Microsoft and linux in China

[Christopher Browne]

On 7/12/07, zuoheng <zh.huang-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> I am from China. I have to say that the pirate software, Windows, Office,
> and Photoshop, PC games do help this country to be more open and catch up
> the information revolution. I can not
> image if without pirated software, the
> Internet would
> grow so fast during the past 10 years in China. Though I love
> Linux, but it is obvious Linux was not
> good enough for desktop back to late of 90's.
>
> Maybe MS took it as a strategy to dominate a
> under-developed market at the beginning
> time and gave big tolerance to pirated software, now MS is
> making money in China.
> I would like to say, it is a win-win for MS and China, while sad for Linux.
>
> /zuoheng

I don't think this represents a "win-win" for China, nor is it one for
Microsoft.

For Microsoft, there may be a similar "win" to that of the crack
dealer who starts out in a "loss" position, but who later "wins" once
he has a set of addicted customers.  I could go along with a
"lose-win" assessment, there.

For China, I don't see *any* win here.

They may have a temporary evasion of payments; unfortunately, that
does amount to thievery, and we're seeing wide-spread problems in the
Chinese economic system that seems characteristic of banditry.
Stealing software, bribing inspectors, enslaving workers, on the
manufacturers' side.

On the government's side, the willingness of government officials to
be bribed reflects the mirror of that.  In the not-forgotten past,
they found it a "win-win" situation to have the army drive tanks over
protestors.  And the legal system has the "convenience" factor that
they don't bother permitting the accused to mount any meaningful
defense.

I'm no fan of Microsoft, but that doesn't mean, to me, that it's AOK
to use their software "if it's convenient."  Likewise, I'm no fan of
the RIAA or MPAA, but just because they're being bozos does not make
it AOK for factories in China to stamp out CDs and DVDs by the
millions just because it's convenient to leave this as a "legal
limbo."


I expect that there will be some significant economic injury as a
result of the recent poisonous toothpaste problem.  Based on all
indicators, that injury seems entirely well-deserved.  The thievery
that is taking place makes them rightly look like thieves.

It's not so much "sad for Linux;" it's probably a better thing that
Linux isn't associated with this.
-- 
http://linuxfinances.info/info/linuxdistributions.html
"...  memory leaks  are  quite acceptable  in  many applications  ..."
(Bjarne Stroustrup, The Design and Evolution of C++, page 220)
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://gtalug.org/
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://gtalug.org/wiki/Mailing_lists