use computers. Will they go for the standard (MS, Adobe, Macromedia, whoever), or go for underdogs that they like better or have better features (OSS, smaller companies, etc.).

    • Re:Pure Choice (Score:2, Insightful)

      by novakyu ( 636495 )
      Why? Well, what keeps so many people on MS software? It's that they have old programs that they have to use. They have to access old data. They have to interface with their office that uses MS software. People are "tied down" so it's harder to move. But very few people over there are tied down the way many people here are.

      IDK, but for most people (er, my friends in school) I know, backward-compatibility has nothing to do with why they use Windows. For one, they haven't used computer long enough, and most

      • backward-compatibility has nothing to do with why they use Windows.

        Yes they do. Those people want to view files coming to them from Windows computers, either by email or web downloads- and that's backwards compatibility. If you need to communicate with users of MS Office or anything similar, backwards-compat matters to you.

    • Re:Pure Choice (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      This (and especially Iraq) will be interesting to watch, to see how new users with no/few predispositions (how many people in the US think ALL computers just run Windows, and there is nothing else?) will buy and use computers. Will they go for the standard (MS, Adobe, Macromedia, whoever), or go for underdogs that they like better or have better features (OSS, smaller companies, etc.).

      Iraq will only be free of predispositions typical to people in the US if it will some day be able to gain sovereignity from

    • You are looking at it in a very black & white way. I run M$ because the industry standards of modelling, and animation software are on there, and I'm not willing to spend twice as much on a Mac, which I can't upgrade on my own periodically. I certainly don't want to spend 1200$USD on a piece of software, and then anothr 3500$USD on a Mac, and find that I have to spend another 3500$USD when I spend another 500$ to upgrade my software. That's just idiotic. Not to mention the waste I'd have in time waiting
  • this is NOT going to help linux' image at all...

    (ps, i know we supposedly like iran comparatively)
  • emerge sync

    emerge choice

    emerge freedom

  • Holy crap! (Score:4, Funny)

    by juggleme ( 53716 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @11:03PM (#10305137)
    Am I the only one that read that headline and wondered why Slashdot started an Iran section?

  • Interesting... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by rincebrain ( 776480 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @11:12PM (#10305176) Homepage
    This reminds me of back in the DOS and pre-DOS days, and even Win 3.x, when most software I saw around was copied. I can remember bringing bits and pieces of software home from the office to use on my computer, such as it was at the time.

    It's interesting to see how this plays out. On the one hand, we have the tried-and-tested Windows, which, from their point of view, is easier, but costs a lot of money...or Linux, which has no legal threats [ignoring, for the moment, the SCO lawsuits, certain video codecs, and other matters of similar irrelevance], but something of a porting cost, given that you'll have to train the former M$ pirates to run Linux.

    Also, it's important to note that an improperly configured Linux system is even more vulnerable than an improperly configured Windows system...after all, how many Windows systems will let you run cat /dev/zero > /dev/hda without rebooting? =)

  • No Copyright, No GPL (Score:3, Insightful)

    by superyooser ( 100462 ) on Monday September 20, 2004 @11:14PM (#10305194) Homepage Journal
    Iran, a country which does not abide by international copyright law, is reportedly moving toward Linux.

    The GPL is predicated on copyright law.

    • Which means...

      If someone in Iran starts redistributing modified GPL code in violation of the GPL, you can't go after them.

      How is that any different than the way things are now?

      Do you really see a big-time software corporation springing up out of Iran overnight selling software that, to us, looks conspicuously like Linux?

      • Which means if you only distribute your closed variant of a GPL'd project from a jurisdiction with no copyright then you are home free? Impractical, yes, today. But if the world ever does reach a point where electronic distribution of commercial software is the norm this might become more attractive to some, hardware drivers only available from *.co.ir?
        • Which means if you only distribute your closed variant of a GPL'd project from a jurisdiction with no copyright then you are home free?

          Great idea! Also, we can buy $0.05 Windows XP CD-Rs on the sidewalk in Tehran and then resell them for $99 in the USA! That'll be perfectly legal.

          Or heck, why bother going to Iran? Just sail 300 miles out into international waters, where national laws stop applying, and copy away!
    • Without copyright law, the GPL degrades to BSD or Public Domain (IANAL). Any derived work is also free of copyright. No real harm there.
    • ...did you stop at that?

      they're wishing to join several international organizations which would require them to make up a copyright law, and thus they wouldn't be able to use microsoft's products for gratis anymore, which would be the whole point in turning to gpl'd software, being able to use them for free.

  • To put Iran firmly in the Axis of Evil.
  • rm gcc-3.4.2/gcc/haifa-sched.c

  • The HIC talk campaign goes on and on.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by a.ameri ( 665846 ) on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @07:21AM (#10307033)
    The High Informatics Coucil (HIC) is an organisation which has been talking for a couple of years now, about this Open Source thing, this Linux thing, and ect, but really they haven't done anything. They even don't have a clue what they are talking about.

    I am an Iranian and I used to work for a company which was the first to start doing some Linux activities in Iran. We started by designing a keyboard layout for Persian, and when GTK 2.0 and Qt 3.0 were released and had enough Unicode support to enable us to write Persian using them, we started the FarsiKDE project http://www.farsikde.org [farsikde.org] and with the release of KDE 3.1, our small handicapped and fully underresourced team was able to add Farsi as an official language to KDE. Next step, we launched a community-driven website http://www.linuxiran.org [linuxiran.org] to help build momentum around Linux in Iran. And then, we started building our own Debian-Based distribution called Shabdix, and it even had a couple fo limited releases. (all this was done in true Open Source fashion, free in both senses).

    During all this time, the HIC did nothing to support us, althought they were fully aware of our program. The HIC is just so full of bearucracy, that it can't even decide what it wants to do, and which direction it wants to go. All they have done, with their massive resources and budget, is just publish a couple of already-available fonts as beta, and then also publish some meaningless Request For Comments to implement things that were implemented years ago (like UTF-8 support in toolkits such as Qt and GTK). They can't even decide on a standard keyboard layouy. The Persian Keyboard layout in Windows is a mess, it doesn't have comma, Persian numbers,... and the one in XFree86 is much better, but they can't even agree to use that keyboard layout. All these years, they have made many public announcements about deploying Linux systems in Iran, about how Linux is the future and blah blah, but they have yet to do a single meaningful action. And they failed to support the only group which was actually doing something and producing some actual code.

    But Of course, they need to have the PR going, cause they need to get an increase in their budget next year, and well, PR is the best way to impress lawmakers to give them the budget. And Saying 'We won't even use Windows even if it was free' is certainly going to make headlines, and keep the PR machine going. While I personaly have been to HIC, and know that even they use pirated copies of Widnows all over the place, internaly.

    Such a shame, so many resources is being wasted by this entity, for no use.

    • Well, it's called HCI, not HIC. It's called "Request for Proposals", not "Request for Comments".

      Anyway, I was among the original supporters and architects of the HCI Persian Linux ( FarsiLinux [farsilinux.org]) effort, but it's now far from under any kind of influence from me, and I don't approve most of their actions, I even agree that they don't understand the whole notion properly yet. But it has good effects, specially when they provide funds to companies who loved to work on Linux but couldn't hire good developers. Th

  • This is GREAT! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by h8macs ( 301553 )
    I am all for the exchange of ideas and a fostering of ties between communities. I would believe that the community of hackers [catb.org] would not shun the idea like our government counterparts have shunned other such opportunities.

    I for one would browse their LUG's online community site often and with interest.

  • and Iran.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Unabageler ( 669502 ) <josh@3i o . c om> on Tuesday September 21, 2004 @12:30PM (#10310296) Homepage
    I walk along the avenue,
    never thought I'd meet an OS like youuuuu
    meet an OS like youuuuu.............
    with free software and free gui
    the kind that lets me live so freee
    like speech and beer it's freee......
    and Iran, Iran so far away,
    and Iran, Iran so far away,
    linux couldn't get away.
  • Ironically, there are quite a lot of iranian websites that require this evil imperialistic US browser. Try
    Key2Persia [key2persia.com] and
    Iran Air [iranair.com]

    Niklas
  • I just listened to an extremely interesting talk on OS and Processors. The speakers were developing a 3D Desktop & collaboration environment using Small Talk (maybe one word). It's 1970's stuff, but it's got the flexibility to be tweaked in ways none of today's languages can be, including JAVA. They're not just saying Small Talk was ahead of it's time, more importantly, the time for that kind of software language is Long Long Over Due!

    If I understand it correctly, it's because of the idea of late b

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