Submitted by The government-run Central Trust of China has mandated for the first time that all desktop computers purchased from now on must be Linux-compatible, demonstrating the Chinese government’s desire to widen the nation’s usage of open source software. “It is a global trend that Linux is gaining wider adoption due to its lower costs and better adaptability,” Mike Lin, a consultant at the Taipei Computer Association, told the Taipei Times yesterday. Note: This article is about the Republic Of China (Taiwan) and not The People’s Republic Of China.
looks like ATI will have to update its Linux driver soon.
What a shame that it had to be this way.
Edited 2006-06-03 16:41
I don’t think you need a driver to run Linus. I’m pretty sure he can run all by himself
ha, silly me.
Correcting now.
don’t think you need a driver to run Linus. I’m pretty sure he can run all by himself
i don’t think he can run all by himself with all the weight he has gain as of lately, starting to look like tux
Hopefully for Lenovo, Linux-compatible doesn’t mean Linux has to be an installable option…
oops! how does this affect Lenovo’s new position, “Lenovo To Shun Linux” ( http://osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=14802 )
Who knows, maybe they have some sort of arrangement, and the Lenovo decision only effects the rest.
Edited 2006-06-03 17:55
This is pretty great news, considering that many computers are initially manufactured in China. However it only says desktop computers. I find desktops usually don’t have a great deal of issues compared to laptops. Laptops are the only systems which I really need to purchase pre built anyway.
This could also mean some hardware may be a litle more expensive now, the need for Linux drivers will lead to hire maybe developers to work on those drivers.
I believe it’s a fair trade-off. I’d rather pay more and have choice than being sticked to a platform (being stuck to Linux just won’t happen).
Of course, I must admit there is something wrong with forcing people to support a specific product, whether it’s open or not…
The article doesn’t say that vendors are forced to support Linux for all computers, but rather, that government purchases must be for Linux compatible machines.
Such procurement policies are not uncommon, even in the United States. Many agencies in the US government, for example, have purchasing regulations that force computers to be bought with Microsoft Office, as opposed to say, WordPerfect.
Edited 2006-06-03 17:49
Many agencies in the US government, for example, have purchasing regulations that force computers to be bought with Microsoft Office, as opposed to say, WordPerfect.
You’re kidding me right? Is this for real?
I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but government mandated software/hardware compatibility <obnoxious>is not</obnoxious> “market-based” by any measure. Typical Communist USA making anti-compeditive laws against free software. Let the markets decide what is good and what is bad, not government. Government should just be happy with whatever the markets decide to regurgitate on their doorstep.
The USA is apartheid too, because it won’t use untrusted computers for high security purposes. This is wrong. But then again, so many things in this world <obnoxious>are</obnoxious> wrong so what’s one more I guess.
This is sarcastic, right?
If it isn’t, RTFA. We’re not talking about government-mandated anything in either case. In both cases, we’re talking about government procurement policies. They don’t have any affect on the machines Joe Schmoe buys for himself, they just affect the machines the government buys for itself. They’re not laws, they’re internal departmental regulations, just like very IT department has.
This is sarcastic, right?
If it isn’t, RTFA. We’re not talking about government-mandated anything in either case. In both cases, we’re talking about government procurement policies. They don’t have any affect on the machines Joe Schmoe buys for himself, they just affect the machines the government buys for itself. They’re not laws, they’re internal departmental regulations, just like very IT department has.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. I posted my comment because there are apparently people here who still haven’t read the article.
On a different note though, the case of government accepting tenders for office suites involves another issue. If the tender requires products that can read closed MS Office formats, then the tender process is a bit of a joke really. Since only MS has access to their closed formats, they have an obvious advantage.
Sorry to burst YOUR bubble, but I work for a government agency, and we are vendor-locked to Microsoft all the way around. Any software purchased by IT must be Microsoft branded or fully compatible with Windows XP or it isn’t purchased. Our IT manager actually sent out an email last year urging our employees not to send emails to their work account from home unless they were sent with Outlook or Outlook Express and scanned by Symantec’s antivirus product. He specifically stated that “The use of such free antivirus products as AVG, Avast and ClamAV may cause your system to become crippled by the hidden vulnerabilities those products contain.” So here we have a government employee discouraging other government employees from using anything but Microsoft and Symantec products on their own systems at home, and lying about the free alternatives at that.
But no, you’re right, government-mandated software/hardware compatibility isn’t market-based.
Most computers are produced in China, but Taiwan (which this article concerns) still produces quite a lot of hardware, either on the island it self, or outsourced to China or other countries.
Just in case you haven’t noticed, this is the “small”, Republic of China, commonly known as Taiwan…
This is a total case of market control, and the government (in one form) directly supporting and giving advantage to Linux. I think that is great! I think it is obvious, it is the global trend to try to stop relying on US software and sending billions of dollars to Redmond, WA. I just wish my government did the same
(Serbia). Instead, the Belgrade city government just spent millions on upgrading 4000 licences on cities computers.
I have a feeling that poor countries are slow in adopting the cost benefits of Linux. Here again is an example of a well-developed, market-based economy that is thinking ahead and cutting costs, while we send huge ammounts of money to Microsoft instead of investing into infrastructure and industry. This makes me believe that Microsoft should never prevent privacy in the general population. This makes system administrators only proficient with Windows, and they end up recommending that in goverments they work in…
Well, at least, hopefully this will have some effect on the adoption of alternative OSs on desktops.
<em>have a feeling that poor countries are slow in adopting the cost benefits of Linux. Here again is an example of a well-developed, market-based economy that is thinking ahead and cutting costs,</em>
I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but government mandated software/hardware compatibility <strong>is not</strong> “market-based” by any measure.
Government Entity A requiring Hardware Manufacturer M to support or make compatible Hardware X with Software B is utterly and completely against the <strong>freedoms</strong> that the GPL stands for.
It may be nice to see people concerned with making Linux better, but forcing it on companies who may already have made a decision not to support it (for whatever reason, bogus or truthful) just makes them resent it further, especially if it costs them more money in the long run.
Let the markets decide what is good and what is bad, not government. That just screws things up royally in the long run. Microsoft tries to use it’s monopoly to strong arm the markets and artificially support their product…just like the RIAA and MPAA are using stuff like DMCA and even newer more potent federal laws to strong arm their way into the top-tier of the market.
If we rely on laws and government, rather than a free market to get our product out there we’re just like the RIAA: we can’t compete in the real market place so we have to use government as a crutch. I realise many will use the argument that OSS is mostly not for profit, that’s “free” etc. That may be true but it still doesn’t change the fact that it’s being artificially placed into the market.
I agree your points are very valid. However, market-based does not imply that governments do not take part in controlling the economy (actually, almost always that is not the case – think of import/export tariffs, subsidies..)
Basically, I don’t believe it is easy, at this point to take a “laissez-faire” approach to the software market. This market is inherently heavily “inertial”; that is, people depend on technologies they are familiar with, their documents are locked in in a certain technology and such.
I like to try to see this as a way of requiring the hardware vendors to produce drivers for Linux (and if they are smart, the vendors will make them open). This might make it advantegeous to other operating systems as well. It is a case of the country subsidizing Linux and supporting variety in its software market, just like a country setting a high tariff on imported sugar (say), in order to protect its own sugar farmers.
In the end, it is up to the country to make its own market policies. If this was a mistake, then it will affect Taiwan’s software market. But, somehow, I doubt that Taiwan will lose money this way.
But, Linux ultimately needs support from the people, governments and businesses if it is going to make a bigger breach in the market, and bring about more freedom in electronic standards. I personally hope for more actions such as this one.
I have a feeling that poor countries are slow in adopting the cost benefits of Linux.
you forget that ms makes great discounts when it comes to poor countries and high volume licenses
so the cost-advantage of linux is not as big as you think
for example: organisations like computer-aid.org have deals with ms where they pay just 1$ for win/office per pc.
at my university students pay 5euro for xp and office (and get a pressed cd
)
as you can see the price is not realy an argument in this cases.
Of course it is,
Universities are given smaller prices because they are the future market for MS. Organizations like computer-aid.org better be getting a discount! But governments (federal or local) will always have to pay the price, and of course, keep their software legal.
Might be some discount, but like I stated before, the deal with the Belgrade government, for 4000 upgraded licences of windows, office and some extra software was a multi-million dollar deal for MS.
This won’t really stick. It will only effect a few groups.
Dano.
Edited 2006-06-03 16:47
This is Taiwan, not the PRC, and they’ve already approved Lenovo pcs as acceptable, according to the article.
The article also did not claim that “Linux” mean that the entire source for the system has to be open source, so it’s business as usual for device driver writers.
well, this is good and bad, i am kind of glad linux will get this kick from china, however, this is not the right way to do it, China should have said that computers have to comply with open standards (not all open source though) and that if a computer dosen’t comply it will not be sold there.
to say it must be linux compatible seems to really work towards killing the free market, maybe not now, but down the road.
How does this relate to:” Lenovo To Shun Linux”.
Surprise… Surprise… Communist Countries are making anti-compeditive laws against capitailist companies. No suprise Linux is the mechinism they are using to do this, GNU and Marxism seem to go hand in hand.
Bye Bye MS monopoly.
A+ for Chinese government.
This is the ROC not the PRC.
The ROC (Taiwan/Chinese Taipei/Whatever the hell you want to call it) is democratic, not communist, and a liberal enough one at that.
Surprise… Surprise… Communist Countries are making anti-compeditive laws against capitailist companies. No suprise Linux is the mechinism they are using to do this, GNU and Marxism seem to go hand in hand.
Let me make it easy for you:
THIS STORY IS ABOUT TAIWAN.
Taiwan is in essence the ‘real’ China. The communists in China chased the then-government of China into the island of Taiwan, where ever since the ‘real’ Republic Of China continued to exist. On the mainland of China, the communists founded the People’s Republic Of China.
I assumed people knew this.
Which China is the “real” China is very much up to debate. However, it’s been many years since PRC took ROC’s seat in the UN and it appears the government on Taiwan often refer themselves as Taiwan instead of ROC nowadays.
All in all, I doubt anyone is interested in political hot waters like that.
Which China is the “real” China is very much up to debate.
Hence the quotation marks around ‘real’.
Having lived in taiwan I call tell you no one outside a few di hard politicians really cares anymore. All the islandsers call their nation Taiwan and only want respect (not independence) from mainland China.
> Taiwan is in essence the ‘real’ China.
> …
> I assumed people knew this.
LOL! Very funny.
Is that the reason you title the artcle “Chinese Government Says” ?
As a pro-unification Chinese, I applaud you. 🙂
A lot of institutions in Taiwan use the word “China/Chinese” in their names, such as china-airlines. On the other hand, the pro-independence Taiwan President and his party have tried to remove “China/Chinese” from those names. Now I see he has a reason 😉
But of course, according to Taiwan’s constitution, they still own “China”, including mainland, taiwan and Tuva.
Too late, a lot of interesting comments have been posted above, LOL.
Well said, Thom.
The (historically but no longer in fact) Communist Chinese ousted a legitimate, elected government in the course of their “Revolution” and are now mopping up decades of stupidity.
Whatever anyone may say about the ROC (Americans: Note the “R”, it means “Republic”), it is a legitimate democracy and the PRC is not and may not be for another fifty years, if ever.
If the ROC decides that MS should not be the standard for them, then hooray. Standards are more important than Operating Systems.
The (historically but no longer in fact) Communist Chinese ousted a legitimate, elected government in the course of their “Revolution” and are now mopping up decades of stupidity.
There was an emperor. Ci Xi staged a coup. Sun Yixian staged a revolution. Yuan Shikai staged a coup. China broke into pieces. Then revolution, interrupted by an invasion by Japan, leading to a war that ran from 1931 to 1945. Then civil war.
where exactly in all of this is your “legitimate, elected government”?
Hi there Thom,
To avoid confusion und uncalled-for political debates, why not just remove “Chinese” from “the Chinese government’s desire to…”? In the original article in the Taipei Times the word “Chinese” was not there, and honestly I don’t know anyone from Taiwan that would refer to their government as a “Chinese” one: The pro-unification KMT won’t do that as not to provoke or offend China, and the pro-independent DPP won’t either since they never see Taiwanese as being Chinese.
As someone born and raised in Taiwan, I’d prefer and appreciate the adjective “Taiwanese” if you must use one to describe our government. Thanks!
I think you need to be updated a little on that. Nowadays, PRC is only communist in name and capitalist in practice when it comes to the economy.
They’re only Communist in name, you say. Try living there for a while and see if it doesn’t change your attitude about that.
my two cents:
YES!
Hm, could the title be changed to say “Taiwanese government,” then, to avoid widespread confusion? Even if you have a “one China” stance, this policy comes from the Taiwanese government, and only covers Taiwan and not the mainland.
to say it must be linux compatible seems to really work towards killing the free market
How do you figure that out?
By the way, the vast majority of markets are regulated, and they are stronger from it. Laissez-faire capitalism leads to economic aberrations such as monopolies and market crashes. No empirical studies have proven that there is such a thing as the “invisible hand of the market”, and in fact most show that markets are not self-regulating.
Taiwan is in essence the ‘real’ China.
Well, there goes any chance of getting ad contracts from mainland China companies…
Thom, I hope you weren’t planning on visiting the PRoC any time soon…I doubt you’ll get a visa now! 🙂
No, the other way around – Chinese government loves this, Taiwanese government hates this – I know, it’s hard for outsiders to understand 🙂
Love of…
Now Linux is being mandated. Great. (Alright, well, hardware compatibility for linux). OSS advocates must be quite pleased with this heavy handed decision – this is on the same level as Microsoft’s practices… don’t see a lot of people complaining about it tho’. It’s funny how when something happens against MS or FOR linux it is O.K. The decision against Microsoft’s bundling and integration practices and now a mandate by a government that “all machines must run linux.”
This is wrong. But then again, so many things in this world ARE wrong so what’s one more I guess.
Love of…
Now Linux is being mandated. Great. (Alright, well, hardware compatibility for linux). OSS advocates must be quite pleased with this heavy handed decision – this is on the same level as Microsoft’s practices… don’t see a lot of people complaining about it tho’. It’s funny how when something happens against MS or FOR linux it is O.K. The decision against Microsoft’s bundling and integration practices and now a mandate by a government that “all machines must run linux.”
This is wrong. But then again, so many things in this world ARE wrong so what’s one more I guess.
Um, can I suggest you read the article again before you go making a fool of yourself?
It says that from now on, all desktop PCs purchased by this particular Taiwanese government agency must be *capable* of running Linux.
That’s actually not a particularly strong statement, and a million miles away from “all machines must run Linux”. It’s the government being pragmitic, and giving themselves the option to switch as some point if they want to. I completely fail to see how you can even remotely connect that with Microsoft’s dodgy practices.
And hey, even if it did say “all machines the government purchases must run Linux”, what would be wrong with that? The Taiwanese government are entitled to whatever the hell they like with their own PCs.
Hell, at least the government (and the buying power of 120,000 desktops) has the power to specify that they want the ability to run an alternative OS — that’s more than the average consumer gets. And that *is* wrong.
Edited 2006-06-04 04:03
It’s funny how when something happens against MS or FOR linux it is O.K.
Except this is in no way comparable to what happened to Microsoft.
Actually, it is comparable in some way: the actions against Microsoft are there to insure competition. This decision by the Tawainese government is also to insure competition. So in fact there is no double standard, one can applaud both without a hint of hypocrisy.
Nice try, but you completely missed that one.
The decision against Microsoft’s bundling and integration practices and now a mandate by a government that “all machines must run linux.”
Where did it say that “all machines must run linux”? It says all machines must be able to run Linux. There’s a huge difference, don’t you think?
You should admit that you were wrong, so we’re not led to think that you deliberately tried to misrepresent the contents of the article…
“It says that from now on, all desktop PCs purchased by this particular Taiwanese government agency must be *capable* of running Linux. ”
That’s setting a precedence. They can specify security measures that are required, the can specify applications used and methods of transmitting data… but to specify that ONLY such machines be used is basically setting a trend for their society to follow.
Even our US gov’t, which does dictate a ton of stuff, does not say precisely what machines can and cannot be used in relation to given OS’s. That would be like them saying “well, it’s O.K. for US to endorse a given OS, but manufacturers of a given OS cannot attempt to monopolize a market.”
THAT’S HOW I EQUATE IT!
Ähm, this might be news for you, but a machine capable of running a Linux based Distribution is (as long, as we do not talk about exotic hardware platforms, that only UNIX like OSes are known to support properly today) is perfectly capeable to run Operating systems made by Microsoft.
My guess is, that “Linux capable” was choosen as a kind of benchmark for newly purchased computers, because other open source / free software alternative OSes (the BSD’s , Haiku, …. ) are either very close in terms of supported Hardware spectrum (the former) or are not far enough developed to be considered an alternative to *both* Linux and Windows based Systems.
The capitalizing of your last sentence doesn’t make your argument imho any more valid, since this isn’t a one way ticket, it is basically one way to keep a maximum of valiable options available (e.g which operating system to run on your purchased hardware, purchased by taxpayer money, btw.), since nowhere is stated, that this machines must come with a particular OS installed (If so, please point me towards that sentence in the article, thanks).
Example: If I want to buy a car today, it might be wise to think about my martial status (and my perhaps then soon-to-be-there children) and enviromental / cost factors when actually making a descicion. Excluding sport cars from the options *I* (as in ‘I, the one who is paying the money, aka customer’) consider to be valiable is no assault to companies, who specialize on sport cars, but merrely my descision what (again) I want to spend money on.
Or (to put it in a little less car-analogies-for-operating-system-discussions-are-flawed-from-the-ver y-beginning-on way) : One way to minimize the TCO hurdle when planning to make an OS switch, is to buy new hardware wisely, something that seems to me a rahter obvious step.
…and in addition to that… if such a large and societally influential organization wants to “mandate” something, the should mandate process and procedure or perhaps methodologies…
So, friend, take your “RTFA” comment and shove it. You are just not getting what I am saying. I have no problem if a company says “oh well, let’s standardize on our desktop for maintenance reasons.”
But when the government of a given people says “all machines must be able to run this OS!” that’s a different story. I just don’t see how YOU don’t get that?
You know, I guess I owe you an apology… there is another issue here for me and it has nothing to do with Operating Systems. My personal beliefs are interfering with my train of thought and I have a thing about governments doing more than what they are supposed to be doing. Don’t get me wrong, they serve a purpose, but they too often overstep their bounds and we [people] do nothing about it.
So that is why I reacted so strongly to this article, moreso than it being about linux, which I actually like.
Sorry.
I see no reason for either manufacturers or the assembled Sunday-morning pundits to get in such a lather over this. So the RoC/Taiwan govt requires machines that aren’t stuck with runing Windows – I see that as nothing more or less than good IT procurement expediency. Keeping one’s options open is extremely important when it comes to large PC purchases. Let’s remember that we still have plenty of businesses out there running Win2K or below; if you buy Windows-hobbled hardware, chances are that within your hardware’s lifetime you’ll face the choice of paying the Windows Upgrade Tax, or limping through a few more years with an unsupported system.
If you insist on Linux-capable hardware, even if you start out with bundled Windows licences, you’ll have the choice of where to go from there.
As for the manufacturers, I can’t see them losing sleep over this – most of their products are Linux-friendly already, whether by design or not.
Taiwan is hardly a democracy in western terms. It is a tightly controlled corporatist state. Until the eary 1990s taiwan was ruled absolutely by the Kuomintang Party which considered itself the legitimate government of all China.
China itself is in no way a capitalist country. Virtually every aspect of the economy is controlled absolutely by local and regional politicians. You cannot engage in anything but the most trivial business activity without powerful official connections and deep pockets to “facilitate” business. By far the largest “capitalist” business in China is the commercial arm of the Peoples Liberation Army.
Chian and Taiwan are certain to eventually merge. It is an unspoken policy that China wishes total global economic domination.
This new law is simply to slowly wean the Taiwanese off foreign software and give Taiwan the same strength in software and services as it has in hardware manufacture.
“IS STORY IS ABOUT TAIWAN.”
You did a pretty good job at confusing the issue by saying “the Chinese governement”.
“Taiwan is in essence the ‘real’ China.”
Really? Wow, I even work for a Taiwanese company and I didnt know that! I would have thought the real China would be, uh, China….
But seriously, what is the “real” China depends pretty much on what side you’re on and whatever you mean by “real”.
If I was making hardware I woud want it to run under as many OS’s as I could