Posted on 04/20/2006 9:00:14 AM PDT by ShadowAce
The past few weeks have revealed much about the great paradox that is China. It is a nation that wants a capitalist lifestyle with centralised totalitarian rule. The past weeks have also revealed a lot about the Western World's biggest IT companies, Namely, they'll do just about anything to crack the giant fortune cookie market. Some will give away their software, others will allow their search results to be censored and others may even be prepared to help the Chinese Government track down its dissidents. The more principled ones among us may say: "IT companies beware of the Chinese trap." I say: "China, remember your 19th Century history. IT capitalism is a far more powerful drug for an emerging technology nation than Opium."
The meeting between Chinese President Hu Jintao and Microsoft chairman Bill Gates may have seemed to some a polite symbolic gesture on the part of China to show that it is serious about adopting Western standards of intellectual property and proprietary ownership. However, coupled with the $1.2 billion sweetheart deal that Microsoft just announced with China’s number one PC maker Lenovo, the intent of the leader of the IT capitalists is crystal clear: lock in.
Microsoft, which has around 90% of the global PC operating system and office productivity software market, has achieved its remarkable stranglehold through a process called lock-in. Those of us, which is most of us, who have had the Windows operating system on our desktops for more than a decade, know all about lock-in.
We Windows users know all about the files we have created in Microsoft Office over the years, not to mention the numerous other applications that have been developed for Windows by software companies such as Adobe, Macromedia, and smaller independent software vendors. We know how we have come to depend upon those applications and the data attached to them.
Our dependence has never become more apparent than when we discovered that there is a whole world of innovative and most excellent software that is freely available and collectively labelled under the banner of open source. Much of this software, such as Open Office.org, an excellent free replacement for the overpriced Microsoft Office, will run on both Windows and the alternative operating system Linux. Likewise, the increasingly popular Firefox internet browser, which is superior in both functionality and performance to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, will run on both operating systems.
However, there are many applications that will run only on Windows. While there are usually equivalent and even superior applications that will run on Linux, they are not easily interchangeable. This is what we mean by lock in. The longer you use the drug called Windows, the more you become addicted and locked in. The harder it becomes to make the break and move to a free and open environment where applications don’t cost an arm and a leg.
China is a nation with a unique opportunity. Yes there are a plethora of PCs on the market with pirated versions of Windows. Despite what anyone may say, it is a sure bet that Microsoft is happy about that. It’s the initial hit of free Opium. Eventually, as China is forced to tighten its regulatory requirements on PCs being sold into the market – it’s already happening with the no naked PCs rule – users will be forced to pay for their Windows operating system. In the meantime, they will be busily locking themselves into the plethora of Windows specific applications. The more they get locked in, the higher the price will be.
China make note. Windows is a drug that much of the world is trying to wean itself off. Look to the EU. Look to Brazil. Look to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the US. There is an alternative called Linux, which includes all of the applications you need to do business, and it costs a fraction of the price. You may want to buy an Xbox 360 if you want to play games however.
Because there's money in it, DUH! MS Office has a huge marketshare for Mac office apps.
You said 75%, I believe based on the distribution of projects at SourceForge. Now for the English lesson:
Main Entry: license
Function: transitive verb
1 a : to issue a license to b : to permit or authorize especially by formal license
2 : to give permission or consent to
Stallman/FSF holds the copyright to a relatively small number of open source projects (The FSF developer server shows 302 official GNU software titles, and among those there is a high likelihood that Stallman/FSF owns the copyright). Stallman can only license those projects. Other projects are licensed by their respective copyright holders.
Aww--I was gonna string him along for a little more. LOL!
There's nothing funny about you trying to protect radical leftists like Stallman. ~75% of all open source uses his license, which is based on his "manifesto", whether you want to keep defending him and the Chinese from the evil capitalists or not.
Hey--you got it correct on the first post after the lesson. I'm impressed.
Link to a specific post that shows I "protect", defend, or agree with Stallman. HINT: You can't do it because I haven't.
You owe me yet another apology for defamation.
Obviously you just did, just like always. Your claim you don't realize what you're doing and are somehow sleepwalking is even more sinister.
Where? Which post?
Take your pick shadowdude. The only person you're fooling is yourself.
That's what I thought--for all your blustering and accusing, you can't back up anything you say.
Wow you cant really be that obtuse..
lol
I'm simply pointing out some of the leftist causes you're so proud of you list them on your profile page. If you ever decide to instead join me in condemning them... Uh, nevermind, since you seem sworn to defend them at all costs.
So they can run their supercomputers on it. I know it's true, because GE told me so!
BTW, why is it your business to tell someone else what he can or cannot do with his copyrighted works? Are you the copyright god? Red Hat is not only happy to let them, but they're making loads of money doing it.
Looking ..... can't find ... Oh wait, he's an MCSE -- leftist!
You can call them whatever you want, but they are obviously leftists and leftist causes you support. Unashamedly, and endlessly.
Nobody is making loads of money off Linux, they're making peanuts compared to what Unix previously brought in. And that big government software you love so much, you know the core supercomputer software NASA gave away to every communist country, for free? We don't even get a thanks for that, but you'd gladly have our tax dollars build even more stuff to give away if you could.
MCSE? LOL, that guy has been running around for months claiming all Windows 2000 support already ended, when the truth is we'll keep getting security patches till 2010! The only thing that guy has any believable credentials in are BS.
Easy mistake, depending on clarification of meaning. Mainstream support for all versions of Windows 2000 was retired last year for the United States. This is a fact you cannot dispute.
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