Nach einem Bericht von ITWire (Australien) sind die Weichen bereits gestellt: China gets into the FOSS groove.
If there is mass take-up of free and open source software in any country over the next few years, that country is likely to be China. … While the use of GNU/Linux is growing, this is largely at the expense of Unix. Figures presented at the convention show that sales of GNU/Linux rose by 81 per cent from 2004 to 2005 (the 2005 sales figure was 175 million yuan). But while GNU/Linux’ share of the operating system market grew from 4.2 per cent to 9.8 per cent, the share held by Windows also grew – from 55 per cent to nearly 65 per cent. The market share of other Unices declined from 30.9 per cent to 19.8 per cent.
Gemischte Gefühle also, aber auch noch vor dem nächsten großen, zweifelhaften Sprung beim Marktführer. Trotz Abkommen und Gesprächen unter vier Augen dürfte der Anteil illegaler proprietärer Betriebssysteme heftig sein, und die großen Hardwareanbieter sind auch dabei, GNU/Linux zu pushen:
And while it is extremely difficult to buy a PC from an OEM without Windows on it, Dell continues a secret love affair with GNU/Linux in China. Six years ago, Dell stopped investing in companies like Red Hat and Eazel when Microsoft expressed its disapproval. But in China, certain brands of Dell notebooks and desktop PCs are available – with GNU/Linux installed!
