People's Republic says it will purge self of illicit software China is to clamp down on counterfeit software installed on local and central government computers over the next year. According to Beijing-endorsed news agency Xinhua, officials expect to complete an inspection of the software used by the country’s government departments and agencies by May 2011. They will conclude their …
No you don't. You work to enlarge the contents of your coffers. MS enlarges the coffer itself. Or builds new ones.
Tangent to article: at what point will foreign governments, knowing who's really in charge here, start formally sending their diplomats to US corporations instead of our government? Or are they doing this already?
I love Microsoft's heavy-handedness! I'm enthusiastically in favour of getting 100% of the people using Windows to pay for it.
Not, of course, that the BSA's fudged "estimates" of pirated software are worth putting any stock in. But as Jonah Greenberg pointed out, "Why should the masses bother with free software when stealing from Microsoft is practically patriotic?"
Here's hoping that this'll be the encouragement that China's Ministry of Information Industries needs to put some welly into their official position in favour of Linux.
The icon for obvious reasons.
They are using "illegal" software as a way to `stick it` to a BIG US corporation.
If the PRC leaders were truly smart, they would `roll their own "official" Linux distro`, and flush Microsoft down the Shanghai river.
BTW, you assclowns in Washington DC, , whose M$ `infected` computers regularly fall prey to hackers ought to consider the same thing. Just ask the Air Force, they have something already available for remote computers called `LPS`.
But, then again, that won't happen, too many snouts in the 'military-industrial' complex feeding at the trough to expect any change in the way gubmint does business.
Sorry, I got that wrong, its how bidness does gubmint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Flag_Linux
"...created by the Institute of Software Research at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Financial help came from government-owned Shanghai NewMargin Venture Capital...
...Chinese governmental ministries were ordered to uninstall Windows 2000 from their computers in favor of Red Flag Linux."
.... why aren't they investing into a GNU/Linux or BSD distribution? They will save money, and the people will get a copy of that distribution as well. They will combat piracy and save tons of money (2 birds, one stone).
there is a good alternative, if they are willing to invest in it.
P.S. What happened to Red Dragon Linux?
MS has persuaded the Vietnamese government to audit both business and government use of software.
The government declared all of it's operations would switch to Linux - which they did. Unfortunately many users resorted to dual booting machines as their custom software was written for Windows. A recent visit to our local Traffic Plod confirmed to my eyes Windows was still in use.
Business audits are preceded by the local Plod visiting all places to be inspected and establishing a convenient timetable. This allows us to get the sharing of original disks organised, as well as going down to the bank to get some cash to pay Plod off with.
At the end of the day the Plod gets richer and business enters the value of the bribes in the 'other expenses' column.
BSA, that software industry sponsored bunch of whiners, makes claims as to the amount of illegal software being used in various countries, including VietNam.
Funny thing is they have never been to VietNam, rather they use 'extrapolation' - some imaginary figure dreamed up on another countries 'survey'.
Does anyone seriously believe BSA has even been allowed to touch a Chinese government computer?
I guess they tink Burma/Myanmar is also filled with computers, running hot software, setup in shacks that don't have running water or electricity.
This is the Chinese being helpful. The mercans have pleaded with them, (please. please don't steal our stuff any more) and the Chinese have agreed to "study the problem" or something similar.
All that really means is that nothing will change, but the Chinese can pretend that it might, (We're studying the problem, ok?).
Why should they pay for anything? They're big enough to tell the mercans to push off, only they're too polite to phrase it quite like that.
If they really want to purge self of illicit software, They need to go completely OpenSource GNU/GPL, Red Star version, I would suspect. ClosedSource software is always evil, illicit software by my definition. Throw micro$0ft and it's crabby partners, like adobe, back over and out of the great wall. ;P
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