I wonder if this is the "tip-over" point for Europe ?
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| Author | Content |
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| Ridcully Dec 28, 2010 1:09 AM EDT |
Linux uptake in Europe is occurring in various locations: Munich, the Italian Parliament, French Police, various school authorities and so on. The EU body itself is making loud noises about the benefits of FOSS, but one thing always seems to happen just before implementation occurs on a really large scale: a certain company moves in and suddenly there are bargains for proprietary software that didn't occur before and the lock-in process is enhanced. And the recipients of the apparent largesse continue to be fleeced in all the ways that proprietary software can devise. Recent examples in England spring to mind where regional councils were about to move to FOSS, but somehow found proprietary software so much more cheaper, stable and simpler to maintain.......right. But I cannot help feeling this Russian move is different. Or at least I hope so. This is a unilateral decision already signed and sealed by the Russian Prime Minister himself and the concept is simply: "Make it so." The difference is that it has already happened and that "certain company" has not been given a chance to alter or modify things so that FOSS deployment is either halted, deferred or reduced. If I understand the document terminology correctly, for the first time an entire government with all its departments is going to move to FOSS and once this snowball starts, it will be very difficult to stop. It is noticeable that the implications of budgetary impacts seem to be part of this deployment and in times of fiscal constraint, FOSS wins every time. You can almost taste the next steps: schools, regional authorities and as FOSS becomes virtually universal, the home desktop also transfers from proprietary software. Perhaps, but it is nice to think positive. It might be "castles in the sky", as they say, but consider the irony if it is now Russia that, with a national example, shows the rest of Europe and the world the path to computer freedom. This is a project that certainly seems worthy of support because if it succeeds, FOSS may roll on throughout Europe as a major computer system at all levels of society. |
| penguinist Dec 28, 2010 5:53 AM EDT |
This could be the start of a big snowball rolling down hill picking up momentum as it goes. |
| hkwint Dec 28, 2010 5:57 AM EDT |
Apart from gas, I don't think Russian decisions have that many influence on the rest of Europe. Better language support is a better reason for EU-regions to switch to open source I believe. |
| vainrveenr Dec 29, 2010 9:02 PM EDT |
Quoting:Apart from gas, I don't think Russian decisions have that many influence on the rest of Europe.OTOH, perhaps such power-wielding nations as China, will take further notice of Russia's decision. It will of course be true that Quoting:a certain company moves in and suddenly there are bargains for proprietary software that didn't occur before and the lock-in process is enhanced. And the recipients of the apparent largesse continue to be fleeced in all the ways that proprietary software can devise.Although that "certain company" will of course again attempt to enact tried-and-true undercutting tactics as these, it certainly wouldn't be the first time that either Russia OR China could defeat that company's tactics as well as to defeat those "official" efforts intentionally enacted on its behalf by that country in which this certain company is based. |
| gus3 Dec 29, 2010 9:33 PM EDT |
China already has their official Red Flag Linux, since 1999. |
| Ridcully Dec 29, 2010 9:55 PM EDT |
My understanding gus3, is that Red Flag Linux has not been the remarkable success that it was intended and that much of China still runs on pirated proprietary software produced by that "certain company". Oh heck, let's say whom we mean: Microsoft - I was trying to be awfully polite and diplomatic in my first post. Interestingly, what I consider to be a very odd news-item has just hit another web site. It is published by a journalist whom I often think is much more than a pro-Microsoft writer, but others can form their own opinion of his activities. I rarely suggest readers look at this person's writings about Microsoft, but this one is so astonishing and encourages you to make such unusual inferences that it is worth a peek. The article is virtually a do-it-yourself manual on how to make a pirated copy of Win7 behave as a fully legal and activated copy to the Microsoft servers. Oh, and the cream on the cake is how to avoid those sites that will put root kits on your pirated copy. Astonishing is hardly the word. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/confessions-of-a-windows-7-pi... Now call me "Mr Devious" if you like, but I recall Bill Gate's statement a few years ago on the fact that he would rather have the Chinese pirating Microsoft than any other software because they'll be hooked and sooner or later Microsoft will figure out how to collect. The dots are still a little too distant to join together yet to form a picture, but this is an intriguing development. I think there is more than a grain of truth in vainrveenr's idea that China may have a part to play and I also think that country will definitely watch the Russian move. We live in "interesting times". |
| vainrveenr Dec 30, 2010 12:45 AM EDT |
Now fortuitously, this just came in:
Free software seen as way to resolve many of Lebanon’s economic woes
Posted by bob on Dec 29, 2010 10:36 PM EST
The Daily Star; By Tamara Qiblaw
LXer story link at http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/146385 Russia, now Lebanon, ...... where else "interesting" that Microsoft may have a more difficult time foisting-off pirated Windows copies into ?? |
| hkwint Dec 30, 2010 4:22 AM EDT |
gus3: RedFlag was abandoned somewhere in the 2000's and has been dead for years, in favour of Bill Gates personally lobbying with the party and making them stay on Windows. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/... Nonetheless, Chinese are not stupid and have been developing their own FreeBSD based OS called "Kylin" since 2001, deployments since 2007: Now, the maker of Kylin joined with Chinese standard to make a new OS called NeoKylin: http://www.pcworld.com/article/214206/china_os_makers_partne... |
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