China's Linux industry considers mega-merger

InfoWorld ^ | August 25, 2005 | Sumner Lemon

[Golden Eagle]

A major reorganization is in the works for China's open-source software industry, with discussions under way over how local Linux vendors and industry organizations can cooperate more closely -- including the possibility of a merger between several of the country's top Linux companies.

If the discussions result in a merger, it would be one that involves some of the biggest names in China's Linux industry, including Turbolinux China Software, Red Flag Software, and Beijing Co-Create Open Source Software, according to executives involved with the discussions.

Closer cooperation among Chinese Linux vendors and industry organizations is essential if the country's software industry is to become a major contributor to international open-source efforts, said Lu Shouqun, president of the China Open Source Software Promotion Union. Lu also serves as the honorary chairman of Co-Create.

In June, Turbolinux China, Red Flag, Co-Create, and three other partners -- Sun Wah Linux, the Ministry of Information Industry's China Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center (CSIP), and Open Source Development Labs (OSDL) -- agreed to jointly develop Linux software. That agreement, which expanded an existing partnership between Turbolinux China and Co-Create, was the first step towards closer cooperation on development of the Linux operating system, including the possibility of a merger, Lu said.

The merger talks were inspired in part by the success of Chinese search engine Baidu.com's recent initial public offering on the Nasdaq stock exchange, one executive involved in the discussions said. A merged Chinese Linux company could easily be taken public as a "Chinese Red Hat," he said.

[Golden Eagle]

"China's Linux industry considers mega-merger"

Translation: China's communist goverment orders consolidation, says one free copy of Red Hat from the US is enough. Looks like they may quit calling it "Red Flag" though, and finally go ahead and steal the name "Red Hat" as well.

[Golden Eagle]

This is just fine with you guys, right? Why don't you ping your lists, or can I use the OSS one myself since it's "open sourced" on n3wbie's page?

[softwarecreator]

Why don't you ping your lists, or can I use the OSS one myself

Why not start a ping list for your articles?  N3wBI3's is for open source, maybe you could start one for non-OSS articles?

[softwarecreator]

According to figures released by IDC, revenue from Linux sales in China grew 20 percent between 2003 and 2004, from $7.8 million to $9.3 million, and is expected to continue growing at a compound annual growth rate of 24 percent through 2009, when revenue will top $27 million.

Or as Bill Gates puts it, pocket change.

I had no idea Linux had this small of a "for-sale" market share in China.

[N3WBI3]

Because if you're too dumb to realize that the sentence A merged Chinese Linux company could easily be taken public as a "Chinese Red Hat," he said.

Means a private company in the model or RedHat, not a private company named RedHat its not really worth it for the people on my ping list..

[Golden Eagle]

Not much if any money to be made in free software, which is why these communists love it. Novell announced last week their profits were down, again.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050825/bs_nm/tech_novell_earns_dc_1

They'll soon be laying off thousands, just like IBM has been doing since they got into the Linux "business".

http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/34260.html?count=460

http://www.nysscpa.org/home/2002/802/2week/article35.htm

[Golden Eagle]

Means a private company in the model or RedHat

No it doesn't, because at least two of those that are being combined are already reselling their free copies of Red Hat in China. Not to mention there's no such thing as a "private company" in China. You're wrong, on all counts, again. Gonna ping them or not?

[N3WBI3]

RE: Novell,

Things work allot better when you read your own articles (just like your stat that Linux only has a 10% share on servers you missed *probably on purpose* something in this article:

Excluding restructuring charges and a one-time gain, Novell said it earned $14 million, or 3 cents per share, the same as an adjusted profit of $14 million, or 3 cents per share, from a year earlier, which excluded the impact of a $19 million gain from a legal settlement."

[N3WBI3]

Fine Ill bookmark this and when the merger actually happens we will see what the companies and distros name is. This was not put up as an informational article, it was put up for a flame war and I wont drag my list into it...

Can you tell me again about Linus's father?

[Golden Eagle]

Isn't your list "open sourced" on your webpage? Or you like the FSF, and don't really believe in giving things away, but only when they suit you and will try to sue me for using it?

[Golden Eagle]

I'm obviously not hiding anything, I constantly give verifiable links that backup my points. You on the other hand, spin around like a top before you fall off the table completely.

[N3WBI3]

Hey the list is out there fore reference, Use the people on it if you like but dont call it an oss ping. SWC is right just make your own antioss ping list..

[N3WBI3]

So youre ignoring "Excluding restructuring charges and a one-time gain, Novell said it earned $14 million, or 3 cents per share, the same as an adjusted profit of $14 million, or 3 cents per share, from a year earlier, which excluded the impact of a $19 million gain from a legal settlement."... or you just forgot to read your own link... again..

[Golden Eagle]

ROFL, not only is your English terrible, your math is even worse. Restructuring costs are costs, period. Their overall revenue fell, as did their profits. Their stock fell, and now they are facing layoffs. Deal with it.

[N3WBI3]

your math is even worse. Restructuring costs are costs, period. Their overall revenue fell, as did their profits. Their stock fell, and now they are facing layoffs. Deal with it.

Someone who obviously never took an accounting or business class..

[Golden Eagle]

Now, when his BS is exposed, he resorts to personal attacks. Just like always.

[N3WBI3]

I'm not insulting you, the statement "cost are cost period" would make most accounting departments fall over laughing, if you don't know that you never took a class...

[Golden Eagle]

Novell has been restructuring endlessly, they still can't make this Linux thing work, and will now have to layoff more employees. They just announced they are desperately going to give their new core product away for free, and their plan for the future is to make money off a clone of Microsoft .NET, which might not even be a legal implementation You can spin for them all you want, but they are obviously a company barely keeping its head above water, with no guarantees for the future except extreme competition from others.

If I were a linux fanatic like you, I'd place my bets on this new "Chinese Red Flag" bit financed by their government. They'll make sure it doesn't go under.

[N3WBI3]

I'm not insulting you, the statement "cost are cost period" would make most accounting departments fall over laughing, if you don't know that you never took a class...

You don't know jack about accounting or how to run a business... your statement "cost are cost, period" demonstrates this..

Novell never recovered from the bubble bursting, they had nothing left. Windows had effectively replaced netware everywhere on the planet. Novell did not buy Suse until November of 2003, lets look at the picture between 2000 and 2003, they went from 33$ a share to 5.87 a share and this is with no Linux in their mix whatsoever.

They are now trading at $6.38 a share and have been pretty stable at the level after the initial market hype surrounding their purchase of Suse pushed their stock way too high...

Heck look at their 3 month performance

Novell will not survive on Linux any more than they could have netware. It will come down to business decisions, they are doing better than they were before they bought Suse and with new like expectations to sell a quarter million copies of their desktop in Argentina its looking good for them.

I know you really, really want Novell to fail (so much for supporting American Business) but it does not look like thats whats going to happen...

[SolarisRocks]

Does it upset you that Microsoft has released the source for portions of .Net and C#?

[for-q-clinton]

I know you really, really want Novell to fail (so much for supporting American Business) but it does not look like thats whats going to happen...

I'm all for American business making it; however, I believe Novell would pretty much be considered a failure. Until they make it as big as they once were (or at least in the same ball park), they should be considered a failure.

Will they have a revival...maybe...a long shot wins the race every once and a while. But this is an argument best left for the stock market. If you think they'll win bet on them. If you think they'll lose bet against them. And if you just don't know...stay away.

[for-q-clinton]

I'm confused. Since it's all OSS aren't they are partners by default. My code is your code and your code is mine?

Or is there some special part of the license I don't understand that makes my code your code, and your code only your code?

I guess a partnership in OSS would actually be a bad thing as you are dwindling the competitiion to see who can write the best OSS code that everyone else can try and find a way to make money on.

[for-q-clinton]

Big 'Ol OSS ping.

[MikefromOhio]

LINUX BAD!!

LINUX BAD!!!!!!!!!!

I see Golden DoDo has visited us already this morning

[for-q-clinton]

If I were a linux fanatic like you, I'd place my bets on this new "Chinese Red Flag" bit financed by their government. They'll make sure it doesn't go under.

Actually that makes a lot of sense. Since Linux distros keep getting bought and sold as companies try to find a way to make money off it, but keep failing. Getting your distro from a gov't backed version would mean it has a longer term support. And what country is better at pirating software than China, it's just this time they found a "legal" way to do it. Since they don't want to pay for their OS, they'd rather force ("pay") their local commies to write their OS for them. The good news is all the OSS fans will get a long term support of Linux. Of course calling to the Chicoms for support may be a bitter pill to swallow.

I bet some of that windows source code ends up in Linux one day, and then all that "free" software will cost the companies millions.

[softwarecreator]

Does it upset you that Microsoft has released the source for portions of .Net and C#?

We went over this in great depth a few days ago.

They released portions of it to China to prove the BS about these "backdoors" is BS, a reasonable fear that China has.  The code is still proprietary.

Considering the OS market in China is worth billions, wouldn't you?

[softwarecreator]

Since it's all OSS aren't they are partners by default. My code is your code and your code is mine?

That's all fine, but I'm not doing the "group hug" thing.

[softwarecreator]

Isn't your list "open sourced" on your webpage?

Of course.  Share and share alike, isn't that what OSS is?  If he doesn't share, he would be just like {gasp} Micro$oft!

[softwarecreator]

LINUX BAD!!
LINUX BAD!!!!!!!!!!
I see Golden DoDo has visited us already this morning

LOL!!!  You guys crack me up.

[MikefromOhio]

it's all in good fun. :)

[softwarecreator]

They are now trading at $6.38 a share and have been pretty stable at the level after the initial market hype surrounding their purchase of Suse pushed their stock way too high...

It's obviously not Novell's fault over this.  Also the part where you mentioned that it was $33 a share in 2000 is also very misleading because ALL tech companies were booming during that time period.  So, I think you are proving the point that Novell has pretty much stayed steady over the years, and in fact, has seen a slight upturn since purchasing Suse (after the initial hype).  Good job.

[softwarecreator]

Of course.  This is turning into the most entertaining ping list I am on!!  Also very informative, I've learned a lot here and N3WBI3 deserves our thanks for not only researching the articles, but for sharing them with us.  He's not a bad guy for a "Linux Zealot".  =)

[softwarecreator]

Hahahaha ... very good.  And you are right, you sure do back up your words with proof.

[MikefromOhio]

LOL

Yeah. It is good to learn this stuff because IT and technology is constantly changing.

As for the Linux is for Commies stuff, that's just stupid :)

Have a good one. Time to get some stuff done and play from poker.

[SolarisRocks]

Why did? Please provide a link as I do not remember Project Rotor being discussed.

http://research.microsoft.com/programs/europe/rotor/
http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdnmag/issues/02/07/SharedSourceCLI/

"Released on 27 March 2002, Rotor provides a free, shared-source implementation of Microsoft’s Common Language Runtime platform, including source code for C# and Jscript compilers, as well as for the Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) platform itself. It also contains source code for a variety of useful developer tools, including a Common Intermediate Language (CIL) assembler, a disassembler, a debugger, a profiler, and an assembly linker. The Rotor code can be used, modified, and re-distributed, for non-commercial experimentation, as a basis for courseware or lab projects, or as a guide for those developing their own commercial ECMA implementations. (The specifications, already ratified as international standards by the European Computer Manufacturers Association (ECMA Standards 242, 334 and 335), are undergoing ISO Fast Track processing.)

In April 2002 and November 2003, Microsoft Research published two requests for research proposals to initially help get things going and then for purposes of research, teaching and community building."

[for-q-clinton]

As for the Linux is for Commies stuff, that's just stupid :)

Some parts of it get a bit silly as we are in a world economy. However, when you look at the true underpinnings, OSS is about as close as we'll ever get to working communism.

[for-q-clinton]

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" - Karl Marx

Each programmer adding what he can to the collective community. Each user taking what he needs from the collective community.

[FastCoyote]

"Why not start a ping list for your articles? N3wBI3's is for open source, maybe you could start one for non-OSS articles?"

Or, Golden Eagle and Bush2000 could start their own two man ping list and call it "crabby tin-foil hatters who call everyone communists at the drop of a pin". But then they'd have no one but themselves to spew venom at.

Open source is here to stay, the Chicoms already steal Microsoft OS far more than they buy it, so even if Linux was magically taken from the universe it isn't like tey would suffer because they are thieves anyway.

No, B2000 and GE just like to bark at the moon.

[for-q-clinton]

I'll try not to result to name calling as you have; however, what does this mean to you?

From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" - Karl Marx

[N3WBI3]

Use the list with the permission of the memebrs on it but dont call it an OSS ping, please..

[SolarisRocks]

And what, in your opinion, are the true underpinnings of OSS?

[N3WBI3]

Actually that makes a lot of sense. Since Linux distros keep getting bought and sold as companies try to find a way to make money off it, but keep failing.

RedHat makes money

[N3WBI3]

Communism requires one central authority that tells you what to do, no such thing is involved in OSS>.

[for-q-clinton]

Communism requires one central authority that tells you what to do, no such thing is involved in OSS

Not in true communism. That's why I said OSS is probably as close as we'll ever get to working communism.

In hind-sight as I should change working to REAL. I can see where working communism might be inferred to mean, what currently exists in the world today. What I meant is the end-state of communism, the one that Karl spoke of.

[for-q-clinton]

I'm glad this issue came up, I went back and re-read some Karl Marx and it has some interesting parrellels to today's global market.

Masses of laborers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the foreman, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex....The growing competition among the bourgeoisie, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The unceasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious...The modern laborer, instead of rising with the progress of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth....

I can see communism taking hold in America if we are forced to compete with Chinese labor. This includes Microsoft outsourcing to China. People will look for another way and unfortunately what is described by Karl Marx is a very easy out for many people when they are out of work.

[for-q-clinton]

More interesting stuff from Karl Marx...

Within the co-operative society based on common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; just as little does the labor employed on the products appear here as the value of these products, as a material quality possessed by them, since now, in contrast to capitalist society, individual labor no longer exists in an indirect fashion but directly as a component part of total labor. What we have to deal with here is a communist society, not as it has

developed on its own foundations, but, on the contrary, just as it emerges from capitalist society; which is thus in every respect, economically, morally, and intellectually, still stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges. Accordingly, the individual producer receives back from society---after the deductions have been made---exactly what he gives to it. What he has given to it is his individual quantum of labor. For example, he receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost. The same amount of labor which he has given to society in one form, he receives back in another.

This equal right is an unequal right for unequal labor. It recognizes no class differences, because everyone is only a worker like everyone else; but it tacitly recognizes unequal individual endowment, and thus productive capacity, as a natural privilege. It is, therefore, a right of inequality, in its content, like every right. Further, one worker is married, another is not; one has more children than another, and so on and so forth. Thus, with an equal performance of labor, and hence an equal in the social consumption fund, one will in fact receive more than another, one will be richer than another, and so on. To avoid all these defects, right, instead of being equal, would have to be unequal. But these defects are inevitable in the first phase of communist society as it is when it has just emerged after prolonged birth pangs from capitalist society.

In a higher phase of communist society, after the enslaving subordination of the individual to the division of labor, and therewith also the antithesis between mental and physical labor, has vanished; after labor has become not only a means of life but life's prime want; after the productive forces have also increased with the all-around development of the individual, and all the springs of co-operative wealth flow more abundantly---only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be crossed in its entirety and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!

[FastCoyote]

"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs!" - Karl Marx"

Except, no one is FORCED to submit free software to the open source movement. So the quote applied here would be"

From each according to his abilities IF IT IS NOT COERCED (AND USUALLY WITH TE EXPECTATION OF RETURN), to each according to his needs.

So you see, your analogy is facile and inaccurate, a strawman if you will. Plenty of money being made off open source by people at all levels of the chain. If you haven't figured out how to be an OSS capitalist, that is your problem.

[for-q-clinton]

Except, no one is FORCED to submit free software to the open source movement. So the quote applied here would be"

Read what communism REALLY is. OSS movement is just at a more advanced state of communism than the world has ever seen on a large scale.

I posted some Karl Marx to help explain it; however, do a little research and you'll realize OSS is a lot like communism. I'm not saying that's bad--a lot of people think communism is a great idea that fails to work. It looks like OSS may be the model to make it work. Many people would love to be a part of making communism work.

[for-q-clinton]

In addition to that the one big flaw in Communism is that there is no motivating factor. To be honest everyone living together helping each other for a better world, sounds great and would be great if people could support it and not sponge off of it. The key being you need more supporters than sponges. So far the world hasn't found a way to motivate people not to be sponges.

WIth OSS somethign is motivating people to write code in their house after-hours. Maybe it's fame, or just the willingness to help stop M$; but whatever it is OSS has a unique way of motivating developers to release their code for free.

[softwarecreator]

"crabby tin-foil hatters who call everyone communists at the drop of a pin".

Well, it would probably be the longest titled ping list on FR, that's for sure.

No, B2000 and GE just like to bark at the moon.

Isn't that what coyotes do?  =)