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Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

theregister.co.uk

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Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#101

Post by groaner »

keithpeter wrote: post #95
coldtea wrote: post #37

I take offense with the following part of the article: "Other repressive nations that have developed local versions of Linux include North Korea, which built the KDE-based Red Star OS to help wean it as a nation off of an unfortunate dependence on Windows made by the capitalists over at Microsoft." China is a "repressive nation"? Says who? Britain, the leader in colonialist aggressions, mass slavery and blatant inter…

" China is a "repressive nation"? Says who? Britain, the leader in colonialist aggressions, mass slavery and blatant interventions to third nations? " Yes, all true, in the past . Decolonialisation, itself a problematic process, has occurred, and self-determination achieved to some extent for many groups. When will the Peoples Republic grant self-determination to Tibet? That would be the action of a self-assured and…

> When will the Peoples Republic grant self-determination to Tibet? That would be the action of a self-assured and mature state.

Probably around the same time a certain self-assured and mature state grants self-determination to the indigenous people of Alaska, Hawaii, and large parts of the Southwest. The rest of the country is a lost cause; ethnic cleansing and violent displacement has assured that going back is impossible.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#102

Post by stcredzero »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #98
stcredzero wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want some of that growth, it seems logical you need to allow freedom. Singapore.

I think Singapore is not the best example of a totalitarian dictatorship. Its an elected democracy, low coorruption, high standards of living. But yes it is "partly free" according to EIU its ranked with Hong Kong and Banglesh and a long way above Russia. So I would still say yes, freedom does bring economic benefits. One assumes the more freedom the more benefits. We ought to remember that at the polling stations

> We ought to remember that at the polling stations

The polling stations only represent a small part of the problem.

You know what I wish we had? A movement of common-sense intellectually honest discussion groups. Groups that are focused on media distortions and facts. Groups that are predicated on the idea that the media and politics is self-interested in promulgating drama and debate beyond what really makes sense. I would like to be part of a group that likes to look behind those curtains.

I think if one looks hard enough at an acrimonious debate, you eventually get to some kind of hard question. Despite what the media often portrays, we're often all just people trying to get to the bottom of some hard question, and we should expect people to come to different conclusions.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#103

Post by serf »

stcredzero wrote: post #90
staticfish wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, I'm British. You were talking about Britain. Why did we suddenly switch to the USA? Also, half of your rebuttals are inaccurate and half are not comparable in the slightest. No, there is no western version of the horrors of "Tank Man". A lot of the Chinese i've spoken to do not even know this happened, and the other half refuse to see it as a problem. You're a textbook example. The USA isn't the greatest countr…

> Also, half of your rebuttals are inaccurate and half are not comparable in the slightest. Sounds comparable to me. > A lot of the Chinese i've spoken to do not even know this happened, and the other half refuse to see it as a problem. There's a fair bit of obliviousness in the US as well. > There is no suppression of readily available information (blocked search queries, etc). Wikileaks? Alteration of Google Earth…

It is universal in theme, sure. Not magnitude.

Google Earth alterations of military installations != great firewall.

Show me a military that's cool with open aerials of their bases. The U.S. just got lucky that they had a bit of jurisdiction over the first company to do it. Don't act as if it's asymmetric due to other nations having a larger conscious, it's not. It's just a simple lack of power.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#104

Post by peripetylabs »

It's interesting to see the developing world adopt GNU/Linux. Venezuela created Canaima. [1] Turkey created Pardus. [2] Iran has announced plans for a national distro. [3] Russia has announced plans for its public sector to use free software. [4]

I suspect, though, that many of these initiatives are simply exercises by universities or government IT organizations to understand the technology, rather than to advocate for its use.

[1] http://canaima.softwarelibre.gob.ve [2] http://www.pardus.org.tr [3] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/03/security_fears... [4] http://open.cnews.ru/news/top/index.shtml?2010/12/27/421556

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#105

Post by Volpe »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #7
tankenmate wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But as a mechanism of state control that can be very flimsy, it is much easier, however probably not cheaper, to control the choke point; the network. If all it took to avoid state control was a re-install of a non-approved version of kylin/ubuntu then everyone would do it.

The mechanisms of state control remain unchanged - and none of them are online. The big fears of the (non-activist) population are that someone will physically take them or their children to a dark hole, and that someone they know will inform on them so that happens. IP networks are not involved. East Germany is probably the most obvious example in recent times - and the fear mostly came from knowing someone could in…

> The big fears of the (non-activist) population are that someone will physically take them or their children to a dark hole, and that someone they know will inform on them so that happens.

I think you vastly underestimate the rule of law in china. This doesn't happen. Nor are general people afraid of it happening. Where are you getting this impression from?

> It seems to me that the chinese state is in a bind similar to that faced by Deng xiaoping - this thing the West does (Capitalism or Internet) is enabling them to charge so economically ahead it is an existential threat not to follow. But if we do follow the party risks losing control.

That was not the bind Deng Xiaoping faced. He took over china right after the cultural revolution which occurred right after the "Great leap forward". He had a floundering nation that he needed to jump start. State controlled capitalism is the answer to that problem, and fits well with the Socialism narrative (i.e building capital, is the first stage before sharing it).

> Deng did take the risk and the loss of control seemed to be offset - however this time the rifts in the party are deeper, the gulf between rich and poor wider.

This again misrepresents the facts. The gap between the Rich and poor, is wider, yes, but the poor are much richer now. The rifts in the party seem MUCH smaller now. China is no where near a "Cultural Revolution" now... that's how bad the rifts were then.

East Germany is NOTHING like modern China, it might have been similar around the cultural revolution, but the Stasi style informing/kidnapping/interrogating was uniquely east germany.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#106

Post by Volpe »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #48
analyst74 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're over-estimating the amount of control the party has or tries to enforce in China. Inside Chinese border, the amount of people who fear the party is probably in line with those who trust it -- not many.

I will happily defer to those with real knowledge of China, however the basic issue seems true - the vast, "make mockery of all that has gone before" economic growth has been exclusively driven from democratic/free nations. If you want some of that growth, it seems logical you need to allow freedom. How much? How soon? How to stop it descending into anarchy? With a billion + lives on the line ... well I have a lot of…

I'm curious why you are conflating individual freedom with economic growth? China (and in the inverse, india) are the best examples of why you are wrong.

i.e Why is China's growth so far outstripping India's given India has more freedom?

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#107

Post by YokoZar »

laumars wrote: post #15
davidroberts wrote: post #12

The news means Ubuntu-stewards Canonical will work with China's National University of Defense Technology... ....to ensure that the platform is relevant for the Chinese market... Exactly which features does the University of Defense Technology consider relevant? Is Canonical enabling repression or military aggression?

Canonical aren't enabling anything. They just repackage open source software (bar their custom themes and Unity). If the Chinese populous don't like any of the governments additions, then those users can grab the binaries / source code directly and roll their own customisations.

If you don't think building a usable linux distro is an enormous amount of work you've never actually tried to do it. Canonical (and the Ubuntu project) is an awful lot more than a few Canonical-originated upstreams.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#108

Post by pm90 »

peripetylabs wrote: post #104

It's interesting to see the developing world adopt GNU/Linux. Venezuela created Canaima. [1] Turkey created Pardus. [2] Iran has announced plans for a national distro. [3] Russia has announced plans for its public sector to use free software. [4] I suspect, though, that many of these initiatives are simply exercises by universities or government IT organizations to understand the technology, rather than to advocate f…

and bosslinux in India http://bosslinux.in/

In this case, I think they're trying to make an operating system that uses Indian languages, so that its easier for those in rural areas to operate it

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#109

Post by Iron_Maiden_666 »

kevincrane wrote: post #47
Strang wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, China is a "repressive nation." Especially when it comes to technology, e.g., "The Great Firewall." No, Britain is not a "repressive nation." The British government surely takes some repressive actions, but not to such a degree as to be labeled a repressive nation.

Yeah, Britain hasn't been repressive in this sense for at least the last ~250 years.

Think you need to brush up your history.

Re: Ubuntu tapped by China for national operating system

#110

Post by coldtea »

staticfish wrote: post #63
coldtea wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tiananmen square. Murders against any form of civil disobedience. Kent state shootings. And lots of similar actions, from the Wounded Knee incident to the Wako siege. > Secret and non-secret alliances with North Korea. Secret and non-secret alliances with Pinochet, Videla, Saudi Arabia and pretty much every corrupted government and dictatorship on earth. > Occasional acts of aggression on Japan. Constant acts of ag…

Wait, I'm British. You were talking about Britain. Why did we suddenly switch to the USA? Also, half of your rebuttals are inaccurate and half are not comparable in the slightest. No, there is no western version of the horrors of "Tank Man". A lot of the Chinese i've spoken to do not even know this happened, and the other half refuse to see it as a problem. You're a textbook example. The USA isn't the greatest countr…

>Wait, I'm British. You were talking about Britain. Why did we suddenly switch to the USA? Also, half of your rebuttals are inaccurate and half are not comparable in the slightest.

Really? I'd like to see how. China is mostly a country that hasn't attacked or bothered anyone. Tibet and Taiwan are disputed areas next to mainland China -- not some remote countries they decided to invade and exploit as colonies. Unlike Britain (and the US, France, Belgium etc) that has soaked large parts of the world in blood, theft, and slavery for centuries.

Heck, a British guy speaking about China re: Tibet and Taiwan? Oh, the irony. Britain stole Honk Kong from China (some 15,000 miles away from "his own business") and attacked China to enforce their trade (of opium among other things).

>No, there is no western version of the horrors of "Tank Man". A lot of the Chinese i've spoken to do not even know this happened, and the other half refuse to see it as a problem.

The horrors of the "tank man", have an estimated 250 to 2500 dead.

No "western equivalent"?

For one, the Britain, in the Opium Wars, killed around 40.000 Chinese. That's from 200 to 20 times more.

And here's another: "the British detained not 80,000 Kikuyu, as the official histories maintain, but almost the entire population of one and a half million people, in camps and fortified villages. There, thousands were beaten to death or died from malnutrition, typhoid, tuberculosis and dysentery. In some camps almost all the children died".

Mind you, this is just one example of tons of British atrocities the world over.

As for not acknowledging the Tien An Men incident (or it's importance), well the Guardian article from where I took this speaks volumes: "Deny the British empire's crimes? No, we ignore them".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/apr/23/british-...

Or this: "British Colonial War Crimes: Unpunished, Unaccounted and awaiting Apology"

http://www.opinion-maker.org/2012/12/british-colonial-war-cr...

Or this: http://www.monbiot.com/2005/12/27/how-britain-denies-its-hol...

>The wars that have spanned the last five decades (Middle East, Asia, South America) have been brutal, bloody, and in many case unwarranted, but again, this is nothing to the blatant and open genocides caused by the Chinese. Half of the country is in extreme poverty. Examples: Three-Year Famine, Mao's "1000 Flowers Bloom".

Those are internal issues, and they get to do what they please with their own citizens. Political changes (like from a humiliated colony for britain and Japan to a sovereign nation) always have a blood toll -- in China, that has 1 billion population, that toll will be bigger. Sure, a lot of those killings were misguided, but that's their issues to solve.

It's not like Britain didn't have its own internal civil wars in its past (or they didn't repress the Irish and the Scots). Or like it doesn't have people in poverty (heck, tons of people in England are uneducated, piss poor, living on the dole and with petty crimes). Compared to most of the affluent Western Europe, it can be argued that England does the worst in terms of poverty -- in places like Yorkshire, Bradford, et al.

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