Japan, China, S Korea to jointly develop Windows contender

Economic Times of India ^ | April 4, 2004

[sarcasm]

TOKYO : Japan , China and South Korea have agreed to jointly develop a new computer operating system based on Linux as an alternative to the dominant Windows by Microsoft, news reports said on Sunday.

The agreement was signed in Beijing on Saturday following a meeting of senior government officials from the three countries, the Yomiuri Shimbun and the Nihon Keizai Shimbun said.

It was the first accord signed by major economies on telecommunications development.

The three countries would help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely, the reports said.

They will separately promote the use of Linux for their government computer systems, the reports said, adding they also agreed to set up a joint forum for their private companies to promote open-source operating systems in northeast Asia .

The project is part of combined efforts to reduce reliance on Microsoft's operating system, which they say has oppressed their business strength in the computer software industry.

[CasearianDaoist]

Governments developing Operating Systems? What is next automobiles? I do not find this threatening from a product point of view. It is threatening form a "free trade" point of view.

[Glenn]

The project is part of combined efforts to reduce reliance on Microsoft's operating system, which they say has oppressed their business strength in the computer software industry.

Since you can buy MS products from street vendors for a few pennies on the dollar, I don't understand what the bitching is about.

Having said that, it should be interesting to see how long it takes before they have something useful and whether they will attempt to market it world-wide or use it locally only.

[Glenn]

Governments developing Operating Systems?

You must have missed this sentence:

The three countries would help their private sectors develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely, the reports said.

[CasearianDaoist]

More importantly, how will they make money at it? Government subsidies? There is nothing new to this. Using Asian government subsidies to start up regional industries is a central method of economic growth in Asia. The Japanese did it with steel and semiconductors.

The real question here is if this violates WTO rules? Another question would be if the US government is going to do something about it, but that is not a question because we already know the answer.

Imagine the outcry if the governments of the USA, UK and Germany decided to go after Toyota?

I wonder, will American technical firms that outsource to chine find that there intellectual property ends up in state projects like these.

Globalism is not capitalism, it is socialism.

[elfman2]

"Globalism is not capitalism, it is socialism."

Globalism is vaguely defined, and can be anything you want it to be with the exception of protectionism. Protectionism is socialism.

[expat_panama]

Another question would be if the US government is going to do something about it, but that is not a question because we already know the answer.

All those in favor of big government say AYE!

Maybe my morning coffee hasn't kicked in yet, but I don't see why this press release 'bad' news?  The article says that "Japan , China and South Korea" have decided to spend their tax revenue to "develop Linux, an open-source OS that can be copied and modified freely," and "promote the use of Linux for their government computer systems".

How does that hurt us?   I don't know about you guys, but if they come up with some thing good I'm going to start using it.  Since when is using open source software theft of "intellectual property"?

[Eric in the Ozarks]

It will probably get excellent gas milage.

[Tax-chick]

Cooperation among Japan, China, and South Korea is interesting.

[Jack Black]

Well there are pretty strict rules for using Linux open source. One is that all modifications have to be given back to "the community". There has already been some bitching on SlashDot that Red Flag Linux (the Chinese funded version) has been very bad in living up to this obligation. In other words they are happy to take the itellectual property of the people who built Linux to date, but not willing to contribute their code back to the collective. This will be interesting. Of course China has very primitive laws in the area of intellectual property so if the Linux collaborative feels wronged it might be very hard to get the "copy-left" enforced in a Beijing court. It would be fun to watch them try.

Commie Linux is On The March! All hail the great socialist peoples Red Operating System!!

[Tax-chick]

Interesting. It would be nice if there were a real competitor across the market for baby-killer Bill Gates. Don't know whether Chinese Linux would be it, though!

[Jack Black]

Well if you are somewhat computer savvy Linux is workable today. I've been running Red Hat 9 for a while now, and it's good. Much more stable than even XP, which is the best Windows to date. But it doesn't do as much. And it's geeky, tweaky and freaky.

FreeBSD, the original peoples Unix is even more stable, and more mature but even less user friendly. It's mostly used on big servers. Yahoo runs it, which should tell you something.

[Tax-chick]

I'm not the slightest computer-savvy, unfortunately! My husband is in charge of everything :-). I could program with DOS, and I was really great with WordPerfect 5.0, if that tells you how long it's been since I was up-to-date!

[Jack Black]

I sympathize. It can become a full time job just to keep you PC up an running if you let it. Linux is fine for web browsing. If you hate Gates you can buy Suse (Red Hat got out of the low end personal OS part of the business this year) from Amazon for $60 bucks. Toss it on an old computer and see if you like it. If you could handle DOS you'll do fine with it.

[Tax-chick]

My teenage daughter Anoreth is learning the latest computer stuff. Maybe she can talk her Dad into trying something new, operating-system-wise, on the old computer. When I think of the money Gates is giving to Planned Parenthood (why kill off all your potential customers, one has to ask), I'd sure like to escape from Microsoft!

Don't forget to admire JamesOurBaby on the Tax-chick page!

[Jack Black]

Wow! The mother of seven! You rock!! Congrats on the new baby.

[Tax-chick]

Thanks! My husband just got the pictures up; that's why I'm making a big deal out of it :-).

[kezekiel]

This is brilliant. Nothing serves investment, development, and reliability like a top-level commitment to a standard. The reason we have free email and nearly free internet access (the only cost is to connect to the internet, not to be *on* the internet itself) is because of standards like POP3 and HTTP--standards which, unlike Windows and Office, are free and open. Imagine what the productivity levels of the last ten years would have been like if, instead of the internet, we would have been stuck with AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy.

These governments would prefer, before transferring hundreds of millions of dollars of their agencies' budget dollars to Microsoft, invest a smaller amount in establishing an open standard for operating systems, saving not only their own agencies' beaucoup dollars, but their taxpayers billions as well. Also, their own domestic software applications industries will benefit.

For all the anti-governmental sentiment on FR, I have to say that if I were in government this is exactly what I would be doing.