Chinese Seek to Abandon American Computer Systems, Software

[Axis Kast]

The Politburo is apparently attempting to wean itself from dependence upon American computer systems and, much more importantly, American software: http://www.msnbc.com/news/954016.asp?0dm=B13MT.

A warning sign of more significant economic waves to come from a nation home to virtually a fifth of the global population, and thus the largest proportion of its consumers? Beijing has always alarmed the Western world with its seemingly tacit acceptance of self-inflicted suffering for obtuse, long-term gain. While I doubt the “switch” from Microsoft and IBM will be so complete as asserted in the article above, it’s certainly the first step toward something completely unwelcome – and unprecedented. We’re already outsourcing production to the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere; conceptual design seems poised to follow. If we can’t keep the technology market cornered, it’s certainly a negative indicator.

This is simply one more reminder that the globe is headed toward multipolarity. And China’s behavior isn’t necessarily all that unusual given the circumstances. Putin, too, has avoided close contact with American investors, preferring to wait for Russian capital to open Siberia rather than allow his one-time enemies a foothold in the oil wealth sure to fountain within the next century. Even the European Union has begun to spar in The Hague over unfair trade practice. Such disputes will doubtless raise tension for the foreseeable future.

Try as they might however, both the Russian Federation and European community are unlikely to “crack” America’s superpower status. That task belongs to – and will probably be concluded gradually by – the Chinese. Even assuming only half their population become consumers of high-end products (i.e. bicycles, washing machines, electrical appliances, and computer systems), we’re looking at virtually double the sales made in the United States itself – all from factories producing cheaper items for smaller wages and with fewer expensive restrictions. It starts.

[TrailerParkJawa]

There are probably a handful of legal copies of Windows in China. If they move to home grown OS its not really a big deal. Copy right infringement is a huge problem there.

[EmperorMing]

Should be an 'interesting' developement...

[The Duchess of Zeon]

All hail Red Flag Linux!

[Iceberg]

First-generation Chinese software is probably going to be kludgy and buggy as hell, and nowhere near as functional as its American counterparts.

Given their paranoia about America, I'm honestly surprised it took them this long.

[Pu-239]

Red Flag linux is a shitty knockoff of Red Hat, which is a shitty distro.
Then again, lots of distros are either knockoffs of Red Hat or Debian.

All Hail Debian!!!!

[Pu-239]

And all because it's open source doesn't mean there can't be holes in the binary. There are methods to make a compiler insert code into the binaries compiled and other compilers it compiles..., although this can be easily circumvented by using a "trusted" first compiler.

[Drooling Iguana]

First-generation Chinese software is probably going to be kludgy and buggy as hell, and nowhere near as functional as its American counterparts.

You're progbably right on the first part. Not so sure about the second.

[phongn]

All hail Red Flag Linux!

Bloody hell, I've created a monster.

[Newtonian Fury]

Shouldn't the US government wean itself off of Windows also? I mean, why fan the fire that is Microsoft?

[Darth Wong]

The Chinese government has perfectly good reasons for trying to kill Microsoft's dominance:

1. Not open source; they can't see what the software is doing, so they must trust Microsoft to tell the truth. Even if Microsoft offers parts of the source code to developers, who's to say what they're leaving out?
2. Not customizable; if you want to alter Windows in some fundamental way, you're pretty much out of luck. However, a government with fair resources could easily hire teams of programmers to make sweeping changes to an open-source system if desired.
3. Desire to create a homegrown computer software industry. This is self-explanatory.
4. Distrust of an American software company which is perceived to have close ties to the American Bush administration (close enough that Shrubby torpedoed the State Department case against Microsoft as soon as he came into office by essentially ordering them to back off and give them a slap on the wrist).

Their behaviour is perfectly reasonable. In fact, I think most governments should avoid using any closed-source software as a matter of policy. Mind you, I also think that all business software (and operating systems would fall into this category) should be mandated open-source by law. Those who fear massive software piracy are wasting their breath; the difficulty of compiling a major app from source code alone is insurmountable for 99.99% of the population.

Ah, but what about other companies copying your code? Well, you can patent and copyright various parts and pieces of software regardless of whether their inner workings are secret (and in fact, the method of operation is normally quite public for patented technologies outside the computer business; only the computer business feels that it can patent a design objective rather than a design method). And if all software is open-source, then you can tell if someone is copying your code by simply looking at his code. As it currently stands, companies hide shit in their code all the time, and it's impossible to tell unless you get a court order to force them to reveal it (as happened with the DR DOS lawsuit against Microsoft).

[HemlockGrey]

I'm not terribly worried about the Chinese Supermonster seriously knocking the USA off the #1 spot in the coming century, actually.

[Rubberanvil]

Shouldn't the US government wean itself off of Windows also? I mean, why fan the fire that is Microsoft?

Actually a lot of various Federal and State departments and in the Military have already done so, or planning to. Cost of licenses, security and general Windows fuckups and etc. are the primary reasons to the switch.