How Microsoft Beat Linux In China 313
kripkenstein notes an analysis up on TechRepublic detailing how Microsoft beat Linux in China, and the consequences of that victory: "With the soon-to-be largest economy standardized on Windows desktops, desktop Linux does seem to have an uphill battle ahead of it." "Linux has turned out to be little more than a key bargaining chip in a high stakes game of commerce between the Chinese government and the world's largest software maker... The fact that... Linux failed to gain a major foothold in China is yet another blow to desktop Linux. After nearly eight years of being on the verge of a breakthrough, Linux seems more destined than ever to be a force in the server room but little more than a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop."
Uphill battle (Score:5, Insightful)
It's always been like this (Score:2, Insightful)
That is exactly the problem with Linux. It's always almost ready dor the desktop. And it will always stay that way as long as there isn't a standard interface and and a good office suite that does MS'
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:It's always been like this (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:What battle? (Score:4, Insightful)
Trusted Computing (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese government wishes to control the use of the Internet and of computers. The Linux community is hardly likely to help China take control of computers away from the users. But with Trusted Computing, Microsoft may be able to offer exactly that capability.
For a government concerned about control, Microsoft's obvious motivations (control and profit) may be both more familiar, more predictable - and because Microsoft is centralized, mor tractable. This in comparison to the diverse coalition of interests making up the free and open source community.
$100... less than $3; how China beat MS with Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not So Fast (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, come on. Just as those who have been proclaiming, the past few years, that whatever year it happened to be would be the year of Linux on the desktop were to early to proclaim victory, this is a bit too early to proclaim defeat.
I seem to recall something about one of the world's largest PC vendors starting to ship systems with Linux pre-installed. Does that sound like "a narrow niche and an anomaly on the desktop"? To me, it sounds more like one step on the road to being a recognized and respected operating system.
Uhm... (Score:5, Insightful)
victory with china???? (Score:3, Insightful)
But for this to be promoted as Victory of MS vs. Linux. Certainly it is a hype, as GNU/linux continues to replace Microsoft products in governments around the world. Before GNU/Linux what was the option?
Sooooo, in the bigger picture, MS has been down graded from a sure thing, only option, to a need to announce and amplify the announcement of victory over the competition in specific cases.
You will not find MS announcing competitors victory over them and maybe not even teh same level of media coverage.
The fact that it took the open source software development model to create competition for microsoft, where all other MS competitors business models failed, says a lot as to what to expect of the future of open source software.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Microsoft didn't kill that hateful environment. Unix (and I suppose some others) did. Remember the term "Open systems" from the early 1980s? It was the reaction to the situation you describe.
That too, wasn't Microsoft, but Unix and others. Heck, even the microcomputers of the mid-1980s had serious operating systems like AmigaDOS, RiscOS, Unix dialects ...
Is your beard really gray?
Good Old Favoritism (Score:3, Insightful)
So it was good old favoritism. Buy a can of politicians, get one nation free!
This is why those with power should be watched and their use of said power closely scrutinized. Of course, there's no such thing going on in China.
Re:It's always been like this (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of the "not ready for the desktop" stuff people talk about is a bunch of red herrings. What's missing is not technical capabilities in the kernel, UI slickness in the applications, or games but the massive entrenchment that Microsoft relies on to make Windows look magical: OEM installs, reliable drivers provided by hardware vendors, and a decade of user familiarity. No amount of work on applications or task schedulers will ever begin to address those issues. Linux-on-the-desktop fans should look for ways around those problems instead of obsessing over programming.
To put it more concisely: Slashdotters are programmers; programming is the hammer; widespread desktop adoption of Linux is the problem; and no, it is not a nail.
Re:Big Picture (Score:4, Insightful)
1) The China regime gets a monopoly, not Microsoft.
2) Payment to Microsoft doesn't go the USA. It goes to Microsoft's investments and business in China. China (or any other country) isn't going to to pay another country for bits that can be copied for free, unless they get something back.
To me it's quite obvious that the Chinese regime clearly has seen the problem with free software that would make public control much harder. Now they just have to call MS and say "Hey, people are using bittorrent to download porn!" and it will be fixed in the next update.
Well, that's a slap in the face! (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's the fairness in that? Why the preferrential treatment? Are we rewarding criminals now?
Pffft!
What stupid hype. Vista is a Failure. (Score:1, Insightful)
Does anyone really think China will allow their citizens to use a free OS? Does Bill Gates really think Communist China will make a good paying customer?
Meanwhile back in reality, instead of conquering the world and prospering, M$ is in deep trouble.
With less than 1% of China's population on line, it's a little early to be taking "victory laps". Communists have glad handled western celebrities forever, so there's really nothing new or special about China's treatment of Gates. Fears of US spying have not gone anywhere, nor have issues of cost and reliability.
Bill Gates can hobnob with tyrants all day [slashdot.org], what he needs to worry about is acceptance in his own back yard. Vista and Office 2007 have made no difference to M$ or anyone else's bottom line [slashdot.org].
I don't care if windows beats GNU/linux (Score:1, Insightful)
The only thing that matters is that I can use an OS without restriction.
The only thing that matters is that ANYONE can use an OS without restriction.
This is the only thing that free software does better than any other proprietary system out there.
Even if GNU/Linux is dropped like a hot potato that's ok because free software
will still get made by poeple who do it for the love of it.
Using a computer is a human right not a privlege.
Re:Uphill battle (Score:2, Insightful)
Don't believe the Windows FUD!
Game Over, Microsoft!
Re:It's always been like this (Score:3, Insightful)
We would also need Allen Bradley's and Modicon's PLC programming software to be ported over to Linux, Autocad (or something very similar), and Apollo root cause analysis software, and the ATR incident tracking system, as well as the 7i maintenance planning/inventory software, (web-based so it would easy except for the Active-X controls), our LIMS system, and I haven't even touched what the bean-counters in the corporate building might use.
We still have an AS-400, even though IS would love to replace it with SQL Server, but it apparently can't be replaced by only one SQL Server; it would need several, and that has saved it for now.
Getting Bill's virus-ware out of the system would take at least 20 years. It's not happening, as much as I would like it to. All the Linux community can do is convert the new startups, who are usually cash poor, to Linux from the start. As the new companies begin to grow, a market will develop that eventually will get the above list ported over, or create replacements for that software. Eventually the cost advantage of open source can win, but it will not be a fast transition.
Re:The Problems w/ Desktop Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Gross oversimplification. The real difficulty is what happens after one of the applications is closed. This post explains how the Windows clipboard works: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/desktop-devel-list/ 2003-September/msg00257.html [gnome.org]
That's a bit of an odd thing to say. Applications on all OSes are developed somewhat independently of each other; that's what makes them individual applications. They aren't developed entirely independently of each other, otherwise they plain wouldn't work. They make use of each other's APIs, they talk to each other, they collaborate and depend on each other. A lot of apps on Linux tend to cooperate very well considering that they are developed pretty much all by third parties. 3rd party applications in Windows tend to be pretty bad for cooperation with each other and the OS in general... they tend to try and all compete for the user's attention in a highly uncoordinated way.
Copy and pasting from Excel into Word works fine. As does copy and pasting from OOo Calc into OOo Writer. This covers 95% of use cases. I wonder, though, how well things like Lotus 1-2-3 or Gnumeric/Win32 works when copying into Microsoft Word... I don't know, I've never tried... but I do know that a lot of the cooperation between Microsoft Office and third party applications isn't because of their solid foundation on standards, but rather because support has been hacked into the application. There may well be standards, but Microsoft in particular seem to be pretty good at diverging from even their own standards. Admittedly, clipboard is a bit of a soft spot
There is lots of session/system communication in Linux, all for different purposes and with different ideas. Many are agreed upon and collaborated with. DBUS is one.
You've fudged an awful lot of information here....
It is true that NFSv3 works this way, but it is also true that NFSv3 should only be used on trusted networks. This is nothing to do with filesystem security being at the OS level. It's true that this is the case, but that's nothing to do with the fact that being root allows you to behave as root on other computers... this is purely the way that NFS is implemented. Filesystem security should be at the OS level... that's merely how applications interact with the filesystem. Applications mediate the network access to filesystems, so if they're running as root and allow external users to access as root, it's their fault. NFSv4 fixes a lot of these flaws.
Samba/SMB/CIFS (or indeed AFS, DFS, or many of the other network filesystems) do not have this problem whatsoever. They work exactly the same as Windows File Sharing and in the case of Samba, is completely cross compatible with Windows.
I don't think it will ever be, and I think this is the idea of NFS. I don't think NFS was ever meant to be "just
Okay. Want the truth? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's usually done through third parties that are hired and given a large operational budget.
Linux may be better for China but Microsoft money is better for some key officials.
And that folks is the way it works.
Re:It's always been like this (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't understand why you see a "problem with Linux." Success for Linux isn't measured in "market share" or whether the Chinese government (a shining example of rational decision making if there ever was one) decides to standardize on pirated copies of Windows. It's very existence is it's "success." The fact that I have a choice to run a stable, powerful, free OS that just lets me get work done is it's success.
People who let the chair-throwers at Microsoft dictate the terms of what would be "success" for Linux are just playing in to their hands. We don't have to worry about bad decisions being made to appease shareholders, or unnecessary, expensive updates being forced down our throats. Don't like what Red Hat is doing? Try another distro. The ability to make such a choice is the success that free software represents.
Regardless of whether Microsoft continues to grow and dominate or dies from it's inability to actually create useful, innovative software that - given other choices - people would actually want to use, there will be hackers banging out free software for all the reasons hackers have done so in the past. And users who value choice will benefit from the efforts of those hackers. Those who prefer to stick with the status quo will choose to do that.
And that choice is success for Linux, and GNU and free software in general.
Slow down, cowboy! (Score:5, Insightful)
Whoa, Nelly! This article - and the discussion here - is rife with untested assumptions. Let's establish a bit of context here before going too far.
Microsoft beat Linux? That most certainly is how Microsoft sees the situation. But their entire ethos is of conquest, control and coercion. None of these apply to Linux. While it's true that some have used Linux as a tool to gain leverage with Microsoft, Linux as an operating system has no goal, except to be good at what it does. Unlike Microsoft, Linux is not controlled by any single actor, or even by a like-minded group of actors.
Linux doesn't fight Microsoft (though MS does fight Linux and FOSS in general). It just keeps improving for its own sake and for the sake of its users. If that has detrimental effects on Microsoft's control of the operating systems market - and it does - well, that is nothing more than a collateral benefit.
So, from Microsoft's perspective, maybe they did 'beat' Linux, but even that defeat isn't complete or permanent. When China donates PCs to its development partners, what OS does it ship? Linux. Is Red Flag dead and buried? No. Is China dependant on Microsoft for its IT infrastructure? Hardly.
What price victory? A more honest evaluation of the circumstances of China's decision to accept Microsoft at all shows that Microsoft's 'victory' may be more pyrrhic than anything. With trademark deftness, China has largely de-fanged one of the most effective and brutal corporate negotiating teams in the world. This is the corporation that managed to buy off the US government and avoid any real punishment following its conviction for abuse of monopoly powers. It's the company that has consistently and rather successfully thumbed its nose at the European Union, the largest economic entity in the world today. It has controlled standards processes, locked in countless corporations and ruthlessly dominated the supply chain world-wide.
Yet Chinese negotiators got everything they asked for. Price reductions? They pay about 10% of what other governments do per seat. Control? They not only have access to the source code, they have to right to alter it to suit their purposes.
Think about what that means to the Chinese. In economic, political and strategic terms, they've negotiated unprecedented access to an invaluable resource, and they've done it in a way that costs them next to nothing. Truth be told, Microsoft got almost nothing out of this deal. China still uses Linux whenever and wherever it wants.
A deal that would make Stallman laugh. If we think about the Four Freedoms that underlie the GPL, the same four freedoms for which Richard Stallman and the FSF have fought so desperately to support and preserve, the same freedoms that are so perfectly antithetical to everything that Microsoft stands for... these are exactly the freedoms that China has preserved in its deal with Microsoft.
Let's be honest here: Microsoft may have won the battle, but only by utterly compromising itself and its future in China. They have placed themselves in a virtually abject position vis à vis China. Happily, the Chinese know enough about loss of face to ensure that they never rub this in Gates' face.
Bottom line: This is not a Linux/Microsoft story. Linux is a bit player in this story, a Rosencrantz to Microsoft's Hamlet. The real story is how China managed to pull a classic con on one of the toughest negotiating teams in the corporate world, and how they did it so well that Microsoft keeps coming back for more.
Re:Good Old Favoritism (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, favoritism is a big thing, guanxi has to be built. But that's just about the same everywhere, including the US (what do you think those lobbyists do in DC?), it just seems more obvious in China.
However, you have to give Microsoft credit for doing their homework, they invested in building that guanxi. Where are RH, Ubuntu, Suse, Mandriva, and the gang? I don't see any. They don't even have an office here. Microsoft learned the rules of the game in the US, that's why they have a huge lobbying budget in DC now. And I think they are playing the rules pretty well in China.
If the Linux distros want to have a piece of the cake, they just have to be here. Go ask Motorola, Nokia, GM, Ford, KFC, McDonald... they set up shop here, and now, their chinese division is making tons of money, and has the highest growth rate in the whole entity.
Re:Give Linux a good Chinese input method, first. (Score:1, Insightful)
Instead i am tyring to find a way to purchse Simplified Chinese XP from within north america (not an easy task, called MSFT and was told by sales they dont have such a product if you can believe that).
i think its about time people recognize sometimes windows is better, and that in general, people should work on improving linux instead of this near-constant anti-microsoft rants this board has become. While most of you sit here rantnig about MSFT, they are probably building new products and impvoving things. Im not a fan of MSFT, they are a simply a company with a product, but i am able to admit some products they have are damm good at what they do (One Note comes to mind).
Linux has been ready for the desktop for years. (Score:3, Insightful)
So, the reality is that Linux on the desktop is growing at 20% per annum in the commercial market which lags the personal/free market by a large margin. M$ had to cut its price to $3 just to stay competitive. That is all Linux needs, to be allowed to compete on price and performance. For years, M$ has had a free ride. That is soon stopping. Get used to it. It is doubtful that Linux will KO M$ because some will always want to pay too much or be swayed by sales campaigns , but M$ will fall into the pack with realistic prices and market shares. Remember the glory days of the Soviet Union, when every election resulted in the landslide for a single candidate of the party's choosing? Those days are gone forever in Russia and they will soon be gone for M$.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Slow down, cowboy! (Score:1, Insightful)
Microsoft's goal (as always) is to get people hooked. Once your documents are all in Microsoft format, once your hundreds of millions of users are trained in nothing but Microsoft software and once your entire IT industry is locked into the treadmill of Microsoft certifications sheer momentum ensures that unless the company starts publicly executing cute children there is no getting off the train. To reach this point MS will happily let China have whatever it wants -- for now and for years to come.
MS will bleed red ink with a smile as long as it furthers their goals of future market domination. Just look at the console market if you want to know how far they'll go. Millions down the toilet and no end in sight.
Re:Slow down, cowboy! (Score:1, Insightful)
I'd add that the recent crackdown on piracy of Microsoft software in China has given Microsoft another very questionable victory. Many Chinese were able to get free, or extremely cheap copies of Windows and office. Now that piracy might be a bit more difficult, people who have much less cash than Americans will be forced to consider other free choices, namely Linux. Personally, I was very happy to hear of the piracy crackdown, as I firmly believe it will benefit Linux.
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, I actually would agree with you that there is less money in open source software. However, I think this indicates not a failing of open source, but of commercial development. I agree with you that the commercial software ecosystem is very vibrant, with great profit potential. But I view this as a drain on the rest of the economy. Just think about how many web startups are using a LAMP stack... would their businesses be possible in a purely commercial software world?
I'm not looking to see the software industry destroyed, or even crippled, since I hope to soon get a job developing software. I think there is money in development on demand, where developers make money for their labor in custom-tailoring software to a customer's demand. The software would be free, but of course the labor wouldn't.
Now, this kind of business won't thrive in current climates, because there is more money and easier money in commercial software. But eventually free software will dominate, because in the long term how can something be more attractive than free? Of course there is support to think of, but I don't see any inherent reason that free software should be more expensive to support.
So I think that whether we like it or not, free software is the future. And I choose to see that as a positive future, where software becomes more pervasive in our environment, more adapted to our specific needs.
There'll always be money in software development until we create machines that are smarter than us in every way.
Re:Slow down, cowboy! (Score:3, Insightful)
Linux in China is the same as the US; nobody uses it except for a few nerds.
Re:Vista is a Failure. It's like it's not there. (Score:4, Insightful)
microsoft leveraged their monopoly to make it impossible for customers for 6 years to get anything other than windows xp on a new computer. the result? customers think that a new computer means windows xp, and are deeply suspicious of change. now there's suddenly a new operating system none of their friends have. windows xp's main advantage was always its ubiquity. vista, due to being new, does not have this.
microsoft has told the customer for years that different=difficult. now they are reaping what they have sowed.
It's true (Score:2, Insightful)
Chinese language and translation tools run on windows and IE better than they do on the mac and linux, so they use it for study along side their normal courses.
My office is all mac with the exception of ubuntu server. The reaction is sometimes negative. Popular IM clients like QQ only run on PC's, unless you get the port (not as accessible). Then you get other IM's like off taobao (big online sales), thats windows only.
Users don't know what Ubuntu is unless they're in their 30's and have worked in a senior role or admin role in languages outside of ASP. Oddly enough, the north is predominantly more windows-esque than the south. Perhaps the influence of the tech savvy of Hong Kong pushing north.
Anyway as much as I hate it, having the edge or difference knowing all about OS-OS and carrying a Macbook Pro makes you unique
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, I have to take issue with this:
So what? Why should I care what his motives are. And don't tell me that it's because the survival of Ubuntu is subject to his whims. It's open source.
I don't really care about OSS "beating" Microsoft in any financial sense. I do prefer Linux over Windows at home (for practical reasons too numerous to bother listing) and it annoys me that I have to maintain a dual-boot system, primarily as a result of the dominance of the MS Office file format. So in that sense I suppose I would like Microsoft to lose out, but only because their dominance currently prevents me from using the software I want to use, which otherwise provides all the features I need. However, there's no particular need for OSS to "beat Microsoft on the desktop" for this problem to be solved, or even for Microsoft to suffer any significant financial loss.
I will consider OSS to have succeeded on the desktop (note succeeded, not won), when I no longer feel the need to install a proprietary operating system on my home computer. That point has been getting steadily, inexorably closer throughout the decade that has passed since I discovered OSS, and the march towards it shows no sign of slowing. I therefore find your use of the past tense when discussing the "open-source era" rather perplexing.
Re:I'm posting from China (Score:0, Insightful)
It doesn't do any of our fellows in the West any good to write BS like this when you know darn well it is BS. I work in China, for a foreign company, and in the office we cannot have any risk that the bullshit firewall will interfere with our operations. (This is very normal for foreign companies.) ALL OF OUR TRAFFIC is piped through Japan directly. That means every Chinese guy, while at the office, has *real* internet. . . I've chatted extensively with a large number of the guys, and guess what? Not a one of them has ever mentioned this or shown the least bit of particular interest in the extra "freedom" they have while at work work. They sure as HELL are not accessing "banned sites", when lunch time rolls around they are on the same bullshit Chinese youtube clone and other trash mainland China websites every retard in full-censored Chinese internet cafes is hitting. (I say trash sites because they will rip your browser a new A**HOLE. Try surfing some of them -- after 30 minutes you would no longer feel any pity if you heard all webmasters here were going to be lined up and shot.)
Re:Slow down, cowboy! (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it sounds like he's describing any number of legit businesses.
Re:The Register? (Score:2, Insightful)
This is a joke, right? Every time there has been a stock market crash, there have been a ton of *professional* fund managers who are exposed as not knowing crap. Is it in there oh-so-brilliant plan to let the value of their fund fall by 10 or 20% (or more)? Please, just think a little about it.
Re:Uphill battle (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Why does it matter? (Score:2, Insightful)
Linux is simply the natural succesor of MS-DOS, which got so popular because it was a cheap OS to put into cheap PCs at a time where licensing UNIX would've costed you more than the hardware itself. And just like we went from UNIX to MS-DOS and Windows, we shall go from them to Linux, for precisely the same reasons. Sure, some companies may die along the way, but others are already profiting from the new, service-oriented market that's growing with the commodization of the Operating System.
don't like it? tough luck. It began, in fact, with the worldwide, widespread piracy of Windows (and Office, Photoshop et al), it's just that now it's being replaced by a legal alternative, and I doubt that there have been more Linux companies dying due to "cheapskates" than Windows-related ones dying due to piracy of their products. Even better, since the source is completely open, people who can't afford it are free, even encouraged, to help in other ways such as coding new features or making translations, whereas in the Windows world, if you don't have a wallet you're practically useless to the ecosystem at large.