2004.10_Red Flag Linux and Vienna on the Move.pdf

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The Chinese Way of Linux

When you think “Linux in China”, the

first association that comes to mind is

Red Flag Linux, followed by the pan-

Asian server distribution Asianux, of

which the first beta 1.0 was released

recently. The latter is a joint effort of

China’s Red Flag Software Co., Ltd. and

the Japanese Miracle Linux Cooperation,

backed by Oracle and a South-Korean

organization, whose name has not yet

been revealed.

The development of a Chinese Linux

distro emerged to be one of the hottest

topics at the – mainly IBM-sponsored –

4th Linux Expo, which took place at the

Taipei Trade Center, July, 29 to August, 2,

along with a Linux conference focused on

embedded Linux.

Linux development in China has

strong government backing, whereas

Taiwanese developments are commu-

nity- based. However, recent government

and industry drives aimed at developing

Linux-embedded applications that con-

form to the Linux Standard Base LSB,

may help Taiwan avoid being pushed to

the fringe of the Chinese Linux market.

Commercial and political competition

between Taiwan and China on the Linux

market between is subtle but critical.

The conflict could be resolved if both

governments were to adopt a more

friendly stance towards developing

Linux, as Professor Chao-Kuei Hung, a

devoted free software advocate, com-

mented: “Freedom from oppression and

human rights for every citizen form the

nucleus of the free software movement.

However, most governments seem to

focus on economic values. That’s a pity,

as advocating free software can help to

promote freedom in general.

Given the current tension between

Taiwan and China, developing free soft-

ware may coerce both governments to

start a peaceful and constructive cooper-

ation. Ultimately, the 1.3 billion citizens

in both Taiwan and China would benefit

in the wider context of freedom – such as

freedom of speech and freedom from

fear, not merely the freedom of using,

copying, modifying, and distributing

software. ”

Vienna on the Move

The Austrian capital, Vienna, is chal-

lenging rivalling Munich’s broadly

featured LiMux pro-

ject (see below) with

its own Linux-for-

the-Desktop move.

Whereas the Ger-

man city intends to

migrate all its desk-

tops to Linux in the

long run, the Vienna

magistrate decided

to ask its employees

whether they prefer

Open Source solutions or wish to stick

with MS Office. 7,500 of the 16,000 desk-

tops will be affected by the poll.

The Austrians, however, beat the pants

off their Bavarian counterparts when it

comes to the server-side: all of the city’s

350 servers are already running Red Hat

Linux and Vienna’s deployment of Open

Source solutions started as early as in

1989 when mail and news via UUCP

were introduced. The first Linux servers

appeared within the city’s

IT infrastructure by 1995.

Like in Munich, the Vien-

nese Green Party with its

technology speaker Marie

Ringler (who herself runs

Mandrake Linux on her

laptop) is the driving force

behind the Open Source

strategy. Actively promot-

ing Linux – for example

with a Linux installfest in

July and a Live CD based on the XoL dis-

tribution developed by the Austrian

company Antitachyon – its members

actively contribute to the Open Source

community. By the way: The CD,

branded “Linux for all”, was recently

copied by the Bavarian Greens.

■

http://derstandard.at/?id=1748738

http://www.sol-linux.com/Private/XoL/

LiMux on Ice?

It came as a shock for many Linux enthu-

siasts when news broke at the beginning

of August that the city of Munich in

Germany had postponed the develop-

ment of the so-called base client software

due to unresolved patent issues.

It was only in the middle of June when

the city council dominated by the Greens

and the Social Democrats voted in favor

of a graduated scheme worth 30 million

Euro, in the course of which the city’s

13,000 desktop machines and all servers

should be gradually migrated to Linux.

This decision isn’t subject to chance,

Munich’s Lord Mayor Christian Ude

immediately tried to calm the waves:

“Only yesterday [i.e. August, 3] the city

of Munich and its IT specialists demon-

strated the strategic advantages of the

Linux concept to the city councils of

Augsburg and Nuremberg [the 2nd and

3rd biggest Bavarian cities], and were

pleased to hear that both these cities, as

well as Vienna, are interested in the

Munich Open Source solution.”

The decision to postpone the tender for

the base client, which consists of the

operating system and the applications

common to all city desktops (e.g.

OpenOffice, Gimp, Mozilla) was made in

response to two petitions by Green city

councillor Jens Mühlhaus. He urges that

the Lord Mayor ask the German govern-

ment to withdraw its approval of the EU

Council and Commission’s pro software

patents directive immediately. Addition-

ally, he points out the consequences of

software patent legalization as sought by

the Council and Commission (in contra-

diction of the European Parliament vote

about a year ago) for the LiMux project.

The Greens became alarmed by a

patent search conducted by the Munich-

based Foundation for a Free Information

Infrastructure (FFII) which suggests

numerous potential patent risks.

■

http://www.muenchen.de/linux

http://www.presseportal.de/showbin.

htx?id=31139&type=document&action

=download&attname=Anhang.pdf

■

http://www.asianux.com/

http://linux.tca.org.tw/linux-expo/index.

php?doc=meeting

October 2004

www.linux-magazine.com

■

World

NEWS

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Women of the Balkans Enter Open Source

The concept of Open Source is becoming

increasingly popular among NGOs. How-

ever, NGO activists are seldom IT

specialists, and this is where the problem

begins. Diving into Linux and its appli-

cations means that previously acquired

Windows knowledge often enough pro-

ves useless, and a lot of time needs to be

invested in learning.

Working women in particular lack this

time since their traditional home and

family role leaves them with less leisure

time than men. Moreover, professional

guidance is seldom available, and often

far too expensive; due to limited band-

width, downloading Linux distributions

off the Web is seldom an option.

At the end of the Eclectic Tech Carni-

val, /etc, in Belgrade/Serbia-Montenegro

July 11–18, it came as no surprise that

distribution DVDs and Knoppix CDs

went like hot cakes. The event, a joint

effort by the Amsterdam based NGO

Genderchangers and local NGO “Zene na

delu” (“Women at work”), provided

local women with the opportunity

to get started with Linux and Open

Source software in a mono-educa-

tive and truly international

environment (teachers came from

12 countries).

Apart from Linux installation

and command line sessions, Perl

and CGI basics, introductions to

Gimp, OpenOffice and Mozilla,

hardware and security workshops

(including iptables for the ad-

vanced) and the like, cultural events had

an important place on the agenda,

among them the innovative online the-

ater by Helen Varley Jamieson and

company, using their own Open Source

software Upstage. These performances

were also open to men.

While most participants in Belgrade

were young women, a similar Open

Source training organized by the

Women’s Information Technologies

Transfer project (WiTT) in cooperation

with the Internet Rights Bulgaria Founda-

tion and held in Bulgaria’s capital Sofia,

July, 31 to August, 1 mainly attracted

women aged 40–45. Organizer Christina

Haralanova attributes this to “the boom

of women in technologies during the

socialist period”. In contrast to the

Belgrade event, this one was aimed

explicitly at women representatives from

the Bulgarian NGO sector.

■

http://etc.genderchangers.org/info/

current_index.html

http://www.upstage.org.nz/

http://www.witt-project.net/en

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www.linux-magazine.com

October 2004

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