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Intel Helping Asia to Use Linux 258

Posted by samzenpus from the the-first-one-is-free dept.
sameerdesai writes "Seattletimes is carying this story on Intel helping major countries like China and India to help build Linux machines as an alternative to Microsoft Windows. It definitely looks like both Microsoft and Intel are using the big potential market in Asia to establish a foothold. Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents. What do fellow slashdotters think on trends of OS and hardware in Asia will be?"
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Intel Helping Asia to Use Linux More

Intel Helping Asia to Use Linux

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  • Whoa there. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by shamilton ( 619422 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:02AM (#10917150)
    Linux SUPPOSEDLY violates 228 patents. According to Microsoft. Talk about ass-backwards wording.

    • Re:Whoa there. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by gilesjuk ( 604902 )
      What does this figure actually refer to though? the kernel? KDE, X, Gnome?

      If it's just the kernel then why hasn't any action been brought? simply because the kernel team have no money to syphon off, companies like SCO would rather sue their competitors to hamper their business.

      Currently Microsoft has more cases against them about patents and other alleged violations than any of the open source community.

      • Re:Whoa there. (Score:4, Informative)

        by aussie_a ( 778472 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:53AM (#10917311) Journal
        If it's just the kernel then why hasn't any action been brought? simply because the kernel team have no money to syphon off, companies like SCO would rather sue their competitors to hamper their business.

        Also, from my understanding, the second a patent is used in court that patent may be revoked. In all probability Linux violates 150 issued patents. But we all know how ridiculous patents are so it's probably 150 -bad- patents that shouldn't have been issued in the first place.

        Comapnies holding the patents can't go after the kernel team because the community would chip in to help, as I doubt the kernel team could withstand a challenge on their own. With Linux being so important to Open Source, I can see many companies helping out, and possibly using their own patents to counter-sue.
        • Well it sounds like this is an empty threat from Microsoft. IBM would have quite a lot of patents to use against Microsoft.

          The areas i'd consider dubious in the kernel tend to be Microsoft related, SMBFS, NTFS, VFAT. So mostly it's file systems.
        • I think you'd see a lot of private help as well. I know I'd be willing to donate some money to that cause.

    • Re:Whoa there. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Amiga Lover ( 708890 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:24AM (#10917227)
      Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents.

      Not only that, it's an outright lie. There are 220 something patents that apply to IP within Linux.

      Many of those patents are already owned by Linux companies.

      Saying Linux violates all those 228 patents is like saying MS Windows violates a thousands patents belonging to Microsoft. It's word play with an agenda.

      • Re:Whoa there. (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's word play with an agenda.

        Word(C)(R)(TM) is our copyright. We will see you in court.

        For your agenda, may we suggest Outlook(C)(R)(TM)?

        Microsoft.

    • Re:Whoa there. (Score:3, Interesting)

      by pedantic bore ( 740196 )
      Let's face it; Linux probably violates some patents. It's hard to imagine how it couldn't -- patent-grubbing companies patent every imaginable little thing. I am probably violating a patent right now by using both hands to type on a keyboard connected by a computer.

      The usual defense against patents is to obtain patents of your own, and everyone agrees not to sue each other ad infinitum (usually). Linux hasn't gone this way -- although it does get some protection, of course, from interested corporate s

      • Re:Whoa there. (Score:5, Interesting)

        by DenDave ( 700621 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:28AM (#10917380)
        "The usual defense against patents is to obtain patents of your own"

        Actually this MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)approach will not work. What does work is jurisprudence. Lets see some action in front of judges. That is the proof of the pudding (and grease for the Groklaw fires... ;) )

        The question you gotta ask yourself (and the MS gorillas when they come a pounding threatening lawsuits) is why doesn't MS throw it's weight into the courtroom for all of their so-called infringed patents? Simply because they know it would be a bluf call and that the vast majority of US patents wouldn't hold up in front of any semi-literate judge.

        Patents and intellectual property are important. It is a pity that they are so abused, in the long run it will cause more harm than good.

        "Linux's primary defense to date has been the lack of a defining central entity to sue."

        I disagree, all the coders (kernel) are known. All the commercially available products are with registered companies. If I sell you a linux system, you can sue me. Go ahead, make my day punk (and our lawyers... they will love it!).

        So in the final analysis I think it fair to say that MS is simply stalling the impending demise of the OS business untill they can come up with another money maker scheme to fill the billion $ + gap they see coming. I think it is a tough call for them and I suspect their moves to dominate mail, messenging and entertainement markets are the direct consequence of this insight.

        Run billy, run ...

        • I disagree, all the coders (kernel) are known. All the commercially available products are with registered companies. If I sell you a linux system, you can sue me.

          You did not understand what I wrote. There is no central defining entity. Sue the developers, and the code is still unencumbered. Sue the distributors, run them all out of business, or just buy them out -- and the code is still free. Nobody owns linux and nobody can stop its distribution. The only hope that someone like MS has is to make

          • I did understand. I just simply disagree. Is there a central defining entity for web browsers? Sure you could bug W3C or even IETF but would that change anything? Dragging MS (IE) to court or the folks at Mozilla.org or even Opera.com might change something though... I agree wholeheartedly with you on the "The only hope that someone like MS has is to make it illegal to run it. " so perhaps we argue the same point from a different perspective, I argue from a product liability perspective and not so much fro
      • I am probably violating a patent right now by using both hands to type on a keyboard connected by a computer.
        Since most people connect the keyboard to a computer, I think you're in the clear. IANAL, YMMV, void where prohibited and all that.
      • >Linux probably violates some patents ...
        >If MS claims 228 patent violations, they get 228 tries

        No, that is not accurate, a few of these 228 patents are owned by MS, maybe 20 , i don't remember the actuall number.

        However, even if 2 or 3 or even 10 of them actually qualify as valid patents in the court *and* linux actually *does* violate them, the relevant code/functionality will simply be removed from the kernel ( or some linux distributions might pay a reasonable fee -decided by the court- to MS, a
    • Well according to Blamer, it was MORE than 228.

      Meaning either 229, or 228 for wich they have half of a case for and any number for wich they're trying to "prove".
      • however, only a small portion of them are actually owned by MS. Actually, the biggest part of those 228+ patents belong to (who would guess?) ... IBM.

    • Re:Whoa there. (Score:3, Informative)

      by SpaceLifeForm ( 228190 )
      Well, to be accurate, MS is referring to an OSRM report. But even so, there is no proof at this time that any problems really exist, and therefore one should be careful when commenting on said report which was twisted into FUD by an abusive monopoly [yahoo.com], otherwise you may actually be contributing to the FUD yourself.

      From the article linked to:

      "Microsoft is up to its usual FUD [fear, uncertainty and doubt]," said Dan Ravicher, author of the study Microsoft cites, who is an attorney and executive director

    • Re:Whoa there. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Mysticalfruit ( 533341 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @10:37AM (#10918147) Homepage Journal
      Firstly, those would be American patents I'm pretty sure. Which, since their going to be using the product in their country doesn't really apply.

      Secondly, China and India have a long standing and storied history of ignoring patents all together.

      So, ultimately Microsoft is just tooting its own horn.
  • ...So you can replace it with genuine pirated windows straight from Microsoft or well sue! We mean it!!!

  • Patent violations (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lurker McLurker ( 730170 ) <allthecoolnameshavegone.gmail@com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:04AM (#10917161)
    Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents.
    No, it doesn't. There are areas identified as being possible grounds for a dispute about patents, just as there is in any other piece of software with a large enough amount of code. But Linux has not been shown to violate any patents.

  • FUD (Score:5, Funny)

    by xstonedogx ( 814876 ) <xstonedogx@gmail.com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:06AM (#10917165)
    Microsoft is using its scare tactics to warn of possible lawsuits because Linux violates about 228 patents...

    ...And also submitting stories to slashdot under the name "sameerdesai".

  • Intel's motivation? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rackrent ( 160690 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:06AM (#10917169)
    While it's true that many of the "tech support" jobs that have been outsourced to Asia have been windows-specific, it may well be the case that Intel is focusing more on its potential for servers which are not, or should not (generally) be Microsoft based. so they may seem more willing to work with hardware issues and opening up a broader market for increasing their presence on *nix based servers? Just a thought.
    • I would put forth that Intel sees India and China as its major growth markets-- and they will do what they can to lower price points in order to move chips out the door. It could be that simple: remove the MS tax, and you lower the price point, which should increase volume.

      China and India combine for 1/3 the Earth's population-- a population that is not saturated with machines (like the US and EU), but is just entering its wild growth phase in IT. This means demand for servers/notebooks/routers/cell phon
      • I have a question - how much does (say) RHEL cost, compared to the "MS tax"? For business use, real support (not googling for HOWTOs and emailing questions to developer lists) tends to be pretty important, which would mean paying for your distro, not just downloading it...

        Not trolling, genuine question - how much does RHEL or similar cost, compared with Windows?

        As for your idea, of course that's the case. Intel is in the business of selling hardware, not software, and so will support/recommend whatever th

    • Re:Intel's motivation? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      MS dropped the Itanium. This turned Intel's billion doallar project to saw dust, unles, Linux runs on it.

      Business is business.

  • How long...? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by julesh ( 229690 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:07AM (#10917170)
    How long do you reckon MS will let Intel get away with something like this for, before threatening to (e.g.) make a statement that Windows runs better on AMD processors?

    • Re:How long...? (Score:5, Funny)

      by cpghost ( 719344 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:48AM (#10917293) Homepage

      Or imagine a new crippled version of Windows to punish Intel users? Oh, wait...

    • Re:How long...? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )
      About as long as they want Intel not to make a statement to promote Non-MS operating systems on top of Intel processors? MS has almost as much to lose as Intel on this.

      Kjella
    • The slashdot community seems to have a love-hate relationship with Intel. We want to see AMD overcome Intel in the processor wars. But then we solute Intel for it's interest in Linux, and bash AMD for it's cozyness with Microsoft.
      • nobody wants to see "AMD overcome Intel". what we want to see is companies competing on the market. It's not that intel is bad or anything but competition is always good for the end user.

        Do you think that you could buy a 4 Ghz machine today if amd hadn't released the K6 family some years ago ?

    • Re:How long...? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nikster ( 462799 )
      Even better: MS switches to the PPC platform. They use G5s in the XBOX 2 and they own Virtual PC for backwards compatibility - they could (easily) pull a move like Apple did when switching from 68k to PPC...

      M$ could be deliberately hedging its bets here - better have a big stick in the closet in case Intel acts up (too much).

    • Re:How long...? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by fymidos ( 512362 )
      They cannot do that of course, they are a convicted monopoly, under close surveilance. A statement like that would open the gates of hell.

    • Re:How long...? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 )
      How long do you reckon MS will let Intel get away with something like this for, before threatening to (e.g.) make a statement that Windows runs better on AMD processors?

      M$ dirty tricks are well documented in the antitrust trial. Previously they threatened Intel when Intel wanted to develop a virtual machine for Java on x386. These days, M$ is a convicted monopolist, and although they had their hand slapped, they have to be on their best behavior. Also, Windows is no longer the only option on x386. Yes

  • With or without M$ support (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bogaboga ( 793279 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:07AM (#10917171)
    Linux and OSS will succeed with or without M$ support. Heck, Linux has got where it is without M$ support per-se. I do not see why this should not continue.

    For Intel, if there is cash to be made, Intel will go for it. What will be needed is to show M$ the numbers which will be too big to ignore.

    Cb..

  • Linux in Asia, already strong. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:08AM (#10917174)
    Linux and BSD already have a strong foothold on the desktop in asian countries, and is in use on many government computers as well.

    http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chro ni cle/archive/2004/03/17/BUGTA5M3M41.DTL&type=busine ss

    http://linuxdevices.com/articles/AT8954613940.ht ml

    http://www.asiaosc.org/article_54.html

    • Re:Linux in Asia, already strong. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Daengbo ( 523424 ) <daengbo@gmai3.1415926l.com minus pi> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:42AM (#10917277) Homepage Journal
      I was a little disappointed when I moved from Thailand to Korea. The Linux presense here is almost nil. In Thailand, however, you can't walk into a shopping center without seeing a computer pre-built with Linux on it, and it's mentioned in every mailer for the major hypermarkets as coming free with their computers.

      There, the book store shelves are stocked full of books about how to use Linux ON THE DESKTOP. On the other hand, I have found a single book on RH9.0 in my five months in S. Korea.

      Summarized as: the Linux presense is spotty...

  • Keyboard Chaos (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ObsessiveMathsFreak ( 773371 ) <obsessivemathsfreakNO@SPAMeircom.net> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:09AM (#10917175) Homepage Journal
    I think we can all say with certainty, that any OS based on latin script, along with (still largely) latin based keyboards and paradigms, which dominates in south east asia, will lead only to a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth. Perhaps what is really needed is for south east asia to develop an OS based on their written and syntactic paradigms, rather that a latin based left to right, 26 letters, scheme.
    The best thing Intel could do to win customers would be to try to develop such a solution, rather than simply hacking english OSes to suit the rest of the world.

    And to preempt the responses, what are the FOSS solutions to this problem? I hear chinese language support in linux is coming along. But what about the input issue?

    • Re:Keyboard Chaos (Score:5, Funny)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:26AM (#10917231) Homepage Journal
      "I think we can all say with certainty, that any OS based on latin script, along with (still largely) latin based keyboards and paradigms, which dominates in south east asia, will lead only to a great wailing and a gnashing of teeth."

      It does anyway. I've been gnashing my teeth ever since I was forced to type 'man mount'.

    • Haha they have Asian centric OSes already: Linux. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:29AM (#10917240)
      Umm..

      Linux supports eastern languages much better then Windows does.

      Have you ever heard of TurboLinux? DragonLinux? RedFlag Linux?

      TurboLinux is what China uses for most of it's infrastructure.

      Linux has been working well for Asians for a long long time, and it supports various languages and such much better then Windows does in many cases.

      RedFlag Linux is what it developed SPECIFICLY for a desktop operating system for it's citizens.

      Think about it.

      This is SOFTWARE DEVELOPED BY ASIANS FOR ASIANS.

      By CHINA FOR CHINA.

      You think Intel is going to any of the fucking work of translating it? Hell NO! They are going to simply open source their drivers and provide support and such for making their hardware very suitable for the operating system that Chinese/Korea/Japan/India/etc are already developing FOR THEMSELVES.

      This is Open Source software, baby. This is how it works, this is why it works, and this is why it works better then closed source software in many cases.

      As for the keyboards, you have to understand that the keyboards that we in the west are using are obsolete by 15 years by now. There are much more sophisticated solutions that have been developed and put into production for many years now.

      Goes to show how Western + Closed source-centric your thinking is in this case.

    • Re:Keyboard Chaos (Score:4, Insightful)

      by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot&davejenkins,com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:18AM (#10917363) Homepage
      And to preempt the responses, what are the FOSS solutions to this problem? I hear chinese language support in linux is coming along. But what about the input issue?

      One the one hand, your post is naive in thinking that Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other languages depend on Roman 26-letter alphabets for input. They do not. Each language has developed its own keyboard. Users can either use that keyboard or switch to Roman letters (usually with a dedicated key, or shift-space for a US keyboard).

      On the other hand, you are correct that input is lagging for Chinese and Japanese input. There are some very very sophisticated apps to determine what one types becomes coherent kanji (chinese characters used in Chinese, Japanese, and sometimes in Korean). Windows has this issue largely under control, but FOSS is lagging behind.

      Theoretically this is getting better, quickly. OpenAsia.org [openasia.org] will post an article on this very topic very soon.

  • WTF!? (Score:2, Funny)

    by gcantallopsr ( 451114 ) *

    > because Linux violates about 228 patents

    So, is it a fact or not? Proof it or shut up :-P

    • Re:WTF!? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:32AM (#10917249) Homepage Journal
      "So, is it a fact or not? Proof it or shut up :-P"

      I think you'd be a good deal happier if MS didn't prove it. In all seriousness, it's very possible Linux and related software can violate a patent or 3. Before you mod me down consider a few things:

      1.) MS holds a lot of patents, valid or not.

      2.) It's unlikely that authors of FOSS software run a patent search for every feature they implement.

      3.) MS can easily make ready a team of lawyers to make a case out of just about anything.

      4.) Linux doesn't have a whole lot to fight back with.

      I don't mean this to be insulting, but I seriously doubt Linux is squeaky clean. I in no way mean to imply immoral intent, but there are so many patents and so many lines of code. It would not be good if MS were to attempt to 'prove' it.
      • I think just the opposite. If Linux implemented say a thread scheduler or something and was found to infringe upon a patent that was [in theory] unknown to the implementer than the idea can't possibly be that novel and original if another person can make the same conclusions.

        Also it will show how absurd [in particular] MSFT patents are. I can't find it right now but I'm sure I found one for MS taskscheduler [re: cron jobs] and another for "making multimedia projects" [re: virtual dub] and there are plent
        • You seem to have a skewed idea of how the patent system works. Just because someone else independantly invents the same thing doesn't mean the original patent is invalid. It's quite possible for two people to independantly invent the same thing without it being an obvious invention.

          Remember, that patents are based on algorithms, not implementations. Also remember that what may seem obvious today, wasn't necessarily obvious when it was first invented. There may be multiple ideas based on the invention,
          • My point though is why punish those who worked hard as well? Patent searches are clearly not an easy thing to do given the amount of mascarading patent attorneys do to make the inventions they represent sound legit.

            The point of my reply is to show how dated patent law is. When patent law was written there were what? Maybe a few thousand patents out there? ... at best.

            Now there are millions and I wouldn't be surprised to see the magic 10M figure hit next year at the going rate.

            I'd say unless you can pr
        • Also, remember that Linux kernel hackers are not working in a vacuum. They have access to research and published papers on patented technology. While they may not have intentionally implemented something they knew to be patented, one doesn't always realize where their ideas come from. It may be that they read about the technology in passing, which spurred their ideas. Also, many of the people working on the kernel have worked commercial OS's, and again may have had access to technology that they've cons

    • Re:WTF!? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Vulcann ( 752521 )
      Does it violate 228 or 288. Also how come it violates "about" 228 patents ? Does the number of patents it violates change depending on the time of day you measure it ? /sarcasm

  • Do the governments care? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:11AM (#10917183)
    Seriously, think about the last time the governemtns of India or China actually cared about patents that were registered outside their respective countries. Moreover, since Linux provides a very cheap alternative to Microsoft's products, I doubt if they will care about all the noise that MS makes. On the other hand, Microsoft is using what some may call 'underhand' tactics to sway the governments. Donations to government programmes is one of them. And as someone posted above, Linux SUPPOSEDLY violates 228 patents. MS has been trying to play down Linux for quite some time now and now they're saying it violates 228 patents. Yeah, I believe that.
    • China (and quite possibly India too) are inherently wary and more suspicious of a big firm owning every computer they work on. Conspiracy theories aside, its pretty well known that the NSA and other security agencies in the US "work with" Microsoft during they're OS development. Now if I were a government in Asia, I'd rather ask patent lawyers to kiss my ass rather than let a foreign government have the complete ability to spy into my entire computer network.

      Thats the simple reason why no matter what M$
      • China (and quite possibly India too) are inherently wary and more suspicious of a big firm owning every computer they work on. Conspiracy theories asid

        Which is why MS's threats might very well push Asian givernments away from software patents.

        They have given us a wonderful example of what ASia has to lose from software patents and I will be very surprised on if this does not have an effect on Asian, especially Chinese, thinking during the next round of WTO negotiations.

        Incidentally software patents are

    • Re:Do the governments care? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Builder ( 103701 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:15AM (#10917358)
      The argument from Microsoft though, is that as people sign up to Free Trade agreements, or are forced to sign up to certain WTO treaties, they _HAVE_ to care about american IP, and they _HAVE_ to enforce it.

      This is one of the reasons that India is no longer allowed to manufacture generic versions of certain drugs anymore, despite the fact that these were saving lives daily!
    • To promote Linux anywhere in the world, I feel the resistance from the parents is one of the big concern. Many will complain if they find their children are learning some useless subject, like, non-MS related computer course.

      It is especially relevant for IBM. If they want to create future headache for MS, develop a good set of teaching resources, which can be delivered through Linux. It should be relatively easy to include typing tutor program (localised version), basic word processing (openoffice), inte
    • Seriously, think about the last time the governemtns of India or China actually cared about patents that were registered outside their respective countries.

      Let's say they don't, and MS makes good its threat, sues a bunch of projects, and wins. Most of these projects are developed in countries that either now or soon will have software patents, so it's possible.

      So, what happens? Well, bang goes ongoing project development, and bang goes a large lump of the support community. China may find itself going f

  • China couldn't care less! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:14AM (#10917192)
    China couldn't care less if Linux is breaking patents - their response to GM's claim of car design theft should explain that. Here's a link to Forbe's article on that http://www.google.ie/search?q=cache:DRIMvkRStB8J:w ww.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2004/09/06/ap1531296.html+g m+china+car+copied&hl=en&client=firefox-a/ [google.ie]

    If Intel's efforts will bring down the price of PCs in India, its an excellent move, and of course, with relatively cheap admins at their disposal, Banking and other firms wouldn't think twice to cease the opportunity, like AIB did. http://www.computerweekly.com/Article131652.htm/ [computerweekly.com]
    • That's not true. I was recently over in China and I got an opportunity to speak with some kids ranging from 10 to 14 years old. Their biggest fear is using an operating system that may not fairly compensate the owners of the patents it uses. Though young, they understand the meaning of respecting large companies.
    • The GM claim for car design theft sounds like FUD to me. The following is what I cut directly from the linked article. "But the Spark design, which GM obtained in its 2002 acquisition of South Korea's former Daewoo Motor Sales Corp., was never patented in China and thus isn't protected by China's intellectual property laws"... In addition, other than similar exterior look GM does not provide much evidence for copying. Most cars in the lower end of the market look similar anyway. It sounds like GM's FUD

  • Well.. (Score:2, Interesting)

    by neodude88 ( 799799 )
    The Chinese government runs their own distribution of Linux called "Red Flag Linux"...

  • Patents? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Savant ( 85811 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:18AM (#10917209)
    Those would be American patents, right? As in patents that have no legal significance outside America? And we're talking about China and India, right?

    Yeah. That's what I thought.

  • cost factor. (Score:2, Informative)

    by monotoy ( 577581 )
    i'd say that linux has a huge advantage over m$ - cost, especially in china. there aren't many people who can afford a legal windows copy - not to menation that actually finding a legal copy can be a difficult issue in itself :) also, i assume that chinese users are in a very early state of their computer use habits, so there isn't this decade-old religiousness on hardware/OS preferences like in europe and the US, which is an advantage especially for alternative/niche companies. there was a nice article on
  • One of the things that I've noticed with politics when it comes to Asia is that they generally don't go for the whole 'scare' campaigns.

    Most times I've seen the US make threatening dances and Asia (okay, typically China) go "*shrug* so what?".

    The US and its companies are fast sliding past the position where they can afford to rely on feather puffing and noise making - they may end up being next year's Turkey on China's plate.

  • Oriental Tactics (Score:5, Funny)

    by jocks ( 56885 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:28AM (#10917237) Homepage
    Intel: Hello we would like to show you our processors and this lovely software called Linux and OpenOffice.

    Oriental Bod: Very nice. The chips are a bugger to copy, we will just have to buy them. How much for the software?

    Intel: Free.

    Microsoft: You will be sued and die!

    Oriental Bod: How much for your OS and office package Microsoft?

    Microsoft: Same price as an average family home in your country, per box. Plus maintenance, anti-virus, defragemntation, remote support, admin tools and server costs. Plus downtime for virus attacks, patching, reboots on software install and the inevitable hacker attack. But if you read this document, the TCO is lower than the free software. Oh, I nearly forgot, we made Intel look bad because our OS's were so unreliable people thought the processors were bad too.

    Intel: Mention AMD and you will be sued and die!

    Oriental Bod: Hmm, so AMD and Open Source is cheaper in every conceivable way than Windows and
    Intel. And as it's open I can manufacture my own devices and release the drivers without having to go through Microsoft scrutiny, thereby making my time to domestic market much faster?

    Intel: Except you will be better using our chips rather than AMD's.

    Oriental Bod: But your 64bit chip is the same as their 64bit chip and the geeks in Open Source land have been playing with it for longer. We like AMD!

    Microsoft: But Linux violates nearly 229 patents!

    Oriental Bod: We violate hundreds of human rights but no-one seems to give a damn about that either! We will be working on our Human Rights record for years to come, your licensing is insignificant to us. Bring on the AMD and OO!

    • Oriental Bod: We violate hundreds of human rights but no-one seems to give a damn about that either! We will be working on our Human Rights record for years to come, your licensing is insignificant to us. Bring on the AMD and OO!

      Very funny and hilarious and all, but Oriental and Chinese are clearly different please. Stop generalizing the whole of East Asia into the "Chinese". Not every country in East Asia violates human rights you know. Some of them are, in fact, well run democracies.

  • Asian pirate issues? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by laughingcoyote ( 762272 ) <barghesthowl@@@excite...com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @06:28AM (#10917238) Journal

    It's my understanding that pirate copies of Windows are pretty widely available in Asia. This may, in somewhat of an ironic twist, actually end up hurting implementation of Linux-if you can get a copy of "Windows" for near-free, it may actually discourage people from adapting an open-source solution.

    • i'm from the philippines and most people here don't know any other operating system than windows. it's really hard to convince people to use linux and other open source software because of piracy. that's why i start by spreading firefox then introducing other open source software inc. linux

    • Re:Asian pirate issues? (Score:5, Informative)

      by mallumax ( 712655 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:14AM (#10917356) Homepage
      Mod parent up!

      I'm an indian and the rampant piracy is the main reason why open source hasn't caught up much. But in governments and corporations linux is slowly gaining momentum.India's biggest insurance company LIC moved it's entire infrastructure onto linux.LIC moved 25,000 desktops and 1000 servers to linux.(But the conversion was from Unix) Even in most organisations linux use is limited o proxy servers,mail servers and file servers. The biggest concern is support.With Redhat and IBM in the arena now the situation is much better.

      But consumer adoption remains a distant dream. The only way linux can win over the consumer is local language computing.Though Hindi is the official language of India ,individual states, whose borders are mostly drawn on socio-linguistic borders, are free to decide their own regional languages for internal administration and education, so there are 22 official languages spoken throughout the country Some of the LUG's are very active in local language computing.Gnome has been translated into Hindi,Bengali and Malayalam.

      Over 40% of the computers sold in india are assembled by some neighbourhood vendor.(Brand PC's are more expensive hence not very popular among the pric conscious and in India price is the single most important factor in buying ANYTHING).Allmost all the vendors install pirated copies of windows.If MS ever decides to go after these vendors they will be digging their own grave.

    • Good point. Being now In China I can also confirm that Windows piracy definately, directly hurts adoption of Linux on Home users desktops... I was pretty disapointed when I moved to China because I was expecting to see mainstream use of Linux all around which is totally false and far from the actual reality.

      Yes, I guess it is true that Chinese government adopted Linux and I did see it running on metro terminals for example.. But that's about it, most people here don't even have a clue as to what Linux is.

    • Posting from Asia (Score:3, Informative)

      by nikster ( 462799 )
      This is more than true. In China, India, and SE Asia, Windows costs just as much as Linux: Software is priced per CD, and one CD costs about $1 - 3, depending on the country.

      So why do people use Windows if the cost the same? Because all Software, from Adobe to the latest games, is also priced per CD, and readily available for Windows. I pay $2 per CD for any Windows app here, no matter what it is. Mac is possible to get, but difficult and older. Linux apps, i have never seen. I think the only reason they s

  • stereotype: millionaire Chinaman drives (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Sai Babu ( 827212 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:06AM (#10917339) Homepage


    a 10 year old Buick.

    The stereotype fits for my family and friends.

    Here's a bit of ethnic humor [funnyheck.com].

    Yes, I can see LInux easily 'winning' in China.

    It's too good a bargain and the learning curve isn't that much steeper than WinDohs.

    What I want to know is what Apple has in min for China and Asia markets. Are they addressing culture based aesthetics as they do in the USA? Do they even realize how many people in the USA buy Apple for aesthetic reasons?

  • Review this very issue at OpenAsia.org (Score:5, Informative)

    by davejenkins ( 99111 ) <slashdot&davejenkins,com> on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:06AM (#10917340) Homepage
    Forgive the shameless plug, but we are trying to address this very issue at OpenAsia.org [openasia.org]. Some cursory points:

    1. The Chinese market and Indian markets are huge-- beyond your wildest dreams huge. Imagine the combined market of the US and EU in EACH country, but the economic maturity (read potential) of 1955 in the US.

    2. Desktops are old skool, and the Chinese are leapfrogging directly to cell phones and notebooks. Think embedded (see interview with Rasterman on our site)

    3. The posts here about keyboard compatability are non-sequiter: Chinese have Chinese-language keyboards if they want them; most Indians can speak some English (some are fluent), and Indian scripts are not so hard to do with specific keyboards

    4. Linux is racing RACING in these markets-- espeically in India. Linux provides cheap, sturdy platforms for "free", while openning up the world of adaptative platforms and apps without having to go through the Americans.

    5. Microsoft has its foothold, but that market is self limiting because of price, piracy, and functionality.

    6. Red Hat, SuSE and the other "major" distros are equally limited via piracy (they cannot get money out of China or India). However, Red Hat's marketshare is growing rapidly in China.

    7. We welcome any comments and stories based on these topics. (Forgive the membership requirement for posting comments-- we do not sell or transfer registration info.)

    • Hence the beuty of a service based business plan (Score:5, Insightful)

      by TheLoneCabbage ( 323135 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:40AM (#10917405) Homepage
      If a company is based around training and services then it shouldn't matter much how many copies are stollen. It should actually help. Example: You can download and use NXServer/Client for free, but if you are looking to run an office on it, your going to need their help. Same with Redhat. Most installations go smooth (a credit to their product) but if your doing something on an enterprise scale you want the comfort of knowing that you can blame the folks in the fedora, and they WILL fix your problems as they come up.

      Since small jobs don't require much support it allows service companies to ignore the nickle and dime stuff and focus on the high rollers. So steel it all you like, your just increasing the number of people who are comfortable with the product, and decreasing the cost of finding good employees.

      Of couse RH and Novel will need to find tech support workers who can cost effectively service India and China.... .... .... uh the Congo is nice this time of year isn't it?

  • I doubt many companies in Asia are concerned about litigation against open source over patents. If the BSA gains any support from Asian governments, however, that could have a major impact. Most small and some larger companies (varies how much by country) use mainly pirated Windows software. If the risk of using pirated software becomes unacceptable, I think open source will gain a huge slice of the market.

  • Dunno other parts of Asia, but in China (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lxt518052 ( 720422 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:24AM (#10917372)
    Linux isn't as popular as in the west partly because pirated Microsoft products are so easy to get. For example, you can probably find a set of pirated WinXP + Office XP CDs for 8 RMB, or US$1. Almost everything you need for a Windows machine can be find at a low price. As far as I can remember, this has always been the case since the mid-90s. Rumors said that MS itself promoted pirating Windows and other its products secretly to boost its userbase and reap the profit later by intimedating corporate user into buying licenses through lawsuits.

    The reason for MS to help pirating its own software is the price. While a typical Chinese family in Shanghai earns RMB4000, or US$500, a month. A copy of MS WinXP Home OEM(supposedly cheaper than non-OEM, the reason why OEM is for retail is beyond me) is labeled RMB 880http://www.federal.com.cn/shop/game/productintr oduce.asp?productno=10ABBMIC343 [federal.com.cn], or about US$100. That's about one fifth of the family's income. And MS Office 2003 Standard Chinese Simplified costs RMB3000http://www.federal.com.cn/shop/soft/product introduce.asp?productno=10CBEMIC382 [federal.com.cn], or US$370. These prices are from an online retailer. They used to be much higher when people earns much less in the mid-90s. Paying a month's earning for only the basic operating system sounds just insane. But this was, and largely still the case in China if you want to stay with MS leagally. And there is no alternative to MS, since MS has virtually destroyed everyone who dare to challenge them by every means possible, including promoting pirates.

    I know Microsoft's practices are the same globaly, but it is extremely effective in locking in users of developing countries like China. Unlike the west, there was virtually no base of unix users. To most people, computer = PC = Windows. The shortage of unix gurus makes Linux extremely hard to approach in the early days.

    Now the situation has changed somehow, but language barrier still exists. Good linux documentation and forums are almost all in English or more obscure languages to a common Chinese. One has to be fluent in English to master Linux. There're not many people can do so, even among the youth. Translation helps, but not much, partly because of the quality. The community-driven model itself demands users and developers to communicate in common language, and the core developers are, inevitably, mostly English speaking or prefer to communicate in English.

    Having said that, I still believe Linux is the way to go for Chinese, not for some national security reasons, but the freedom and openness.

    • One thing I have noticed is that MS is on a major PR offensive here in Sri Lanka. I suspect that they can succeed here becuase the market is small, already locked into MS and the government has no understanding of technology. Add the fact that coporate IT people are notoriusly corrupt and tend to buy the most expensive solution (usually proprietary via an overpriced channel) and the environment is terrible for Linux.

      In spite of all that Linux is gaining some traction and over the last year I have noticed

  • Enough of MS lets focus on the happy news okay? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Thursday November 25, 2004 @07:51AM (#10917435) Journal
    Geez, so far everyone is focusing on how evil and nasty MS and how they are a bunch of lying scumbags. All true enough and it wouldn't suprise me if when MS actually tries anything with that patent crap they will be shot out of the water by IBM and all the companies they have been stealing off.

    So enough. Lets pet Intel a bit. Intel has long been hardly unfriendly to Linux but was on the other hand part of Wintel. Can this suggest that perhaps the Wintel alliance is not nearly as thight as some /. monkeys seem to think? (if it was explain why Intel would ever make their compiler work on linux.)

    If Intel is really going to release stuff (actually more stuff they already have linux drivers of their own making) are they going to do it the opensource way? That could actually be pretty big. Almost all components of a pc can be bought from Intel. A total Intel PC with complete opensource drivers would finally end the "Linux doesn't regonize my hardware" crap.

    A namebrand PC running 100% opensource software made by volunteers and the company making the hardware. Gosh, that would be nice.

    Oh and if Intel releases opensource drivers then nothing in those drivers can be considered to ifringe on any patents of intel. And if Intel wants to sell their chips to Linux users they wouldn't enforce any patents against linux either. Is Intel another ally?

    I think this kinda news and companies like nvidia and ati trying to support linux is actually very important. Linux share at the moment is tiny and if these companies did not try it would be even smaller. They are helping linux grow. (and if they go all the way and opensource their contributions BSD grow)

    Anyone know if Intel is going all the way? Full opensource drivers and/or helping opensource developers with the specs to their hardware? Grepping through the kernel for intel doesn't tell me who wrote the code or how they found out how to write the driver.

  • It will be their own, it always is, they are very protective of their market and culture. It might start with Linux or something else but several things are sure:

    1-China doesn't care for internationnal standards when it has too
    2-China doesn't want to depend on the US for crucial technologies
    3-China likes to develop it's own thing made for its own people
    4-Their semantic and use of language and symbols is very different from ours, the OS interface should therefore, to be optimal, be very different then what
    • Another point to ponder:

      If China doesn't care about IP rights, what makes you think it cares about the GPL? They MIGHT adopt Linux, but then what? Cut to a million slashdot geeks bitching about how 'China' (ok, the gouvernment, no need to flame) took Linux, made a Chinese language patch that works and then didn't release their modified sources.
  • American software patents are void.
  • Intel has been working on Linux initiatives for at least two years, maybe longer. But it was news that efforts were focused in Asia.

    I would love to see the US pushed into Linux compatibility by other countries for a change. It's a better OS and a more efficient business model.

    We have a day of reckoning coming. On the amount of energy we use, about being dependent on foreign countries for manufacturing capacity, being dependent on foreigners to finance our budget deficit and thinking we can sustain an

  • We all know that once Intel turns is back, Asia's going to reformat and install warez versions of Windows XP!

  • Asia doesn't want to be controlled by foreign interests, therefore it will adopt the IT technology it can implement by itself, i.e. GNU/Linux.
  • There have been chinese copyrights over western religious icons. Chinese IP's are used for spamming. Chinese govt's don't care about human rights. They got a lot of pirate copies of Windows. And you think they'll be scared of patent infringment?

    Puh-lease.

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