[svlug] Chinese turns to Linux to keep Microsoft at bay

[Rick Kwan]

I'm just getting to Saturday's newspaper.  (sigh)  But I had to
bring this up in light of other off topic discussion...  (Some of
you know I can't sit still on this one. :-)

San Jose Mercury News, Business Section, Saturday, July 8, has a
story on page 1C entitled
    Chinese turns to Linux to keep Microsoft at bay
The story originates from the New York Times, on the same day.
I couldn't find it in the S.J. Merky online archive.  I did find it
for sale at:
    http://archives.nytimes.com/archives/search/fastweb?search
with a title of
    China Moves to Cut Power of Microsoft

For now, the people and the government seem to be united on this.
I don't know how much the people embrace open source ideology.
But they don't like the cost of Microsoft software.  (The article
notes:  "A software program can cost as much as an average office
worker's monthly salary.")

However, the Chinese government is into Linux because of security
concerns:  They
    1.  don't trust Microsoft to provide their security.
    2.  want to address their own security concerns.  (Read that
	any way you want.  I have no special knowledge.)

When I visited in April, I got non-government opinions about the
emerging free market, its impact on people's lives, how they view
computing, etc.

(Wonder if anyone from over there is reading the mailing list
over here?  I don't see the breakdown of how many of what domain
subscribe.)

Oh yeah... I used to be a space program fanatic, still
help manage a website for the local aerospace professionals
(http://www.aiaa-sf.org), but that really is off-topic.

--Rick Kwan, Lightsaber Computing
  rick.kwan at lightsaber.com