Whoopsie! Last time I diaried about Open Source in China, I was, well, pwned. Seems that things aren't as bad as I feared. Consider that
Linux has been riding on a wave in China, topping the growth of all operating systems in the first quarter of 2007, says an industry analyst.
Then again, check out what a Chinese Linux ad looks like:
Yet more:
According to CCID Consulting, which specializes in China research, Linux sales posted a 30.9 percent year-on-year growth to reach 31 million yuan (US$4 million). Windows and Unix growth rates were 11.6 percent and 9.6 percent, respectively.
Sounds impressive, no? Have to qualify that a bit however:
Keeping a stronghold in the market, Windows and Unix command market shares of 41.8 percent and 53.9 percent, respectively.
Ulp! That's only a four or five percentage point foothold in the market (guess they've never heard of Macs)!
Not so good after all. Though apparently the government is pushing for adoption of Linux in education, official ministries, the IT sector, and telecommunications and financial services fields.
Saddest of all, they have no Richard M. Stallman figure to shepherd the movement:
"Despite the often heard rumor that OSS projects are driven by some weird hippies, the truth is that 95 percent of people who join OSS projects have a professional background,"
And I'm just guessing (way out from left field here) that they don't have Compiz Fusion running on any of those incredibly rare Linux desktops.
Though if you want to get that same amazing bit of eye candy going, really clear instructions are to be found here. Works on Ubuntu; Fedora has Beryl built in, as do PCLinuxOS, PC-BSD, and a number of others, including the latest SabayonLinux, which by the way, is really sweet.
As always, consider this a tech help desk as well. All distros/BSDs/flavors of Windows/OS Xers welcome. Yes, even Vista. Have had a chance to try Vista hands-on in the past couple of weeks, and it's a beast. Man, I thought wireless was bad in Linux! Sorry for the lack of reviews as of late; been absolutely swamped in the past three weeks, and just too little time to really try some of the new and exciting distributions coming out now. Will try to do something on Sabayon, and 64Studio in the not too distant future.