[TheEngineer]

We need some competition...MS needs a kick in the pants.

These companies are hardly providing competition to MS here in the US... at least not with me. (I can't read Chinese or Japanese.)

But by your comments I suppose you would prefer to see the American-made Microsoft products shut out of foreign markets? And by Red Flag Linux, no less... a company which lifted its source code from Red Hat, an American company?

Like you, I prefer strong competition too, but when we reach the water's edge, I back American companies with very few exceptions.

[CasearianDaoist]

I was talking about Linux in general, not a particular flavor, and if they rewrote the kernel in kanji, well it would not be Linix, now would it? American technology has to be competitive and MS really need a wake up call. From what I see, most of the innovation in the Linux community comes out of the US anyway. You know, pace IBM, IT companies rarely seem to last more than 25 to 30 years, the game could be up for MS. I do not see what we can do about it anyway - the WTO cannot even agree on the price of corn.

The graver danger to US technology is the outsourcing of US IT engineering jobs. If something is not done about that then we will lose leadership in yet another industry.

It is deeply difficult to control technology, I do not have much faith in the abilities of governments to do so. It will be interesting to see how "freeware" plays against proprietery software. I do not think anyone knows. As capitalist I am all for competition, and no sector is more brutal than IT.