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Linux Software

Revolutionary Chinese take on Linux 127

Posted by Hemos from the fun-with-politics dept.
oneeyedman writes "Maybe this will give support to the people who think that Linux is a communist plot. Salon has an item about an article called Anti-Microsoft 'subculture'" that ran in the China Youth Daily. In this reading of the situation, Linux users are angry peasants rising with pitchforks aimed at Microsoft's "hegemony." "
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Revolutionary Chinese take on Linux More

Revolutionary Chinese take on Linux

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  • But will the Establishment publish it ? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    American reporters can write whatever they want but publishers tend to limit debate to within "safer parameters" and suppress "unpopular" opinions and facts.

  • Poor choice of words (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The way I originally read the title of this article ("Revolutionary Chinese take on Linux"), it sounded like Chinese revolutionaries were staging an assault on Linux...
  • Microsoft has already taken on China's software industry. They started sueing companies that use Windows illegal all over the country. That make Windows, in fact, VERY expensive to use. On the contrary, linux, is still free.

  • josepha48 wrote:

    If windows 2000 doesn't cost $2000 and it were to sell for $50 and has all this and included MS Office, and Dev Studio, and IIS, and a built in scripting language, and all that Linux has and 200 days of uptime it may be worth buying.

    I disagree, since Linux (or FreeBSD for that matter) would still have three big benefits over such a Windows system: It's better written, more stable, and Free [gnu.org].


    Fact is the only reason anyone is tied to Microsoft is becuase we almost all use Office and Word.

    Speak for yourself. The fact is that many of us don't use Word except for those times when we have to deal with some bozo who insists on sending everything in one of the many Microsoft .doc file formats. If you're lucky, you can sometimes even avoid Word then.
  • Posted by generic kewl tech reference:

    I was expecting something along the lines of "Arise, you cramp-fingered proletariat coders! You have nothing to lose but your licensing agreements! Cast off the chains of the imperialist running dogs at Microsoft and stand blinking in the unfamiliar sunlight of revolution!"

    Man, you just don't get Communist movements like you did in the old days anymore...
  • Though everyone seems to be joking about this, as a chinese Linux user, i do think this could be an important step leading into Linus' World Domination plan ;)

    China is one of the biggest, if not *the* biggest market in the computer industry right now, if Linux can really penetrate into the Chinese market, well, half of the world would be using Linux on their desktops ;) (there's chinese KDE already)

    Linux, because of its price/stability, would definitely appealing to the minds of budget-conscious chinese entrepeneurs (heh, free unix vs. $5000+ NT). As Linux is slowly getting more popular in Hong Kong(that's where i am from), hopefully that would continue well into the Mainland China and other parts of Asia (ie. singapore, etc.)

    I think one of the biggest tasks we should work on right now is getting better Chinese support within Linux/X. Avalible GNU chinese inputs kits released by taiwan's Linux User groups are a good direction of what we should work on since commerical/Windoze solutions are quite expensive. multi-lingual, CJK (chinese, japanese, korean) X servers would also be interesting.

    If Linux's chinese support gets to be as good as its japanese support (the japanese linux/*bsd hackers are amazing), i think Linux would be well on its way to world domination... ;)

    duncan
  • Though everyone seems to be joking about this, as a chinese Linux user, i do think this could be an important step leading into Linus' World Domination plan.

    China is one of the biggest, if not *the* biggest market in the computer industry right now, if Linux can really penetrate into the Chinese market, well, half of the world would be using Linux on their desktops ;)

    Linux has already won in terms of price in the budget-conscious chinese entrepeneurs against NT (heh, free unix vs. $5000+ NT) . Linux is slowly getting more popular in Hong Kong already(that's where i am from) and hopefully that would continue into the Mainland China.

    I think one of the biggest tasks we should work on is getting better Chinese support within Linux/X. Avalible GNU chinese inputs kits released by taiwan's Linux User groups are a good direction that we should work on.

    If Linux's chinese support gets to be as good as its japanese support (the japanese linux/*bsd hackers are amazing), i think Linux would be well on its way to world domination... ;)

    duncan
  • ...and 100 million more eyeballs wouldn't hurt. I'm starting to feel more and more goose-pimply and subversive with every arg on my command line. Maybe I should dust off my childhood copy of The Fat Dead Guy's Little Red Book.

    --

  • Hadn't the Chinese government "standardized" on Microsoft Windows a year or two ago as their "official" OS, during one of Bill Gates' visits there?
    Phil Fraering "Humans. Go Fig." - Rita
  • I have to disagree with this assessment, if only because it conflicts with Lenin's greatest contribution to practical communism - the concept of the revolutionary vanguard. The basic idea is simple... get a hard core cadre who will show up at the small, boring party functions where party officials are elected. It doesn't take many to take over internal control of any political party. A recent version of this, although they would take great umbrage at being linked to Leninist practice, is the fundamentalist Christian takeover of the Republican Party, simply by showing up at those boring party meetings and voting on the leadership. Needless to say, i don't see many giant corporations being secretly taken over by open-source fanatics.

    A better analogy would be the anarcho-syndicalists, based on the writings of Bakunin and Kropotkin. The anarcho-syndicalists rejected structured leadership altogether, choosing instead to select leaders locally for a given farm, factory, or other work unit. Leaders are thus chosen for their leadership, not their political skills, and have no authority over those they do not work with directly. This much more closely parallels the structure of open source software projects.

    ---
  • "All power eminates from the barrel of a Gnu." - Chairman Richard "Mao Mixmaster" Stallman

  • >And any process that takes ten years will
    >get to its destination way, way too late.

    Don't tell George Lucas.

    - alec
  • Coders of the World, Unite. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
    The blood of the martyrs shall water the fields of the Free!

  • Well I never saw Drunken Master.
    But the sequel (DM II) is pretty amazing.
    No, Jet Lee is not in it. Jackie is. I've only
    seen it in US stores on LaserDisc. Viewed it at
    an arthouse.

    I saw the original drunken master vid sittin on
    a shelf at Circuit City :-o

    -kabloie
  • Always wanted to say that...
  • a slap in the face to the computer industry just like bjj was to the martial arts world ...
  • IIRC the SR's were huge but disorganized, the Bolsheviks were a small (smaller in number than the Mensheviks!).

    Linux is more like the SR's (linux is like Makhno, Stallman is Bakunin!).
    BeOS is like Milukov and his party
    Apple is like the Bolsheviks
    FreeBSD are like Mensheviks
    Microsoft is like the tzarist govt., Ballmer is Rasputin.

    Oh what fun, but your post is full of factual errors and extreme opinions and there isn't any real parallel to draw. Bolsheviks were nothing more than a pack of ruthless thugs that picked up the pieces after the 1917 revolution.
  • That could be why. Think of how much more fun it was to drink it is before you are old enough to buy alcohol! :)
  • As a person who is somewhat open minded to collectivism/communisim (no conclusions yet), I sympathise with their take on things, but the freedom that comes from the consumers and the laborers having more control in things, does not make up for the human right violations that tend to occur in communist countrys.

    Every collective is made up of individuals, to forget that is to void the whole reason for the collective in the first place. I think every Free or Open Software person would be aghast at the oppresion that happens in China.

    It's kinda a strange thing, we co-operate because we chose to as individuals, none of us are pressed. Most of us probably would not co-operate if forced. This is what China seems to forget.

    Individuals CHOOSING to work together, that's what makes good software.

    China could learn alot from this.

    (Go read "No Contest" and other books by Alphie Kohn... good stuff)
  • Lessee, upper management decides on deadlines,
    and us lowly techno-peasants, who are lucky if
    we are consulted on how long it will take,
    and are almost *never* asked whether something's
    doable, or even whether it *should* be done,
    get to do the work.

    Yup, sounds right.

    Lackey: Sire! The peasants are revolting!
    Bill the G: They *certainly* are....

    mark "you knew that was coming"
  • Yes, but it takes two to make war. Or are you forgetting the multinational invasion of Russia at the hands of the UK, France, Germany, US, Poland during the civil war? Are you going to blame this invasion, and the subsequent atrocities committed by the White army on the Bolsheviks as well?

    The "millions of starved peasants" came later, with the Ukraine famine during the Stalinist period, when Stalin collectivised agriculture. You could try to get your facts straight.

    Finally, yes, Lenin organised Gulags, otherwise known as "labour camps for criminals". The US had (has?) them too, and they were originally invented by the Brits during the Boer War.
  • "The software industry will give us a conclusion in the next 10 years."

    Interesting way of thinking - that there will be a conclusion, and that it will take ten years to get there.

    I don't think there is ever anything as definite as a conclusion in this biz. And any process that takes ten years will get to its destination way, way too late.

    D
    ----
  • While I can see why this would be easily said and adopted by Chinese pundits, there are certainly a few differences...

    Linux is free, open-source, [insert favorite buzzword here] for the common good. Now, many communist regimes have been idealized and started under the same pretense. However, I'm not aware of any communist government that has ever succeeded. [socialist != communist] Why? Because in the end, the chairman, the politburo, whatever you want to call the concentration of power at the top of the food chain, has succumbed to his own power trip, and wielded the power for his own political/social gain, as opposed to that of the people. In this sense, the people are a commune by name only.

    Communism also implies a certain, ultranationalist ethos, in addition to any psuedo-communal ideals. Until we see the day that Linus shores up a vast ocean of political reserves to overthrow [er, excuse me, 'shelter from imperialism'] a people like Luxembourg or the Vatican, I don't think we have to worry about The penguin donning a hammer and sickle quite yet.


    This is just more driftwood coming from the giant, rotting structure that is aging Chinese tyranny. Any close examination of today's China would indicate that, beneath the silkscreen, there's a weath of capitalism running around.

  • ugh. (Score:1)

    by sp- ( 11321 )
    These kind of comments grate on my nerves.
    First of all, let me state that I am an avid Linux user, and that
    according to me, there is no other [OS]...
    However, when will you (people with the same mentality as the author
    of the post i'm responding to) realize that competition *has* to exist?
    Competition results in better products.
    If `we' didn't have any goals, like being the underdog to upset MS,
    I doubt the development of Linux would have advanced at the rate that it did...
    The OS/Software might not be good, but the competition is invaluable.

    ------------------------------------------
    Reveal your Source, Unleash the Power. (tm)
  • The reference was to Jet Li's seven or more chapters of _Once Upon a Time in China_ (various other English titles).

  • I guess the question is how important is getting technical support these days?

    Well lets see. With Linux you send an email to a mailing list and in most cases you get a response within a day (or same day) and often a solution to you problem or someone experiencing the same problem willing to work with you to solve it.

    With most technical support you pay for the product, you pay for the support, then you pay for the phone call and have to press lots of buttons to get support (try calling M$ tech support). Then the solution can often be somewhat costly. Often it is just a matter of downloading a new patch or verion of the software (what I had to do for my scanner with NT). Sometimes it is you must buy this to fix the problem.

    Also with Linux for $50 you get the operating system which can be used on SMP, you get a desktop enviroment with X, you get Apache, you can get office tools, and lots of utilities. You get a C/C++ compiler and perl, Fortran, and lots more.

    If windows 2000 doesn't cost $2000 and it were to sell for $50 and has all this and included MS Office, and Dev Studio, and IIS, and a built in scripting language, and all that Linux has and 200 days of uptime it may be worth buying.

    Fact is the only reason anyone is tied to Microsoft is becuase we almost all use Office and Word. If there was a version of Word that ran under UNIX and LINUX I think we'd all stop using Microsoft products.

    Hmmm, another project ot take on.

  • Comparing Win2k to Drunken Master 2 is like comparing something really lame to something really cool! Where did you come up with that one? DM2 had that unbelievably choreographed four-on-one drunken boxing fight near the beginning, as well as the phenomenal stuntwork near the end (let's not forget the axe gang!) Jacky is definitely getting on in years [the man _STILL_ does his own stunts!], but this is some of his best stuff ever.

    If you like kung fu, or Jacky Chan, or action, or anything, go see this movie. You won't be disappointed!!

  • As I see it, the advantage of Linux over Windows isn't that it's less expensive. It's that Linux is a better operating system. China may prove to be a valuable test: if price isn't a consideration, what would people rather use?

    Internationalization becomes a major selling point here. It may be that Micros~1, recognizing that it won't actually sell much software in China on account of rampant piracy, may not bother investing much in making Windows friendly to a Chinese audience. If that's the case, Linux may win by default.
  • Linux wont compete as well in China since once of it's key features is being free. In China so is Windows 95/98/2000. (practically)

    Don't forget the other key feature: Linux runs, and runs well on old hardware. A pentium 66 with 16M runs X in a useable way. Even a 386 is useful, although you may not want to run X on it. Developing countries have few new machines.
  • It seems to me as if just about everybody is trying to milk the Linux cash cow nowadays. This is what I mean:

    The Communists: "Linux is communist!"
    The Anti-Communist Chinese: "Linux is anti-communist!"
    The Randists: "Linux is randist!"
    The Libertarians: "Linux is libertarian!"
    The Open Source Initiative: "Linux is Open Source!"
    The Free Software Foundation: "Linux is Free Software!"

    The only one who isn't playing that game right now is Microsoft, but only because it's in their legal interest to play up Linux as a competitor. But wait until they have been punished by the DoJ, and you know what you'll hear:

    "Linux is Micro$oft software!"

    Bah.
  • I tend to think of Linux as Jet Lee's Wong Fei Hung, an all-powerful, unassuming kind of operating system that kicks ass in a subtle kind of way.
    Windows is more of the Jackie Chan Wong Fei Hung, arrogant, confident of its ability but ultimately destined to receive a kicking.
    Will W2K be Drunken Master 2? Only time will tell.
  • Oh give me a break. I am tired of people extrapolating the 2 billion armpit market into "worlds largest IT market". Most of the folks in China are barely making ends meet. The rest are too busy pirating software to really be considered a market.
  • You're the first AC whose comment I've read for over a year, so congratulations!

    "Since when did I"... well, I've lived in the Chinese world most of my working life, and only returned to Europe this year.

    Second, I can't speak for the US Media - I'm not American.
  • Not sure what the EU has to do with this. Can you explain?

  • Article is just copy fodder (Score:3)

    by Chris Worth ( 18843 ) on Tuesday July 06, 1999 @04:47AM (#1816955) Homepage
    Journalists in China have a problem Western ones don't: they have to search hard to find things to write about, since many, many subjects will annoy someone in authority somewhere. You'll see lots of articles in mainland Chinese papers that aren't really news - archaeology is popular I think. This piece is another.

    Bashing the West is also pretty safe ground, and that's why this article was written. Remember that the impression it'll create in China is somewhat different to the impression it creates on /.; this article will be seen as just another example of Western arrogance and illogicality, probably just what its writer intended.

    It's a good job most people don't read the official press any more and get their content smuggled in from Hongkong.

  • By not offering the source :)

    Seriously, in this instance Linux and MS products have to compete on equal terms... it'll be interesting to see what happens.

  • The biggest obstacle to Linux in China is the
    fact that, for many, if not most people, Microsoft
    software costs the same as Linux: nothing.

    Piracy is everywhere.

    On the bright side, though, the pirate CD vendors
    have started selling bootleg copies of the latest
    Red Hat releases, and Linux is gaining ground in
    the growing ISP industry.
  • I never realized there was more than one version of Drunken Master. Jet Lee?? Never heard of him. Pardon my ignorance, but I'm about to go searching for Drunken Master with Jet Lee at the video store tonite.

    So what OS would Su Hua Chi (the drunk uncle) be?

    wa- hao jiu!



  • oh well. i was kinda looking forward to an alternate version of Drunken Master. The Jackie Chan version is pretty cheesy, but still enjoyable. Ya gotta love the almost unreadable subtitles. Whee! Check out this list of actual subtitles [uci.edu] used in kung fu movies.
  • TurboLinux definitely comes in a Chinese language version and I've seen RedHat Boxes with Chinese Characters on them as well.
    *However*, this is in Hong Kong and the characters used on the mainland are subtly different. I would hazard a guess that once unicode/multi-byte character support is in there, then the actual language is a minor detail.

    Linux (or free Unices in general) are probably the way for China to go, but Microsoft has a big foothold in there already.

    lau dai wai-ah
  • hadn't realised the EU was an oppresive govt as (1) it's not a govt and (2) all it's members are social democracies of one flavour or another and (3) the EU per se couldn't oppress a nursery school.
  • Jesus was a social revolutionary.

    "Render unto Caeser..."
  • Well, I grew up in a Communist country (Russia), and I remember a society without crime, poverty, or unemployment. The first time I saw a homeless person I was about 16, and the Communist system was already being dismantled then.

    For anyone who's actually experienced the change from a Socialist system towards one based on markets and private ownership of production a few things are clear: the standard of living goes down (in Russia life expectancy decreased by 6 years in the first decade of a market economy), production goes down (GDP fell by about 60%), and crime goes up (from practically nonexistant to American levels and higher). Some other changes - deterioration of public schools, hospitals, roads, pretty much anything that wasn't making money, but existed to be used by the public. And yes, corruption went up too, for a very simple reason - if a society is based on "everyone for himself", as opposed to "equal benefit to all", you can't really blame people for trying to get a larger slice. If they don't take it, someone else will. Well, Communism (Socialism, whatever you want to call it) was the first system that eliminated this Wild West attitude to life. It was a managed society, as opposed to one where a person can get rich from speculating in stocks (paper essentially), or remain poor in spite of having worked all his life.

    As with any large system, Communism had its drawbacks (e.g. there was no real freedom of speech during the whole Communist period in Russia), but in my opinion they were far outweighed by the benefits. It was a sanely designed, humane society, which is probably gone now forever.

    When people criticize Communist systems, they don't usually take account of what came before them. It is true that the Chinese, or the Russian version of Communism excluded free speech or voting, but neither of these things have ever existed in Russia or China before. Prior to the Comunist revolution Russia was poor, authoritarian and corrupt. Then there was a period when it was middle class, authoritarian, and extremely law abiding. Well, guess what, it's now returned to its original state of chaos, poverty and authoritarianism. The reason this hasn't really happened to China yet is that China is so enourmous, and any change is bound to be slow. But from what I hear, things are moving in the same direction there too.

    I'll finish my off-topic rant with this thought: imagine a society without ads. Anywhere. Not a single one. No one trying to sell you something against your will, or scheming to make money from you in other ways. Yes, Communism really was like that.

  • Having grown up in Russia, I know a lot of this history, and I couldn't agree more about the similarities. One of the eeriest things is that Lenin spent a lot of time in Finland just before the Revolution. If you think I'm kidding, check the history books
  • As someone who's lived in Russia most of his life, I completely agree with the previous poster's overview of Russian history. For the record:

    The tradition of sending prisoners to Siberia was started by Ivan the Terrible in the 16th century. Known by many names, it continues to this day.

    Stalin was a traditional Russian despot in the manner of many of the czars. Lenin on the other hand was an intellectual, probably the only one to ever rule a major country.

    Immediately after coming to power Lenin pulled Russia out of World War I, undoubtedly saving millions of lives.

    The Civil War was started by the Whites (contra-revolutionaries). They fought for monarchy and the return of land to rich landowners (land reform was one of the first Bolshevik achievements).

    After being shot in 1918 Lenin went through a series of illnesses. He became completely incapacitated in 1922, and died in 1924. Things took a completely different turn after that.

    Nevertheless:

    As late as 1929 Russia had a total freedom of the press and the New Economic Policy (Lenin's attempt at a regulated market system) was still active. That's the year when Stalin took over, killing most of Lenin's ideas and instituting his cult of personality.

    Although Stalin was not technically a Russian (he came from a region known as the Caucasus), the major features of his rule would be very familiar to anyone who knows Russian history: centralized government control, imperialism, and brutal repression of any kind of opposition. All of this has existed in Russia centuries before Communism was ever concieved. To call these things Communist is to really misunderstand the point IMO.
  • Wasn't there something in the news a few months back--and on /., I believe--about the Chinese gov't planning to make a Unix variant the country's 'official' OS? I don't believe it had anything to do with Linux.

    (And of course, I would search for it, but I'm getting about 10B/sec from /. right now. Must be a busy morning somewhere...)
  • Linux wont compete as well in China since once of it's key features is being free. In China so is Windows 95/98/2000. (practically)

    And the fact that most people dont have the hacking ability to make linux work properly makes Linux less likely to gain widespread support.

    It may gain support in the government/university areas, though, like all over the world.
  • Yes, the Bolsheviks were wonderful people. I guess that explains the civil wars, the millions of starved peasants and the Gulags. And before you say that those were later mistakes, please don't forget that the system of the Gulags began under Lenin; Stalin only expanded and 'perfected' it.

    --> R
  • Actually, Eisenstein's "Battleship Potempkin" was so emotionally effective that some people reportedly confused it with reality, and were convinced that they had fought in the battle in real life (it was a staged battle).
  • We can only hope!
  • I'm not sure that the stated goal of 'destroying Microsoft' is a good thing. I'm not defending MS at all; my point is that the goal of Linux users (including myself) should be to provide an alternative to Windows, not to replace it.

    Let's be realistic here: Microsoft isn't going out of business anytime soon. Trying to destroy it completely is as futile as those two peasants who died in their revolution. But provide an alternative, and now you have something. After all, the problem with Microsoft is not that it exists, but that it doesn't have any real competition to increase value, whether that be in price competition or feature competition.

  • The pigs wearing clothes thing is a rash simplification of the inherent problems with communism. Communism is fundamentally flawed as a political and social philosophy because it puts the communal and needs and goods over the freedom of the individual. Even the most enlightened and philanthropic leader(s) could not produce a communist state in which I would want to live.

    The "Linux Movement" (I know, I know, I know) might be a communal effort, but it reminds much more of the voluntary cooperations of Anarchist socialists, then anything Marx and Engels spoke of.

    One of the truly great things about Linux is that it gives almost complete freedom to the (informed) individual user, while other operative systems tend to dictate what someone "above" has found is "for the general best".
  • I think that this is a compelling parallel, but it doesn't recognize an important fact: linux/open source is a fundamentally new economic/political phenomenon. It is compatible with marxist/leninist theory in some important ways, but it is also very different, and I would say, better. Russian Communism featured secret police and restricted flow of information: open source ensures against this. Linux does have a central leader, but it is also decentralized in many ways. And most importantly, access to code ensures that the actions of those who have great responsibility for code will be clear for anyone with interest to see. It also ensures that anyone can give pertinent suggestions. In short, linux has several key advantages over traditional Marxism, based around the flow of information inherent in computing technologies. If the Russian revolution had been 'open source' in some metaphorical way, we might all be reds now. Comrade.

    -'The cold war's over, Austin!'
  • If there was a version of Word that ran under UNIX and LINUX I think we'd all stop using Microsoft products.

    Erm. You mean a Word-like app, right? If you are comparing like-for-like, then what is wrong with Star Office compared with Office 2000? KOffice is on the way, and the new Wordperfect Office 2000 suite is also coming.

    To get back on topic, I think that the more publicity Linux gets in China, the better. Think about how much the Linux market grew last year (212% in the server market alone.) Now, if a similar rise will start happening in China next year, that will mean a phenomenal surge in the number of Linux users worldwide, and perhaps a few Chinese distributions (are there any yet?) I always believe that the more people get exposed to Linux (and other, similar OSes like FreeBSD,) the more people realise that MS is screwing them.

  • How is it possible to have bootleg copies of a freely distributable operating system?
  • Bill Gates was the son of a wealthy Washington lawyer. He went from upper-middle class to upper class, not from rags to riches.
  • MS has written applications i would use, if:
    i were rich...someone else paid for them...
    AND they ran under linux
    (or another stable, open, well documented OS)
    Marketing aside, its the OS, not the apps, that
    i dislike.
  • ...more of a libertarian Penguin?
  • Hmm. Apartently we've been overlooking the little buggers.
    I wonder if it's possible to cluster and network a bunch of playstations to run nuclear simulations?

    Now THAT would be cool.

    Later
    Erik Z.
  • Think of the FUD that M$ will be able to spread!!!! Linux user=commie revolutionary hell bent on crushing the american dream. Anyone who has watched M$ knows that they play themselves out to be the embodyment of the american dream because they started fairly poor and became insanely rich. I can just see the FUD
    -Linux/FreeBSD user=commie revolutionary
    -BeOS and/or MacOS X users=socialist revolutionaries because BeOS and MacOS X are half way between OSS and commercial software and socialism is 50/50 capitalism and communism. (Most of BeOS's tools are GNU tools)
  • yeah. with ms you do have choices.

    1) keep the machine powered down

    or

    2) crash
  • Let's see here. The the Russian Revolution starts, not so much due to the Bolsheviks but do to the other groups like the Moderates and the SR's. The Bolsheviks enter into the scene when Lenin returns in the box car from Germanys help. He enters into an already controlled Petrograd. The Whites, although not called that at the time, did attempt an attack on Petrograd and the Soviet well before the Bolsheviks even had control. The Bolsheviks take over in Petrograd with nearly no blood shed. The Bolsheviks pull Russia out of WWI, which neither the Whites nor the Provisional government were willing to do. Thereby ending that slaughter, especially considering the Russians didn't have enough equiptment nor the right technology equiptment it was a slaughter.
    The Civil War was started against the Bolsheviks by the SR's and the Whites. After a Civil war in a land that isn't very fertile to begin with, where a lot of the workers die there is going to be starvation. Sure the requisition of grain from the peasants wasn't conducted very intellegently and caused more hardship than was necessary.

    As for the GULags, they were essetially started during the Feudialist times, they just weren't called that at the time. Although Solzhenitsen gives a very good acount of what happened in the GULags, and is one of my favorite authors mainly because of Achipalag GULag odin dva e tre (I II and III), he is also a very biased in his opinion. After reading Achiplag GULag I, I had the opinion that Lenin was as evil as Stalin until I took several classes in college, mainly a class on the Russian Revolution and a couple Russian Culture classes. Lenin had some really good ideas, Stalin corrupted them and formed a new type of communism that is not Leninism.

    Yes Lenin did do some horrific things at times but to compair him to Stalin is wrong. In his will he specifically stated that Stalin was too brash to rule. Trotsky and Lenin's wife tried to bring this up to the Soviet but it was shot down by the Troika before it could get aired to the public. There IS a differance between Leninism and Stalinism, people generally get them confused because we have been brought so as to believe that Lenin created the version of Communism that ruled the USSR, which in fact is not true. He built a base but was, in a sense, unable to finish the house before he died, and have you seen Stalist achitecture, it's as ugly as Stalin is evil and as ugly as his form of Communism.
  • Ahh, thank you for correcting me. I am here at work and don't have all of my resources with me. So I was just winging it. And as long winded as one can be with the Russian revolution I didn't want to create thesis online.

    Also, it wasn't so much a majority in the Soviet, in fact I don't think they had a pure majority but damn close, but the fact that the Soviet gained control of the armories in October due to distrust of the PG and that, I believe it was Trotsky, was in charge of that branch of the Soviet. By gaining access to the weapons, the Battleship Auroria (I think thats its name), and popular support they were able to take over fairly quickly. Also, Lenin and the Bolsheviks moved to control the city before the elected government (I can't remember the name of it) had their first meeting thereby removing any of its power before it formed.

    I don't think that there will be any real weapons of any decent power to seize from MS nor any Battleships worth keeping. So I guess we will just have to rely on the popular support.

    Thanks again for correcting me

  • I guess that the army is the computer manufacturers, the armory is periferals manufacturers, and the Battleship Aurora could be someone like Compaq or IBM, maybe Intel?

    As for the Constituent Assembly being lopsided, I guess the Bolshevik troups in the entrances and in the seating area could be considered lopsiding the floor.

    As for the Soviet, I will look in my books and notes when I get home but if I remember it started before the revolution, was shutdown, and then reformed right after the revolution. It started out as a second choice for a government but wasn't very powerful, gained more support and power, gained equal power with the Prov.Gov. and decisions in one had to be ratified by the other, then eventually overtook them, allowing for them to order the Prov.Gov. to give them control of the troups and armories in Petrograd.

    This could be used as another metaphor. The Prov. Gov. was ineffective due to it being a temporary government and generally inept but held a lot of power. Sounds like MS. Eventually the Soviet gained power as the support of the people grew. Eventually overtaking the Prov. Gov. before a more permenate government could be properly formed. Linux is gaining populariety and as it does so more and more computer companies are supporting it. If the progression continues as it is going now Linux compatability will almost be necessary for a computer, part, or software. That is until it surpasses MS before they can come out with something well formed. Hopefully by then we will be able to have our troups sitting at the entrance taunting them. :)
  • Lenin's idea was that party be led by a small group of hard core disapplined professional revolutionaries, aka the vanguard of the proletariat. The vanguard was to be a temporary step towards full socialism. Unfortunately Stalin modified this and made the vanguard permenent. This is one of the differences between Leninism and Stalinism.

    The vanguard was to help ease into socialism, by protecting it until it was fully formed. Then it was to be disbanded. didn't happen that way though. But the idea of having a small group of hard core professional Linux programers being a vanguard, but permenate, is a useful thing.
  • I finally have access to my material.
    The first Soviet was form during the October General Strikes, which started on October 20th 1905 (using the old calander).
    The Soviet, translated roughly to councel, was of workers deputies. It was created so that workers had the ability to speak out.
    Due to the October General Strike Nicholas II issued the "October Manifesto" wich granted people civil liberties, and allowed the recently formed Duma to pass laws. At this point it was still St. Petersburg, and didn't change to Petrograd until 1914.

    The Duma members were the first to create the Provisional Government. Unfortunately they were weak, and were always going to be weak for several reasons.
    They had "Dual Power" with the Soviets. The Petrograd Soviet was spontainously created and was mostly SR's and Menshivicks. They actually voted to tolarate the Prov. Gov. because they felt they needed it. And the Prov. Gov. could not disband the Soviet because the Soviet had the real power, the people.
    Lenin returns in April. In May the Prov. Gov. calls for a coalition Gov. with a merging of the Prov. Gov. the SR's and the SD's. Only the Bolsheviks don't join. During the July days there was massive riots, Bolshevik power increased during these riots. Then there was a backlash against the Bolsheviks when the Prov. Gov. said that Lenin was a German Spy, and that the Bolsheviks were receiving German money. Lenin leaves the country.

    Kornilov attempts a counter-revolution and fails. This allows for the Bolsheviks to gain more power, and the Soviet gains more Bolsheviks in it. By September 10th, old calander, the Bolsheviks controled the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets. The MRC gains control of the weapons, and is controled by Trotsky. Power is taken on October 26th while the Second congress of Soviets is meeting.

    etc...
  • I prefer to use the analogy of the Russian Revolution to Linux.
    A Monarchy that censers the populus. Small groups of intellectuals fighting for the freedom of the people. Multiple failed attemps to usurp the government before the revolution of 1917 where several groups all with a good chance of victory striking at an opportune moment.
    If it is really looked at there are some striking comparisons. Apple could be considered the Socialist Revolutionsaries, or SR's. The BeOS people, originally helped by Apple now thrown out due to conflicts of interest sort of fit the Left SR's who were too radical to be really considered by the SR's, and who were simpathetic and helpful to the Menshevic and Bolshevic groups. *BSD fits very well with the Menshevic group, very radical, good ideas, intellegent, but no really strong single leader (by really strong, I mean very noticeable).
    Which leaves Linux with the Bolshevics. A good fit in my humble opinion.
    Let's look at the comparisons.

    The Bolshevics were a small radical group that were originally part of the same group as the Menshevics but broke off due to a dispute. The Bolshevics were more radical than the Menshevics.

    Linux in a sense breaking away from UNIX, being newer and similar but more radical.

    The Bolshevics had a strong ideology. Fight for the ultimate freedom of the people. Allow the people to rule themselves if they wanted to.

    Linux has a strong ideology. Fight for the ultimate freedom of the people. Allow for the people to change their OS as they please, while still allowing for those who choose not to rule their OS to still have a lot of freedom.

    The Bolshevics had a very far sighted, open minded, brilliant leader, aka Lenin. Strong central leadership is argueably the reason why the Bolshevics won. Lenin knew when to fight and when to run. He also was able to adapt so that control that was gained was not lost, ie abolition of the death penalty in 1918 and the New Economic Policy (1).

    Linux has a far sighted, open minded, brilliant leader, aka Linus. Having a central leader to regulate the code that goes into major improvements in Linux has been a key to the ability for Linux to become what it is today. Plus the ability to adapt has been a major necessity to keep alive.

    The Bolshevics gained popular support quickly due to ingenius propaganda techniques and due to the inability of the other groups to connect with the populus. The Bolshevics showed themselves as a group of the people. The other groups, especially the SR's, were eccentially decendents of the Populists, who, although dedicated to helping the people, couldn't relate to them because of their up-bringing in different society. Although the Bolshevics also were brought up in a different society they were able to adapt to draw in the masses.

    Linux is the fastest growing OS, and partially due to great coverage in the news, and partially due to the fact that our word spreads quickly. Although the other groups, Apple, BeOS, *BSD, UNIX, are all great they are all very separated from the general populus. They have their supporters who are all out to make life better for people but all have some sort of hang-up with people. Apple is "seen" (seen and truth are two different things! ok!) as overly basic, simple, and generally underpowerd. BeOS isn't know of very well outside the respective community of well, us. UNIX and *BSD are still "seen" as text based and very complicated. Linux has been able to adapt.

    There are a great deal of other similarities that I don't want to go into right now because I have already been too long winded.

    (1) The New Economic Policy actually allowed for some capitalism, as sort of a transition over to Communism. Lenin saw this as a necissary to help rebuild and stablize. In a sense the idea of selling Linux as a product is like that. Use it until people get used to the idea of free software being powerful and useful.
  • A historical nit to pick. I do like your analogy. Particularly w/ regard to the fragmentation of the SRs. And the BSD folks really do embody the reality of the Mensheviks. Even down to their (probably) majority status, despite being named the 'minority' party.


    --------------------------
    The Bolshevics gained popular support quickly due to ingenius propaganda techniques and due to the inability of the other groups to connect with the populus. The Bolshevics showed themselves as a group of the people. The other groups, especially the SR's, were eccentially decendents of the Populists, who, although dedicated to helping the people, couldn't relate to them because of their up-bringing in different society. Although the Bolshevics also were brought up in a different society they were able to adapt to draw in the masses.
    ---------------------------

    This isn't wholly accurate. Here is where I see thre Bolsheviks acting just like the FSF and RMS. The Bolsheviks were successful because they did not join the Provisional Government when Kerensky and the other socialist parties won majorities in the elections of summer, 1917. The Bolsheviks attempted a coup and lost. Kerensky, afraid of the true appeal of the Bolshevik party, did not pursue them. He even invited Lenin and Co. into the government.

    Meanwhile, WWI was dragging on, and the Provisional Government (which had grabbed power with no real mandate from the peopl--remember that it started with the liberal nobles) grew increasingly discredited through its reluctance to abandon the old order. Lenin knew that the longer the ProvGov delayed pursuing a truely socialist policy, the more support decayed. The ProvGov never addressed the lack of food for the workers or Russia's role in WWI.

    By late October 1917, the Bolsheviks had gained majorities in the Soviets and Lenin felt that popular support for the other socialists (then firmly identified with the ineffective Provisional Government) had decayed to a point where he and the Bolsheviks could snag power.

    And that's RMS. He has maintained his ideology all along. At no point has he compromised with the 'capitalist/imperialists,' and plans to use this unsullied record to form the basis of a true appeal to the people.

    The problem is that the people in charge are still the Romanovs, and the masses have not yet overthrown Tsarist government. The majority of people are not yet ready for the pure ideology of Mr. Stallman, so he'll have to remain pure for a little longer.

    One might wonder--after the revolution and RMS's seizure of power--and the internally destructive Civil War--will RMS pursue a quasi-capitalist policy (NEP) to restructure software?

    Great comparisons, though!

    With Free Greetings, (anyone remember that old C*mmunist signoff?)

    -awc
  • I, for one, love the over-extension of metaphors. Here's some more fuel for the fire.

    One of the reasons that the Bolsheviks lost their attempted coup in the summer was that there was little popular support in the countryside. Lenin was out of the country at the time, and was horrified. By October, Lenin was confident that the Bolsheviks had popular support. The reason for that was that they had solid majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow Soviets, and in the other Soviets (councils) around the country--even in the countryside--they were making strong gains if they didn't already have majorities.

    That the Bolsheviks had a majority in the Petrograd Soviet is inherently linked to the fact that the Military Revolutionary Committee (MRC--Trotsky's little military-control group) had gained control over the army. By October, Lenin had demanded from Krensky, and secured, the right for the MRC of the Petrograd Soviet to countersign all orders for the P. garrisson. The Bolsheviks were very strongly supported by the army, and Kerensky knew that. He had no choice but to grant that power to the MRC, which was not even a governmental entity.

    At that point, the MRC--an organ of the P. Soviet in the control of a Bolshevik (Trotsky)--was in the position to leverage a significant portion of the military forces of the area. What surprised everyone was that Lenin decided to make his bid for power completely independent of the Soviet. By bypassing the Soviet, and taking the MRC as his own, he got the army without the baggage of the democracy of the city Soviet which would have bogged him down fatally.

    So, with the army, the armory, and the mutiny aboard the Aurora, Lenin had the firepower and the people to take power. And he did.

    W/regard to your comment about the elected governemnt. That was the Constituent Assembly. The ProvGov had promised that a Constituent Assembly would be created to replace it (the ProvGov), and elections were held. When the Bolsheviks seized power in October, that happened before the CA met. You are right in saying that Lenin didn't want the CA to meet and create a government that would have any legitimacy. He couldn't very well take power from a popularly elected government in the name of the people. Ultimately, he did permit one meeting of it, but it was so completely lopsided that it, in effect, voted itself out of existance.

    There really arn't any weapons to seize from MS. You're right. That's the major difference between 1917 and the Open Source movement. It is quite possible and effective for the computing world to be under two or more "governments" (Windows & Linux, etc.), whereas the Russian state could really only have one government at a time.

    Well, i might be wrong. Look at the period between the February Revolution and the October one. The Soviets had some role (nobody know what it was, really. They were a mysterious result of the revolution with no true place--Linux?) and the Provisional Government was the self-proclaimed true government. Microsoft?

    Two governemnts worked simultaneously on the state, but they didn't work well together, and one finally beat the other one out.

    And the metaphor continues.

    With Open Source greetings,
    awc
  • Het, Amerikanyets.
  • This is all coming from memory, but I think that the Petrograd Soviet formed, initially--with the rest of the country's Soviets--after the 1905 revolution. They spontaneously reformed after the february revoultion in 1917.

    You are right about the parallel development of Soviet power and the ProvGov. The military aspect of the relationship that you mention is the MRC, the Military Revolutionary Committee. Ultimately, the MRC had to countersign all orders to the troops, so they had equal influence over the ProvGov's military policy. Regardless, the troops were, for the most part, loyal to the MRC and the Soviet.

    I like the alternate metaphor. The Romanov family could be IBM, whose decline prompted the growth of MS (the ProvGov was initially the liberal nobles--not supporters of the old order, but not revolutionaries). The ProvGov (MS) later shared power with the soviets (linux).

    Unfortunately, the Soviets did not make a bid for power in October, the Bolsheviks did. So, who is going to grab all of this from underneath us? As I pointed out above, the Soviets were bypassed by Lenin so that he didn't have to share power.

    I love Soviet history (in case you couldn't tell) and am now going to go reread the appropriate parts of Trotsky's magnificent work, "History of the Russian Revolution," to make sure that I have the details correct.

    -awc
  • Ehh, not to be unnecessarily pro-bolshevik, but they weren't that bad. Certainly at least Lenin and Trotsky were ideologically driven. And Zinoviev and Kaminev, though of questionable ideological constancy, thought that they were working for the best interests of the people. And you can't doubt that such people such as the first GenSec (I can't remember his name right now) were true believers.

    -awc
  • I don't see Leninist Communism as totally dissimilar from the Linux development model.

    After all, in the end, there are very few people who have control over the kernel (the true government).

    -awc
  • The Finns are not, though, the best friends of the Russians, as we all know.

    -awc
  • The Leninist gulags were, as you pointed out, simply prison facilties. The Bolsheviks had just grabbed power and won a Civil War. I imagine that it would be nigh impossible to successfully win a war and not have thousands upon thousands of dispossed and otherwise hostile people. You have to do something with them. Look at the United States interning Japanese-Americans during WWII. My US Civil War history isn't as good as it should be, but I'm sure that there was some sort of similar arrangement after the Union victory.

    -awc
  • Having thought about it, I don't see how.

    The are no dictatorship of the proletariat.

    There might be a case to be made that argues that Microsoft is a state socialist country, but even that is on thin ice, IMO.

    -awc
  • In Taiwan, a group of hackers has put together CLE (Chinese Language Extensions). It goes along with Redhat. The latest version is 0.8. They have English and Chinese pages at: http://cle.linux.org.tw
    Turbolinux came out a couple of months ago with both Traditional and Simplified Chinese distros. People in the States tend to ignore Turbolinux but folks, it ROCKS.
  • Maybe I should dust off my childhood copy of The Fat Dead Guy's Little Red Book.

    "Childhood"? "Fat"? "Red"?

    What does Santa have to do with the Linux revolution?

    OH! I get it.
    Santa => 'Giving presents to all the little boys & girls' => Communism => China.

    Got it. :)
  • The difference that sets Microsoft apart from
    most other enterprises is that Bill Gates makes
    no secret that his goal is to crush all opponents
    from existance thru his actions and statements.

    Our auto manufacturing industry is a good example
    where one will challenge another to produce a
    better product. Competition is pointless with
    no opponents.

    Bill Gates is afraid of real competition!!
  • Microsoft already has invested quite a lot in Chinese versions of their software. Actually, the Chinese versions of Windows and Office are quite well done -- much better than Chinese Solaris,
    for example. Their new office is really nice, too.

    PS, to anyone attending O'Reilly's Open Source: come here my talk on Tcl (and other free software) in China.
  • Windows 2000 Doesn't cost $2000, it's the same price as NT...unless you mean the advanced and cluster servers - in which case you get SMP that works and actually improves performance.
    Windows 2000 pushes mostly standards now, TCP/IP, DNS, LDAP, SNMP etc.
    Office 2000 uses fully compliant xml, and the document formats are the same as Office 97. Since noone can complain about the fact that Office breaks compatablity, I guess they'll take the oppurtunity to attack Office 2000 from the other side and point out the same file format indicates Office 2000 is no improvement and not worth it - it would be typical of a slashdotizen.
    And there are "word" like and .doc comaptable products are Unix and Linux. The reason i still use windows is - it has a more evolved Multimedia and Gaming API - it supports more hardware - it's got better software - it's easy to get work done and not piss around with fixing other people's source - it has a more consistant UI, and much much more evoled GUI. It's fast and stable (Windows 2000) on my hardware (not a 386).
    I'm using Linux simply for a network gateway at home these days, i do development on Windows, for Linux at work.

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