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| China tech | |
| Friday, 03 November 2006 | |
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I'm sitting in a cafe in central Zurich. I'm about two minutes from the new Free Software Foundation Europe office. It's quite a change of scene from Ireland. I moved to Switzerland to begin working as a project coordinator for the FSFE at the end of September. We're doing some exciting new things to protect and promote Free Software in the European arena and the Zurich office will be in the middle of all the adventures. Free Software has really come along in the last few years. The Linux kernel is powering a heck of a lot of computers and GNU/Linux operating system distributions are being deployed in increasing frequency. Perhaps the most important change is political; Free Software is entering the mainstream. I feel that 2006 is something of a turning-point for Free Software. A new license is on the way (GPLv3). Cities are transitioning to our technology. Big vendors like IBM, Sun and Novell are increasing their commitments to our success. One thing I've been talking about for a while is the increasing maturity of the Free Software ecosystem. That is, the extension of Free Software into realms far removed from the hackers who often created it. I believe this extension is particularly important in the political and business spheres. We are seeing the emergency of a 'professional' layer in the Free Software world; these include managers, salespeople and marketing experts. I think this is an excellent and necessary step to ensure the long-term adoption of Free Software by society as a whole. The concept is permeating beyond its creators and entering social consciousness. Yes, these are exciting times. They are especially exciting in the Asian context. A couple of years ago China, South Korea and Japan decided to cooperate in developing Free Software operating system solutions for the Asian arena. The intention was to reduce the reliance on Western technology and to help promote home-grown development efforts. We're still waiting for large results from this cooperation but it's indicative of a shift towards embracing socially empowering technology rather than simply purchasing socially restricting technology from outside vendors. My personal interest is focused on China. I think there's a whole new generation of highly trained technical people emerging there and I suspect it won't be long before the world's biggest nation becomes one of the world's biggest software developers. We have already seen the Red Flag GNU/Linux operating system emerging from the Chinese academic world. There is so much that needs to be done in infrastructure terms in China that development is a necessity. Telecommunications, databases and overarching communication structures need to be built. The cost of purchasing such technology is more than prohibitive for a nation the size of China; it's just impossible. A really positive thing about Free Software is the idea of sharing. If we develop a good technological solution in Europe we can share it with China and vice-versa. I think this relatively new idea will have very large ramifications for social development, especially given the degree to which computers have permeated our societies. I'll be doing my little bit from the FSFE Zurich office. The FSFE will be doing it's bigger little bit from it's offices across Europe. Tens of thousands of programmers and organisations are also doing their little bits. I like to think that together this bits will form a whole that will help improve communication for humanity as a whole. I'd really like to hear your comments on how Free Software can help China, or how Free Software is currently being used in China. You can email me at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it or This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it |
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