ITWire picks apart a report from CCID, a Chinese research firm, suggesting that "Investments in informatization are becoming more cautious, the postponing and cancellations of system construction have led to a drop in Linux shipment[s]."
While no information is provided on Windows or Mac sales to provide a baseline (Is Linux growth slowing more than its competitors?), it's interesting to me that it's slowing at all. I would think that Linux adoption would grow in a downturn, at least in relatively new markets where Windows hasn't completely conditioned businesses and consumers to expect a Windows experience.
It's possible that the drop in Linux shipments stems from publicity over alleged government spying through Red Flag Linux, China's dominant Linux distribution. Maybe the flight from Linux is a flight to safety?
It's more likely, however, that years of Chinese piracy have made entrenched Microsoft's Windows, making it hard for a Linux challenger to keep pace in a spiraling economy. Reuters reports that more and more copies of Windows in China are legitimately bought due to government decree.
Even so, I suspect that the economic downturn is rejuvenating Windows piracy again, to Linux's detriment.
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.
17Lamp.net reports on one big feature that China's version of the Firefox browser has that the rest of the world still lacks: Live Margins.
What is the Live Margins feature? It's easier seen than explained, and can be viewed here. 17Lamp.net translates:
It's a new sidebar on the right, and apparently it is "a unique solution to the longstanding problem of tab browsing where only one tab is visible at any time." But it also gives "additional search results, relevant information, music, video, and much more." (It) is also localized, including information from the Chinese YouTube, and Chinese sites for music and other information.
It looks really cool, as it blends services from different Web sites into one view. It means I can be on CNN.com, for example, but can simultaneously, in the same tab/window, be browsing YouTube, perhaps to call up a related news video.
It sounds like a great feature, and is a testament to the fluidity of innovation in open source. Often decentralized, open-source innovation bubbles up to meet disparate, local needs. Live Margins is just the latest example of this.
Via LinuxToday.
As I was pining for the good ol' days of predatory Microsoft, I read that the Jekyll side of Microsoft never really left. From All Things D:
In a status report filed with Federal antitrust regulators yesterday, Microsoft said it had done much to comply with its 2002 antitrust consent decree....
In the states, perhaps. But apparently not in Asia. Because not 24 hours later, China's State Intellectual Property Office said it's investigating the software giant for discriminatory pricing. And according to the Shanghai Securities News, it may sue Microsoft under a new antitrust law scheduled to go into effect Aug. 1.
Let me make sure I understand this: China has long benefited from stealing Microsoft's software. Now it's considering suing because Microsoft charges too much for the software it pirates?
Apparently, China's State Intellectual Property Office may be organizing a group of companies to sue Microsoft for using its market power to charge high prices in China, where the cost of Microsoft's software can easily exceed the hardware costs for a new PC.
But isn't this the land of piracy, where Microsoft's software is basically free, whatever the list price may say? Microsoft has used piracy as a strategic weapon in China. It's somewhat ironic to see China complaining about Microsoft's pricing. Does the government have an alternative in mind?
UPDATE: China's anti-piracy agency is now denying an investigation into an antitrust suit against Microsoft, the AP reports.
"Our office has never conducted research on monopoly behavior aimed at any enterprises," the [agency] said. "And at present we have no plan to conduct this work."
Right hand, meet left hand.
I will admit, I am laughing as I type this. The news that Microsoft and Novell are taking their interoperability roadshow to China is hilarious on a number of different levels.
How much do you think that China cares about U.S. patents? It has been pirating Microsoft's Windows for years (though at least, in theory, new PCs don't ship with pirated Windows)--and now suddenly it's concerned about making sure it has patent protection for Linux? My mirth runneth over.
"We are very pleased with the original approach by Microsoft and Novell to address our concerns about deploying and managing a complex high-performance computing infrastructure across two platforms. It is essential for our future competitiveness and success," Nie Hua, vice president of Chinese company Dawning Information Industry, said in Microsoft and Novell's Sunday night press release. "We fully understand the concerns surrounding intellectual property rights and feel reassured that these issues have been addressed by our vendors."
I bet! I suspect Nie Hua was crying himself to sleep at night before Microsoft and Novell approached him with this. You can just imagine his fretting: "How will I deal with the uncertainty of Linux's intellectual property position unless Microsoft, which has attempted to introduce the uncertainty, blesses my Linux distribution?" Give me a break.
Still, I give Novell credit here. Why?
... Read more
Despite its myriad of other benefits, one of the primary reasons open source has spread so far so fast has been its price tag. $0.00.
As Mozilla is finding out in China, however, "free" as in price has less relevance to a market accustomed to software piracy. Firefox is looking to more than double its market share from 2 percent of the Chinese market to 5 percent in 2008. Its price ($0) is not helping it.
What is Mozilla to do?
... Read moreAs noted on Slashdot, and as reported by Xinhua,
A Beijing university student is suing Microsoft for infringing upon his privacy, demanding 1,350 yuan (180 U.S. dollars) in compensation and an apology printed in a national newspaper.
... Read more
First it was China. Now India and Brazil. The rout of Microsoft's Open Office XML (OOXML) standardization efforts is now essentially complete. When the world's fastest growing economies reject Microsoft, Microsoft has a problem.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about India's and Brazil's separate rejections of Microsoft's attempts to standardize its Open Office XML. Microsoft is holding out hope that if it resolves all 200 of India's complaints with its submission, it will have OOXML approved.
Yes, but this largely misses the point.
... Read moreFortune Magazine has a great article on Microsoft's growth in China. Gates is apparently a rock star in China, with government officials and groupies clamoring to meet him. He owns China, as the article suggests.
Gates says he's certain China will eventually be Microsoft's biggest market, though it may take ten years. Projected sales this year are already three times what they were in 2004, yet still less than annual revenue in California. (Microsoft will not disclose figures, but Fortune estimates China revenue will exceed $700 million in 2007, about 1.5% of global sales.)
Why? How did Microsoft get to this point in China? Well, funny enough, by acting very much like an open source vendor, despite its best efforts :
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