Open-source freedom lost on Chinese government
News hit Slashdot on Wednesday that China is forcing its Internet cafes to use licensed copies of Red Flag Linux, and allegedly not because it wants to encourage software freedom, as Radio Free Asia suggests.
Indeed, Radio Free Asia notes that while the policy ostensibly is aimed at removing pirated versions of Red Flag Linux or Microsoft Windows, Internet cafes are reporting that they are being forced to move to Red Flag Linux even if they already are using licensed versions of Windows.
Why? The Guardian speculates that this may be the Chinese government trying to force a decent return on its investment in Red Flag.
Whatever the reason, it's a reminder that open-source licensing is not necessarily any guarantee of freedom. If a Chinese government agency were hoping to snoop on its citizens using Red Flag, as some have suggested on the Slashdot forum, would the General Public License stop them? No. Presumably, users could hack Red Flag to prevent the snooping, but for most people, this simply isn't an option due to technical inability to write software.
I suppose the only positive news in all of this is that China is setting the standard--albeit a very negative one--for promoting paid use of open-source software. Suffice it to say, however, that I'd prefer if would-be buyers acquired open-source software through choice, not chains.
There are many factors that contribute to making software truly free. The license is only one of them. Free markets, open standards, and open data might well matter much more than a simple license.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
It is well known that they have been announcing publicly that they would be taking new steps to control the news that their people can see. Maybe this is one of those new communist, anti-democratic steps.
- by Zerias December 4, 2008 9:34 PM PST
- I think one of the big issues being overlooked here is that the GPL, and actually most open-source licenses for that matter, depend on copyright law to enforce the restrictions of the license. China, in a very public manner, does not agree with many laws as written by US legislature, the UK legislature, the French legislature, and so-on. A very good case in point is the human rights violations. Citizens, or subjects depending on your point of view, in China do not have the same basic rights that people in civilized countries enjoy.
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- by MSSlayer December 5, 2008 7:48 AM PST
- There has been an influx of freeptards on this site.
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(5 Comments)Why then, I ask, is anybody surprised that when it comes to matters of Open-Source, is anybody surprised that China once again seems to be playing by it's own rule-book? And why does anybody think, for a minute, that China is setting a standard? They aren't. The economics of China simply don't work. Communism failed. Big government is a bad idea. Period. Stop. End of story. Turn the presses off please.
The really bad news to be taken away from the story on China and it's forced sale of Red Flag Linux is that the US voting body has elected to power a liberal democrat in the office of the president, and placed liberal democrats in the positions of leadership within the legislative bodies. People who, like China, don't understand real-world economics, and want to play by their own closed play-books... have the reigns of the US government for the next two years. (although given the fact that the presidential-elect is proving his incompetence in eroding the power-base by pulling potential executive-branch positions from legislative positions... that might not actually be a concern). China, and their actions, are what the liberal democrats aspire to. Big government telling everybody what to do, and taking money whenever they feel like it.
People who don't live outside the US better hope that US citizens are willing to fight back, with lethal force, if the liberal democrats ever try to pull something like what China is pulling with Red Flag.
You do realize that much of the US debt is held by Chinese banks, and it appears our insane consumer heavy economy is totally dependent on China?
What is better: Big government or big business "telling everybody what to do, and taking money whenever they feel like it"?
If you haven't been paying attention lately you might want to, deregulation in the US always leads to disaster. Some point between free markets and total government control is going to have to be found if the US is to recover.