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from the year-of-the-linux-desktop-in-China-by-2023 dept.
The Guardian is reporting that the tech war just got hot.
China will be replacing all hardware and software with Chinese equivalents. This is the latest escalation in the US-China tech trade war in response to the US ban on Huawei equipment.
China has ordered that all foreign computer equipment and software be removed from government offices and public institutions within three years, the Financial Times reports.
The government directive is likely to be a blow to US multinational companies like HP, Dell and Microsoft and mirrors attempts by Washington to limit the use of Chinese technology, as the trade war between the countries turns into a tech cold war.
The Trump administration banned US companies from doing business with Chinese Chinese[sic] telecommunications company Huawei earlier this year and in May, Google, Intel and Qualcomm announced they would freeze cooperation with Huawei.
By excluding China from western know-how, the Trump administration has made it clear that the real battle is about which of the two economic superpowers has the technological edge for the next two decades.
China already leads in patents
China's 2016 patent application total is greater than the combined total of patent applications filed in 2016 in the United States (605,571), Japan (318,381), South Korea (208,830) and Europe (159,358). These five jurisdictions accounted for 84 percent of all patent applications filed during 2016.
China has been preparing for an all-out IT war.
In May, Hu Xijin, editor of the Global Times newspaper in China, said the withdrawal of sharing by US tech companies with Huawei would not be fatal for the company because the Chinese firm has been planning for this conflict "for years" and would prompt the company to develop its own microchip industry to rival America's.
"Cutting off technical services to Huawei will be a real turning point in China's overall research and development and use of domestic chips," he said in a social media post. "Chinese people will no longer have any illusions about the steady use of US technology."
US trade policy may have been meant to pressure China, but that move looks to have just forced an acceleration of the loss of software and hardware orders from American suppliers to China.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:04PM (1 child)
Those are the four largest groups of contributors I have seen, in order. Germans/Russians have been at the forefront since the 80s, formerly in cracking/scene/niche software development, but more and more in open source in the years since. America had a head start in open source in the early days, mostly due to more contribution favorable licensing, but it has been slowly decreasing as fewer people have the disposable income for side projects (the ones left who do are higher functioning individuals, some simply driven, and others with substance abuse problems, but amazing minds.) In the meantime, lots of chinese have graduated and joined in on contributing to open source since certain areas have loosened restrictions on the great firewall, or sent more of their people abroad. Where it used to be primarily hk/tw residents contributing to code, now it's as often mainlanders, many of whole have gone on to become open source corporate employees.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Rich on Tuesday December 10 2019, @01:26AM
Don't forget the Scandinavians, who, by the number of contributors per inhabitant, are huge as well. (A honourable mention for "rest of the world" goes to Brazil, at least in my subjective perception.)
As for the Chinese, I think some of the "makers" from the Shenzhen area might grasp the importance of a software community (while for the major part they just trample over the GPL, see the M-Tester, for example). The others merely understand that they can't sell their stuff to Westerners if they don't (at least look like they) play ball, and maybe an understanding that software quality and conformity is part of the overall value they want to get paid for. Have a look at how the Allwinner/Sunxi stuff developed over time.