On Wednesday 05 November 2003 20:51, pinto wrote:

China would build a domestic software industry around Linux -- a cheaper software standard that can copied and modified freely -- said Gou Zhongwen, a vice minister at the powerful Ministry of Information Industry.

"Linux is an opportunity for us to make a breakthrough in developing software," he was quoted as saying on the ministry Web site www.mii.gov.cn. "But the market cannot be developed on a large scale without government support." --

Not to criticise or offend the OP, but they also get search engines 'fixed' so that those internal to China can't look up such issues as the suppression of the Falun Gong movement, nor the fact that China still occupies Tibet, a sovereign state it invaded in the fifties and then swamped with a genocidal war against Tibetan culture. Mysteriously, we seem to hear rather little about this, an interesting contrast with the other so called 'rogue states' media exposure. Five foot two Tibetan nuns are regularly beaten half to death (and sometimes to death) with cattle prods for displaying the Tibetan flag. It's interesting, and worth knowing, that China is interested in Linux, but be very aware that what most of us on this list think of when we hear the 'free' in 'free' software is most certainly not what the Chinese dictatorship is thinking of. I'm generally profoundly opposed to political ranting on the list, but if you've been irritated enough by my post to read this far, please drop a few searches into Google / any search engine to find mountains of evidence on this. Freedom in software means nothing in politically enslaved countries.

best wishes

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sent on Linux

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-- Fergus Wilde Chetham's Library Long Millgate Manchester M3 1SB Tel: +44 161 834 7961 Fax: +44 161 839 5797 http://www.chethams.org.uk