Linux in China?

[R P Herrold]

On Thu, 15 Nov 2012, Ted Gould wrote:

> The MS representatives believe that the reason Ubuntu is big in China is
> because people are buying machines to pirate Windows.  Unfortunately
> it's hard to prove that isn't the case (which is one of the reasons they
> argue it).  So, in general, it's hard to say "how big" in this case, but

There is nothing 'unfortunate' about it at all -- The MSFT 
representatives are parrotting a party line, and trying to 
frame a debate about intellectual property rights which China 
agreed to enforce as part of joining WIPO.  Open Source does 
not have a dog in that fight

Open Source does not control the actions of its purchasers or 
users, nor have an obligation to facilitate control schemes 
that others might want adopted.  Just the opposite -- see 
Stallman's Four Freedoms essays over time -- By and large, it 
seeks to provide software freedom of many forms

I don't recall Microsoft _asking_ the FSF about the new UEFI 
bootloaders which vastly complicate the rights of owners of 
hardware wanting to use Open Source before functionally 
mandating it to the large manufacturers.  They just rammed it 
through with market power

-- Russ herrold